LESSON

It is hard to be left in a time of joy.

It is hard to be left in a time of dun skies.

But you are easy to leave no matter

the state of your weather. You are so easy

to leave the chair hits the floor before the words

reach your ear. All the ways you disappoint.

But, you know you. Don’t you.

When you stand up again you will be without

another little bit of that pump in your chest.

It will be stuck in the teeth of someone who bit

in and found you distasteful. Am I boorish –

being so blunt? I am simply the hammer men have made

me. From me you can learn to be

the one whose footsteps are heard first. Do you hear me?

Footsteps going down the hall, back the way you came

before the one who left ever entered.

LIE

I no longer trust beauty.

                           Reginald Shepherd

Beauty is the only thing we trust,

give ourselves over to, believe in,

believe it to be whatever our father’s say it is

or advertisements, and if that isn’t us – so be it,

we fall into the damnation of the ugly, seeking

a way to rise from hell’s disregard. Lack of trust is

simple resentment. Speaking for myself

beauty has always been standing near

so that it may find itself more beautiful still.