Our Own Berlin Wall Has Fallen

The anniversary of when der Maur came down, you know,

the Wall in Berlin, well, it came on a day when everyone came,

the cleaning lady, the heat pump guy, and Owen the mower,

even the window washer and then visitors from over there,

as well as all those trips to the doctor, the nurse, and the same

old litany of placebos and excuses for why no one, no

one could do anything significant, to make

the hurty places go away. When they chipped

away the rocks and masonry, we clapped—a break

between two worlds, we thought, was breached, and sipped

a little glass of schnaps to celebrate,

sips to hasten and deepen our sense of cheer.

But thirty years have passed too quickly and slipped

outside of memory, leaving us alone:

like money that is laundered, like coins that are clipped,

the sea has changed forever, for us at any rate.

The wall, the world, the weeds of time—all gone.

The Tortoise and the Hare

With as much speed as in a dream, we pass

each other in calendars of time, you always

speaking of our journey after you arrive

and leave me like the hare who, in a trance

of self-delusion, still sleeps; thus you contrive

to be like one moving at my pace, while days

go by unnoticed, and I believe the sands

still slowly fall, and  have no words to speak

that can affirm our joint existence. You

alone, and with you what you were and seek,

and I deluded, dreaming, imagine who

you are beside me in this race, afraid

to waken into reality, alive or dead

already; or a family of phantoms, each alone

and mirrored out of sequence, like flesh and bone;

or footsteps under a prehistoric sea, a trail

of individuals headed towards the end of time,

one already there, like the head of a snail,

the other always coagulating in its slime.