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Flaws

I had been worrying once again
     about sad lives
and almost perfect art, Van Gogh,

Kafka, so when that voice on the radio
     sang about drinking
a toast to those who most survive

the lives they've led, I drank that toast
     in the prayerless
sanctum of my room, I said it

out loud in a hush. Then I thought
     of Dr. Williams
who toward the end apologized

to his wife for doing everything
     he had loved to do.
He was speaking of course to death,

not to her, though death instructed him
     how valuable she was.
I thought of a lamp the neighbor's child

had broken, then pieced back together
     with wires and glue.
And my friend, the good husband,

kissing the scars his wife brought home
     after the mastectomy.
I drank that toast again, though silently.

The radio was playing something old
     and bad
I once thought was good.

Flaws. Suddenly the act of trying
     to say how it feels
to live a life, to say it flawlessly,

seemed more immense than ever. Then
     I remembered
those Persian rug makers built them in,

the flaws, because only Allah was perfect.
     What arrogance to think
that otherwise they wouldn't be there!

I allowed myself to wonder
     about the ethics
of repair, but just for a while.

Sleep, too, was on my mind
     and I knew
the difficulty that lay ahead:

how hard I'd try when I couldn't,
     how it would come
if only I could find a way

to enter and drift without concern
     for what it is.

Emptiness

I've heard yogis talk of a divine
     emptiness,
the body free of its base desires,

some coiled and luminous god
     in all of us
waiting to be discovered . . .
   
                       and always I've pivoted,

followed Blake's road of excess
     to the same source
and know how it feels to achieve

nothing, the nothing that exists
     after accomplishment.
And I've known the emptiness

of nothing to say, no reason to move,
     those mornings I've built
a little cocoon with the bedcovers

and lived in it, almost happily,
     because what fools
the body more than warmth?
   
                         And more than once

I've shared an emptiness with someone
     and learned
how generous I can be—here,

take this, take this...

ForPoetry