Luggage carousel at the airport 
after midnight
going round and round  

Some people have kids and grandkids

and friends of the kids and then their kids

so when these some people are about to die, 
all these kids show up with jokes and food and fun 
and Depends and plans for what’s next, after death, 
sort of: See you soon! Get a good table! 

And then there’ll be us others, kidless old people
like the last luggage on the airport carousel, 

going round and round

in the empty airport

after midnight. 

But, it’s ok. 

There’ll be a new flight in the morning

every seat filled, but spread out,

ALL class
seats soft as clouds almost as pretty

as the white ones out the windows,

like the ones we slept on 
(in our imaginations) as babies,

though these are real

piled up and up and up endlessly

into the blue sky above the blue sky. 

Maybe. 

And maybe is good enough. 

It’s a friendly flight,

endless champagne

shiny, soft, squirting fruit

no seatbelts

laughing kids loose in the aisles

acrobatic, loose in laughter

or sleeping, unalarmed. 

Us older ones watching them and loosening too,
learning from them and going in reverse,
back to before we got hijacked. 

No seatbelts. 

And a long movie! 

No deposit, no return

A little early in the morning

I walked up the beach above Malibu

above the Reel Inn Tavern

the sand, the sea, and the sky all the same color,

and a seagull came down, gently
like a floating Kleenex
landed, walked up to me, and started talking.

I was drunk, but I swear it happened. 

“I don’t mean to hover,” said the gull, “but
I’ve been watching you, and it seems to me
that you’re trying too hard. You’re living so people
can say—at your funeral—how nice you were.” 

I looked away, out at the sandy horizon. 

The seagull walked over to a bottle on the beach,
kicked it over a half turn.

“C’mon buddy, isn’t it true?  You can tell me. 

We all do it. But look at this bottle—can you see it
from there? It says, NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN. 
Ok?” 

The seagull flashed feathers and got up in blue sky. 

I flashed up there too, and followed her. Or him. 

Here, and makeup

The sun comes up, hotel staff bubbling
like hot butter
in the lobby downstairs.

I sneak out the backdrop
while she goes to Saks shopping for “foundation.” 

I’m trying to hold onto mine. 

Exit, stage left, get the staff out,
burn down the stage. 
The moon comes up; now 
we're all fine. Coffee and chicory
on the moonlit flames, in the open air.

After the life, after

the funeral 

I miss my mother. 

I always did. 

Face your fears? Not me! 

You’re supposed to. Face all your fears.

Nobody questions it. 

Like this poem, for example;

I’m supposed to read it out loud 

in a month. Well, listen here ...

You can go skydiving, bungee jumping,  
go to endless seminars, webinars, conventions,
self-esteem affirmation confirmation macrame
circles (whew! out of breath), and read all the books.
I've done it, you've done it. (So, maybe I'm wrong.) 

Or, you can sit still. Can you hear it?

Many rooms in your own mansion,
so big in there, so many rooms less musty
than the library. All those rooms, your best friend
in every one of them. 

One of these ways of living,

if it had a smell,

smells like the inside of a K Mart 

underneath overhead 
lighting, dead moth-buzzing. 

The other way smells like 

the outside of a pine forest 
under a blue sky, polar bears still
playing. 

I’m not going to worry anymore. 

I may die with some of my fears intact. 

Anyway, sometimes it’s not fear. 

It’s a choice. And Captain, my Captain
that feels good.  

Anyway, Van Gogh

(Look at all those swirling colors!)

needed external affirmation like he

needed an ear in the head. 

You hear me? 

Baby’s first words

The two year old baby boy rolled by 

like a yellow, blue-eyed tumbleweed of trickery; 
mother looked down

cracked the whip with her eyes, 

made his bed with her voice and said: “MIND!” 

The whip missed 

the bed covers flew off,

he looked up with his two blue two
year old eyes, said: "YES!

I have one. And while I do love you, 

I'm ignoring you!” 

He rolled on and out of sight 

towards his talkative future. 

Out there, in here ... out there!

They say, “Put yourself out there!”

What’s out there is Fun Popularity. 

It’s bright and orange-colored, 

like a plastic hamburger. 

In here, there’s no walls or ceilings

(it’s not a community center, not the Oscars) 

but there’s a silvery blue velvet light

you can see no end of. 

Green mossy rocks underwater 

under feet 

forever. 

No bullet points anywhere 
to be seen

or even checked off. 

You can control out there a little

in here, not at all. 

I was a baby and 

like all babies born wild, 

out of control. 

It’s too late to workshop the baby now.