Ode to Emily Dickinson

I walked between the stilt-like legs
of the metallic swing set, the legs
caught permanently bounding over
the moist, mowed grass stretching

for football fields in my memory.
Somewhere between the lanky
swing sets and the hard iron cages
of the monkey bars, probably at

twilight after dinner, I surveyed
eternity with my open hands
on the fresh grass and cold metal,
I visited childhood as a place

to which I could return. While thinking
of something else, an unfair and
unexpected epiphany (the present
and the past) emerged as weakened

light on the vast schoolyard, the
plentiful fields behind the strong
red brick school building, a thought
exploding like a dream that feels

good upon waking. Rising, as if from
sleep, you and I can embrace, can spin
on the merry-go-round until we fall
into the hands of the ghosts that surround us.

Life as a Pink Floyd album cover

Driving to Monterey and looking west
over rows of lettuce at the fog-filled rim
of the sky above the Pacific, I realize
that all of life is a Pink Floyd album cover:
two men shaking hands, one in flames, or
a prism refracting the light of my mind,
or a simple white brick wall. Walking
below OHare airport in Chicago, neon
tubes flashing across the dark ceiling
above me, I see the silent stony travelers
floating across the moving walkways, bags
dragging behind them like loaded memories,
alien sounds pumping through the midnight
cavern cut through the bottom of the world.
Later, the friendly, bloated checkout lady
cheerily rings up my bottled water and rides
her cash register towards aisle seven, smiling
a total price. All of life is a Pink Floyd album
cover, I think, driving to Monterey, looking
at the giant, twisted factory, pointing it out
to my Japanese passenger who speaks no
English but smiles with gentle wonder, sinks
back into his seat looking forward, unaware
of the flying pig in the sky, or the strangeness
of my mind reaching to him and the world.