BRIAN HENRY

from More Dangerous Than Dying

from More Dangerous Than Dying

Impasses impasses

the built-in excuses

we whisper to ourselves

in the shower each morning

Passionate one confront your insecurities

and insufficiencies

Looking in the mirror won’t work

nor will a posture of prayer

You hit the snooze bar for another seven minutes of sleep

sit up stand up head for the shower

shower put on your face dry your hair dress

note the forecast slide your keys from the counter

open the back door pass through close it

start your Accord back out drive to the plant

What is anything but dying?

This this

we so

languidly protest

against

*

“I want more mystery in my life

not projected not refracted

Not a veil Not a mesh

Not barbed wire

But something a way to say

‘This has been done without a clear reason’

without a clear reason”

*

A captured document

a card

in green ink

You & me

with a bottle of Beam

It is filed by a gloveless hand

under Q

the folder of secrets and spells

“Just a matter of days

before they trace the hand

back to this office”

*

The weather holding

not to say that anything actually rested

in its hands

just that a pattern

retained a semblance of constancy

we drive to the driving range

Borrowed and bent clubs the norm

the wind accentuates your slice

negates my incurable hook

This outing this celebration

complete with new apparel

the result of your stumbling

upon the bit that “insanity” rhymes

with “vanity”

Nothing to compress the space between