6 Poems About Memories, Humanity and Self-Identity

Dad

He ate plain oatmeal 
every morning

in the same leather 
chair that Mom 

got him for Father’s Day
in ’88. One breakfast 

after finishing an orange 
grapefruit, I told him how

I loved him, loud enough 
so he would not listen

Birds of Prey

“Most people are on
the world, not in it”

Muir said that so long 
ago, but he was wrong 

Most people are outside
the world, doubting they 
know how to be among it

Riding under a hawk’s wings
the air forgets 
what it means to be useless

Proof

Beware of labels
that claim to be hand-
made in small batches

By humans, what isn’t?
Is it good? Ask that instead.
For God’s sake, is it any good?

Gemini

Is the man
who feels 
as if he will be

apprehended by
the Holy Ghost 
at any moment

The kind of man who 
glimpses himself 20 times
a day in the mirror

just to know
that he is probably there
yet turns away while shaving