Three Poems

SELF-DESTRUCTION

Regarding falling asleep

waiting for my group to be called

to enter the tunnel

that would have taken me

to 26D—

nodding off, the plane left

without me

in my neck pillow

like someone in a hospital bed

completely unaware, waiting to be fixed,

indifferent to everything.

And perhaps what makes us miss things

is that once in a while

we want to stop getting what we're paying for,

a small Dostoyevskian mutiny

like buying a salad in a clear plastic box

that tastes old and poisonous

then throwing the whole thing in the trash.

Our lives are a series of

debts and payoffs that feel barely

tolerable. And anyway

whenever I walk across the sky

to go stand in line for the bathroom

I always think, finally,

I am just like a ghost

walking over the world

trying to distract myself

from boredom

and hysteria. It's a kind of

a holy moment

that is filled with anger.