David Cavanagh

From Falling Body 

Neil Armstrong Shoots the Moon

Neil Armstrong on his back deck

gazes up at the blatant moon

the way you might peer at a vacation photo

of Seattle propped on a cluttered

bookcase. Says, “I’ve been there.”  Or

Neil Armstrong shakes his bristled head,

“I’ve been THERE?”  Same

as you, tossed in time, squint at all those

glossed Seattles floating

deep in inner space, far from your daily orbit.

Or even, like Neil, bathed in moondust,

feel the prick of small

skulking knowledge you’ve been there

but don’t know the place

at all beyond a booted step on a crusty shell.

Or Neil says, “You know, I was only first

because I was sitting near

the door,” and you recall a burbling phone

one tea-cozy morn,

all lunatic thereafter, a kettle whistling mad.

Or, if with a little launch of ego Neil says,

“I’VE been there,” you wonder

what kind of “I” it was saw Seattle , and if

you still know that person

you know you badly need to know.

Or, less likely but to be hoped, Neil swivels

a craggy pate

up to the orange-yellow Buddha, feels

implausible rain or tears,

no telling which, kiss his runneled cheek.

Just as you, one ragged half-corked evening,

home in on the moonface

backlit in the bathroom mirror – so like

your father’s, so much

stranger – gravely seeming to say,

“I’ve been watching

you for years. Time you noticed. Who

are you, really, what

is your intention, where have you been

to give off such a light?”

Waitress I Never Knew

Harelipped you were beautiful,

   loon-lonely eyes and lithe

shape split by the veering, renegade                                   

   lip.  Asymmetrical, utterly 

stirring.  After the surgery I wasn’t

  even sure it was you, so nearly

regular your mouth, just a hint

   of up-pull, so flashing

your look.  You seemed younger, less

  sad, less sure, too, as if  you

had become your own little sister. 

  How I wanted that wildly rising

line still to be there. I had no right. 

  I know your life is better now,

hear it in the loose swing of your chatter.

   But your glance -- more flit

than flash.  Something has been smoothed

  away I loved.  At least one self

wrenched from bed by thugs you never

  knew, hustled off, never seen

again. Now it is left to find out

  what was lost in that line

you were born with, what became

  of the disappeared, what grace

resides in that thin river you

  no longer have to cross,

and where it may be found again,

  and why I worry so.

From The Middleman

It's So Much Like Missiles

One day you hear they've been fired —

the missiles I mean — you imagine them

curving like so many Golden Gates

between a hundred cities, serene vapour trails

with some message you cannot imagine,

and don't have to, for you know

you have one half of one hour.

And everything's suddenly simple,

like the time you heard your father had died,

long-distance the phone clicking

softly as a heart while you felt everything

free/e in your tiny kitchen, altered,

and impossibly unchanged.

And the funny thing is not that they've gone

up — the missiles I mean — but that they remind

you of something you didn't do, some words

you didn't say, just didn't take the trouble

to say, like the time you were leaving town,

and a friend, and you never told her how much

she meant to you, and you never saw her again.

Now missiles are flying, and it's just

like when your father died, and the visit

you'd put off became a dream-train you lived

on nightly, dark train pounding on smoothest

rails of guilt, never ever arriving.

The thing about what's unsaid is

you can never take it back.

If you had made that final visit

you'd have fought with him, most probably,

over Trudeau, or disarmament, something

not too close. And it would have been

furious and futile till it hit you

that this time he was dying,

and you'd have stopped, and so would he,

both of you sheepish, feeling

each other sheepish, awkwardness

your last strange sharing.

But the thing about not visiting, not

loving enough to say or fight or apologize

or see something new between you –

the thing about not saying is

it's so much like those missiles

up there, on the way, on the final way,

so undone, so unsaid, and so impossible

to take back.

Meta-Morning

Every morning the moi

staggers out of dream.

Within minutes

it clamours for the stage.

Bathroom spotlights, mirror

monitor, the mewling

song begins:  I, I, I.

Just try to stay out of it. 

Shave.

The day may have something

to say.

                     ~

The shy air

of pre-dawn

surprises your

neck as you

step off the stoop.

The long lovely

travail of walking

when you think

you know the end

of all walking.  Try

not to make it mean.

                       ~

Stuck in the car behind

the yellow Bluebird

school bus, I’m STOP-

signed and red-flashered

at every farmhouse. 

Human nestlings

trail down the driveway

up into the box.  Shadows

move in the aisle, then

settle. Eggs

safe in their carton.

I might as well be in reverse.

Late for work again.

                    ~

If you sit still long

enough, everything you

haven’t thought of

begins to move

across a screen

you didn’t know

was there.

A marigold

the size of a fist

glistens, drips

rivulets of rain

along the hand

that holds it. Now’s

the chance to slow-dance

with essentials. Don’t

breathe a word.

Cycle

The way a wheel turns,

     grounded

low, spinning free up top.

     A life like that,

you might get somewhere.

The Ocean I Would Move In

Waves of you

wash me softly

your currents turn me

deeps enfold me

woman even your plant

life holds me

I love its green

dance its sway

of greeting

when you smile at me

I am carried near

shimmers of reefs

of ancient color

I warn you

I am not used

to your underwater world

I am surface creature

metallic in sun

but these days I admit

there is a flowing

smooth dark glide

that never seems to want

for air

I even begin to like the feel

of these gills you gave me

laughing