Offering to the Air
all day Irish trad followed me
each time I started the car
Spotify announced the day
and who I am
and what it means
but when Willie Clancy played
Air: An Páistín Fionn
I recognized myself:
ashes, flame, keening, awe
and, sometimes, harmony
I think how Alex would say
play this at my funeral
but that’ll be too late –
play it today
and I won’t need to make
another pen stroke tonight
volcán
crowned by a
misleading white mop of icy
bangs lulling you into thinking its heart
has long gone cold and the fiery veins slipped into senescence
but you can’t blot out its sleek steep black cindered sides perfectly sloped
with that extra-regular cone no other peaks take, like the first time I watched
a grey whale spout – exactly the same simple shape as a kindergartener’s drawing
for years (generations) it towers there
quietly, a presence to greet as you go about life
until one day
it can’t go on living this lie
the tension’s unbearable
rivulets of sweat stain its snow
it shakes with the knowledge of what it is
and what it will do
and then people will say
without warning –
a testament to how little attention they’ve paid
and how volcanoes talk
Kiwi in Disguise
in New Zealand
I try not to speak
each syllable gives me away as other
my fat flat short American a’s
broadcast my origin
I’ve read so many books by (to me) foreigners
mentioning that abrasive American honk
our loud crass obnoxious accent
I try to turn mine off
order tomahtoe sauce instead of ketchup
speak of rubbish bins instead of trash cans
ask if someone is in the queue not line
get directions for the toilet not bathroom
take the lift not elevator
go to the car park not parking lot
am tempted to just talk like the locals
lips stretched out into a thin line
talking about those swimming shelled reptiles:
turdles don’t have any ees
but I will never add up
to more than a Kiwi in disguise
