2 Poems

Nothing and Something

It's been a week
since I ran out of milk;
that's the sum total
of all that's happened
since I came home from Italy,
where I saw the tenderest
Bellini mother and child
in the Brera,
and saw there
in the faces of the men
at the Disputation’s edge
how solitude
can be performed
in plain view
in the shadows
of the sunset.
It's easy to write about nothing:
nothing is what we know
when the day is foggy
and the apartment
has no heat
and no trip to Italy,
no matter how recent,
can compensate.
Not so easy to write
about something:
the mortadella
I smuggled home,
hidden in my carry-on,
just so
I had some skin
in the game
and another creature’s
viscera
to pick at.

Duck Duck Goose

I have several of Donald Duck's
most inauspicious traits:
I'm pretty but I'm boring,
I'm moodier than the usual,
my urine is a dull yellow,
my beak hangs unhinged
when I doff my hat,
I only wear my underwear
on my birthday.
I'm jejune,
I'm willing to shill,
I butter my scones
with Sisyphus's groans,
my pupils don't dilate
when I shut the lights.

When I shut the lights
the years weigh heavy;
I carry them high,
thrust out in front.
I demand your seat
on the subway.
I'm up to my feet
in chicken soup.
My left breast is bigger
than my right—that's right
where my heart sits.

That's right where my heart sits,
hovering below the choir,
as big as the Higgs boson,
right above my distended stomach.
My lips taste like duck sauce:
surely this is my ducktail
I feel with my duckhand.