Shark Week

When I wear my Jaws t-shirt, my stomach grows
serrated, razor-sharp teeth in rows. It swims out,
cruising with a single aim: to eat the world.
At the coffeeshop, there’s a line and I sense
the impatience prickling through it, an agitation
in the ambient flow. Apex predators aren’t big on
queues. When a sat-tagged Great White is spotted
in warming local waters, it makes the news.
The shark has a name and a Twitter account
with over a 100,000 followers. Do you know
what Jaws is called in French? Les Dents de la Mer.
At last, it’s my turn to order a misto and scone,
vintage beer gut sporting its grisly blockbuster grin.
The barista likes my shirt. Call it a win.

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Finch Station

After a long day, you’d think we’d drag our feet.
But we’re all elbows, jostling to catch the next bus home.

The boy and girl embracing near the stairs
aren’t in any hurry. Their stillness makes them central.

He is tall and gangly. She, stretching upward
to meet his gaze, one of Modigliani’s models,

impossibly long-necked and graceful. The crowd swirls
and eddies around them, the single-mindedness of water.

Neither is saying anything and I want to lie down
in their silence, shelter from the collision of voices,

sizzle of cellular transmission. Just then
the girl’s hands scribe the air, flicker like chickadees

and he responds, finger-spelling the words
between them, the body’s tones and inflections,

pursed lips, raised eyebrow. Something I remember
reading about Berryman, his secret hope

to be visited by physical disability—Milton’s blindness,
Beethoven’s loss of hearing. The fortunate affliction

that would rescue him from the machinery of living
day-to-day and bring him to his senses. If they could hear,

would the boy and girl still reach that other place
I yearn for? Looking into her eyes, the boy loses his balance.

They can hardly pay attention to what their hands are saying.

( This poem appears in Primer on the Hereafter, published by Wolsak and Wynn 2006 )

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Living Among Others