SIMPLE GRACE

Simple grace
would do the trick
if there was anything
simple about grace.

I've tried drinking soft drinks
perched like an ill bird on a limb, but there is
as much spill as thrill
as the horizon teeters
and telephone poles
out number tree tops
of likely places to land.

Walking on glass and hot coals
likewise get me nowhere near the center of things
where all the tension is released from my muscles,
the headaches abate, and my appetite returns.

You asked me once
what made me happy
and i imagined
an empty glass and
 calendars stacked in the attic
next to the noise makers and paper slippers.

Your eyes, i said, your eyes
make me happy, the blue and green pools
i fell into when i lifted my head from
books, magazines, airport novels,
when i turned my face from
the television
and saw you writing letters,
talking on the phone,
staring out the window
to what might over the hill,
the tree tops, imagining who makes their way home
and pays what's come due
'though the world seems
to dissolve like
sugar wafers dipped
in
Where was the grace we wanted,
walking between bullet streams and falling bricks to the end of the day
where ever after
was a calendar without pages?

On the other side of the street,
a bike chained to a bus stop signed,waiting for its master
for as long as it takes.