Reading the Bay

A calm water morning. After what was said on both sides.
Don’t you talk to me that way. My daughter.
We cannot speak, now, nor stand to touch.

The bay, covered with tiny script
Moving rapidly right to left. Words
Crossing over
One another, whole passages
Torn from an asylum diary. I lifted her

Body, a huge flailing penknife, into the car.

A seagull sits bobbing on the text. My brother.
It appears that, today at least, all language moves out to sea.


Back to Top


Theory of Insomnia

Dreams back up where the stream is blocked for whatever reason. What comes is lucid but unbidden: How that bartender looked at you thirty years ago when you ran out of money and begged a drink. How he held that look as he filled your glass. You discover there are no empty hours of night—each minute in fact is dense, expansive—the air itself might be folded and stacked in the closet. Shelves of books like lost friends whose problems bore you. Your own problem: how to let go of consciousness. What is death, divorce, illness, even drunkenness, to that? In the window you watch a giant hand hold the moon beneath the horizon, like a head beneath the waves. The ocean is pounding in your temples, pressing heavily against your back. And though you know this can’t go on forever, it goes on forever.


Back to Top


The Experiment

I sewed my father into a specially designed, handmade bear suit. He was indistinguishable from a real bear, and yet retained the necessary functions of a human. I also provided a GPS radio collar. Then I air-dropped him into a densely forested preserve. When I returned a year later I found he had mated with an Asian black bear. He and she and their two cubs lived a quiet life in a mountain cave.

After sharing a meal of berries and honey and wild piglets I asked to speak to my father in private. He led me on a path away from the cave to the edge of a cliff. This view of surrounding mountains and rivers and forest is magnificent . . . “Yes, it is,” he said. “What, you can read minds now?” I said. “A small trick for a bear, as it turns out.”

I thought this over for a moment; but it did not change my purpose. “Dad,” I said, “it’s time to go home. The experiment is over.” He stared at me with his great, incongruous blue eyes and bear face, and said, “No.” “Yes.” “No.” “Yes.” “NO!” he said finally and swatted a nearby douglas fir with one paw. The tree flew several yards over my head and came to rest in the snow, dirt trickling from its upended roots.

“It’s been good to see you,” I said, and rose. “Same here,” he said and also stood, “but I think it best if you didn’t come back.” I agreed, and held wide my arms for a goodbye embrace. I could hear and feel the cracking of my ribs, which I consoled myself would heal completely in time. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said. “In fact, tell her I’ve died.” “Well, you are dead, aren’t you?” “Yes,” he said, and scampered up the path with surprising agility, on all fours.

Back to Top