Poem that was selected as one of the six finalists in March 2010

For what it's worth -- but I'm pleased. Only 86 people actually voted -- so that my poem came in 5th of 6th is actually not saying tooooooo much, as the voting was 20% for the first one,
and trickled down in percentages to my 9% and the 6th poem at 8%. Perhaps I should have told people to vote -- but really, what is any of this about?????

I appreciated the comments people made! Wow. People I don't even know make comments!

Janus Slipping on His Other Face

I

Our two chairs angle towards the window
each of us holding a book
his about Inland Seas
and mine about potters in the Southwest,
who before disappearing

break a hole in the center of each pot
allowing its spirit
to join them in their burial grounds.

I imagine my father falling that way
through dusky space, as he slips away
from knowing January or memory
of the god in charge of gates,
beginnings, endings.


II

Silence strokes us,
licks our surface smooth
grooming each moment.

Outside, the ice is mystery—
uncut spirals,
shards of a rose window.


III

This might be the last time
he’ll be able to connect--
follow the thread of my words.
So I turn to the piano,
the sound loud enough for him to hear
and play a piece that doesn’t want a key

but dances and trills
until it settles calypso-style
like Venus standing on her seashell.

It cascades from the highest note
to end at the lowest.
We sit with two beats of marked silence.