I took a bite mmm the crunch of a toasted circle
resounding in the cave of the mouth
I'll just sketch a few lines here on the walls
and forget the public viewing who knows
perhaps some unwitting day tripper lured
off the coastal path by lanterns of red fuchsia
deeper and deeper till they reach this place
how many thousands of years from now
will marvel how I depicted ocean waves
upside down on ceiling ribs found sculptural
gestures highlighted by my rather crude
untrained local dyes crushed hawthorn berry
and dragons’ eyes but let's not get carried away
not today this is the show of my life and there's
no turning back no scaffolding to rest upon
no mail order catalogue fast or simple enough
for the kinds of colors and brushes I need
I could leave it blank and it would look finished
it's all in the mind I heard somewhere
what’s empty to me is a wash of Rothko
or the weave of the canvas let's give credit
to the antecedent I want to say before
I press my palms against this wall
two poems for no one in particular
today I saw a flock of white cattle egrets
fly across my truck windshield and I
didn't count them
—there—
that's progress
that's cause to celebrate
and the firework smoke still lingers
today two fat turkeys wild and sleek
ran uphill before me till I herded them off
through stands of casuarina
in my wake of unfinished business
isn't that the way the light and the truth
what else did I scatter behind me
as I fled from Egypt? I could say oh
the things I forgot to tie down the bits of life
that didn't stick and some of them have names
they're the fading butterflies who can’t rise up
wearing my remorse
now there's no reasoning no physicality behind all this
animated gossip about my past I look up
and sense it's my job to keep going keep
searching for the right hue be unafraid of painting
over and over so that the car I rolled becomes
her shoulder becomes the drunken night
in the apple orchard becomes the rise
of our first child in her womb becomes
our daughter’s first fall the despair of knowing
there's a net there’s a knot before there’s
a break and then this place this shadow
near deep red hibiscus flowers big as faces
