The detective who borrowed galoshes

The detective who borrowed galoshes,
and went out among the mindfields of broken sparks (LA,
Austin, San Francisco, the basements of New York)
to find for you the underground stars

is only a detective, and since it was they who
first made "seems" from "is," you'd better wait
for someone's better offer. For the one, for example,
who owns his own galoshes, and through the peephole

as you are waking whispers "I have made you
breakfast." These men are not detectives. These are the men
who leave trails. When I was little, in the basement,
I thought I had discovered the underground stars. It turned out

to be merely the light trapped in my eyelids from the first-floor windows.
Once I had let it go, and set about looking for Dad's hammer (growing older
and not so afraid of the dark anymore) I briefly sensed the benefits
of detective-free living: the smell of basements, the hammered days

of normalcy. Now I stand again between two floors,
the cracked icicle world of detectives rubbing against the soft glacial skin
of the human. Basements only smell this way from the top step,
with the door still open. As it closes behind me, I wonder: underground star?

broken light bulb? and entranced by the possibilities realize how young I am.
How much is left. How weak we are. How the calf speaks to the back.
How glossy the pictures will come out. How kitchen this night is. How warm
you have grown. How much I will have missed. How new these galoshes.
posted by Adam at 12:45 AM [edit]

Hand to paper

I want to be a person who puts hand to paper,
who sets the kerosene nights alight and, upon seeing
the old ghosts haunting the stairwell, says, "silly ghost,
you have lost your way" and points them politely in the right direction,

Wherever that may be. I want to say yes to you in the morning,
when all the food is still in its packages, and then yes again at night
as the crumbs dance around our toes. I want to dance too,

Wherever we may be. I want to be a person who puts hand
to the world, who gets it wrong and wipes the stain on his sleeve,
where he wears it still. I want to build a shed for all the worries,

Whatever they might be, and buy a plane ticket for the secrets:
see ya, enjoy Barbados! while we run out free from
the eagerly awaiting airports. I want to understand the tools

To put my hand to paper, and to scribble notes to all the ghosts
so they will imagine, for just one of their eternal seconds,
that we are not so terribly indifferent to them as we are.
posted by Adam at 1:12 AM [edit]