When Children

I don't want to sentimentalize their lives,
Lives I wouldn't want to live, but did,

Happily as most children, though
I wouldn't eagerly again. It was a life

Lived for children and dependent upon
Children's spark, dark and childish

In their absence. Its glees were simple as bells
Ring, gold coins spill, a priest sings.

But kids are mostly quick, get up and out,
Leaving behind what's best left, but not

Without remorse. They return, but can't,
So when they do they dull too which can't be

Proved, rebuked, or ignited
By metaphor, for who are these parents

But blunderers like you and me, adult others
As unlike us as our origins, full of hope and

Children hopping around and off, because
Despite our hopes there's only love to hold us

Here, a love without hope except for children
Quick to grow and go to the coast or, better,

Cross to Italy, beautiful Italy, where the future
Lacks capital to oppress the persisting.

La Vie

It rains, il pleut, all over
my grounds. It blows,
le vent, the treetops around.

I love mon papillon
as she's waking up
among twisted sheets;

I love ma belle
as she grinds beans
for our morning cup.

Cher vent, come sow
your thoughts in the ground.
Bring us de l'eau,

coarse trees, fresh streets,
white lies—old hat
under these new skies.

Alberto VO5

The thing I like best
about Alberto VO5
Extra Body Shampoo
is not that it contains
nutrients, nor even
that it contains shine-
enhancing nutrients,
but the graceful way
it contains them—
which is the same way
you carry bitter regret,
my love, invisibly,
allowing it to work
its way naturally
through my hair.

At Lowe's Home Improvement Center

Standing in aisle 16, the hammer and anchor aisle,
I bust a 50 pound box of double-headed nails
open by accident, their oily bright shanks
and diamond points like firing pins
from M-4s and M-16s.
In a steady stream
they pour onto the tile floor, constant as shells
falling south of Baghdad last night, where Bosch
kneeled under the chain guns of helicopters
stationed above, their tracer-fire a synaptic geometry
of light.
At dawn, when the shelling stops,
hundreds of bandages will not be enough.

. . .

Bosch walks down aisle 16 now, in full combat gear,
improbable, worn out from fatigue, a rifle
slung at his side, his left hand guiding
a ten-year-old boy who sees what war is
and will never clear it from his head.

Here, Bosch says, Take care of him.
I'm going back in for more.

. . .

Sheets of plywood drop with the airy breath
of mortars the moment they crack open
in shrapnel. Mower blades are just mower blades
and the Troy-Bilt Self-Propelled Mower doesn't resemble
a Blackhawk or an Apache. In fact, no one seems to notice
the casualty collection center Doc High marks out
in ceiling fans, aisle 15. Wounded Iraqis with IVs
sit propped against boxes as 92 sample Paradiso fans
hover in a slow revolution of blades.

The forklift driver over-adjusts, swinging the tines
until they slice open gallons and gallons of paint,
Sienna Dust and Lemon Sorbet and Ship's Harbor Blue
pooling in the aisle where Sgt. Rampley walks through—
carrying someone's blown-off arm cradled like an infant,
handing it to me, saying, Hold this, Turner,
we might find who it belongs to.

. . .

Cash registers open and slide shut
with a sound of machine guns being charged.
Dead soldiers are laid out at the registers,
on the black conveyor belts,
and people in line still reach
for their wallets. Should I stand
at the magazine rack, reading
Landscaping with Stone or The Complete
Home Improvement Repair Book?
What difference does it make if I choose
tumbled travertine tile, Botticino marble,
or Black Absolute granite. Outside,
palm trees line the asphalt boulevards,
restaurants cool their patrons who will enjoy
fireworks exploding over Bass Lake in July.

. . .

Aisle number 7 is a corridor of lights.
Each dead Iraqi walks amazed
by Tiffany posts and Bavarian pole lights.
Motion-activated incandescents switch on
as they pass by, reverent sentinels of light,
Fleur De Lis and Luminaire Mural Extérieur
welcoming them to Lowe's Home Improvement Center,
aisle number 7, where I stand in mute shock,
someone's arm cradled in my own.
The Iraqi boy beside me
reaches down to slide his fingertip in Retro Colonial Blue,
an interior latex, before writing
T, for Tourniquet, on my forehead.