Faith in Science

The pendulum swings back and forth,

the swordfish attached to the cable

rising and falling, inching closer to

where I sit unable to move though

nothing binds me to this chair.

It may be hours before the spear 

of the great fish reaches my throat,

or maybe only a matter of minutes.

The pendulum seems to be moving

towards me but this is an illusion;

it's the earth that's rotating under

the pendulum, swiveling my body

towards the swinging spear of the fish

someone must have caught a long

time ago and stuffed and brought 

here to swing in this perpetual motion

contraption that has nothing to do

with the sea or freedom and whose

mechanics I won't pretend to under-

stand. I'm pretty sure the spear will

stop just short of my throat otherwise

they would never put a chair here.

  

False Alarm

Late at night I heard a siren growing 

and come to a stop near our house. 

Peaking out the window I couldn't

see a thing apart from one lone

megabeast--an Indricotherium,

I think--which should have been

extinct long before humans settled

in this area. Its giraffe-like neck

stretched up and I saw with horror

it was about to gnaw on a power

line. Its lips were pulled back to

reveal bulging teeth and it was 

poised to bite when I turned away

unable to watch. This was not our

fault, I thought, as the window

went red from the spinning lights

but this time there was no siren,

just the rumble as something big

went back down the street.  

Wiped Out

Cleaning out my inbox after a little

security scare I went a bit overboard

and deleted every single message 

I'd ever received from anyone going

back to my college days. Afterwards

I went out to the balcony to look up

at the stars but there were none to 

be seen even though the sky was 

clear and that's when it hit me.

Salvation

As the Teminator stands in the shadows

waiting for its victim to come home 

from work a mosquito lights on its neck 

and begins to draw blood. The Teminator

doesn't feel a thing, which is exactly how

this is supposed to go. As it happens,

the mosquito was sent back in time

to be there in that spot moments before

the cyborg can carry out its mission

and restore order to the future. After

filling up on blood the mosquito zips

down the sidewalk to find the man

targeted for termination and lands on

his nose prompting the man to slap it

and splatter blood all over his hand.

"It didn't even bite me yet," thinks

the man, and he is inspired to write

a haiku which he immediately adds

to his blog before resuming his walk

towards home where the Terminator

still waits, unaware that this is all

about the haiku and the blood.

 

Stubborn as Hell

The mule stands trembling 

at the bottom of the canyon.

It has the means of escape

but doesn't do a thing.

If it would open its eyes

it would see the planks

right under its hooves

zig-zagging dizzily up

the cliff to the plateau

where a sea of grass

up to my waist stretches

to the horizon.

Surely it can smell

the grass. Surely it

doesn't want to become

bits and pieces churning

in a buzzard's gut,

a pile of bleached bones

offering shade to locusts.

But that's the path it's on.

I'll give it a few more

minutes. No way am I

going back down there.

Just the Thing

A few months after graduating when still

searching for a job I went to a recruiting

seminar for a company that sold knives

and was hunting for sales reps and during

the demonstration a guy in a suit held up

a blade and said "this baby will cut through

whale bone." That's right: whale bone. 

Eyes went wide, I can tell you. I didn't ask

if this had been verified experimentally.

I was too busy thinking about my sales

strategy. "Sir, if ever you find yourself in

the Smithsonian and you have this baby

with you then you won't have to worry 

about the skeleton of a humpback whale

falling from the ceiling and trapping you

and your family in its ribcage--you could

hack right through with this knife! I'm 

sure it would work on mastodon as well."

Or: "No, ma'am, this knife is far too 

dangerous for cutting onions. However,

if ever you need a marrow sample from

a whale carcass washed up on a beach,

this is just the thing!"

They passed the knives around and when

one came to me I was extra careful, fearing

it would cut right through my act.

 

The Rain People

Who are these people who study the rain?

They come in their white vans and park

along the curb and there they are walking

down the street wearing protective gear

from head to feet. They have all manner

of instruments to observe the rain as it falls

upon their heads; sometimes they point

the devices straight up; sometimes at odd

angles; sometimes straight down for hours 

as the puddles grow. Sometimes they send

up their drones to zip among the drops

and the children gather to watch but

the rain people ignore them. There is

no way they'll give any of these kids

a turn. I kind of doubt any of them

has children. Cooler than the drones 

is a cube they hold up to catch the rain

which it's rumored preserves the drops

in an unbroken state so they can be

classified later. Sometimes the people

go back to their vans and stay inside

for most of the day, looking at micro-

scopes maybe, or polishing papers

to send to a peer-reviewed journal,

or maybe they're just watching TV.

Sometimes the vans leave and are gone 

for days but eventually they return

with the people who may or may not

be the same people.  

It's a good thing it's always raining 

around here, otherwise I have no idea 

what these people would do.

   

That Bird

That bird that lights on the balcony rail

before dawn: for all I care it could be

cursing me. It could be making snarky

comments about the garden, or broad-

casting any secrets I have to the world.

If this were all a simulation as Elon Musk

suggests it could be reciting a code

for a program to cause me to malfunction

during the day, to misplace my phone

or forget a meeting or tell my son he

made a mistake on his math homework

when in fact his answer was correct.

It could be summoning a murder wasp,

a suspicious mole, a letter from the IRS.

I don't care. Of course I'm aware this

is not about me. Ten thousand years ago,

when none of this was here, I would 

have heard the same thing. Ten thousand

years from now, when all of this is gone,

I would hear the same thing. That is all

I want: to hear that voice from beyond

time before it moves on to the next unit

and leaves me with these curtains. 

False Friends

Before I could take off my shoes my son

rushed up to tell me that one of the crabs

had done something horrible to the other.

He took me by the hand and led me to 

the tank and pointed at the smaller crab

which was missing both claws and most

of its limbs but was still alive, somehow,

condemned to view its own disintegration

with eyes that never close.

The bigger crab shuffled sideways over

the grim debris and the complete husk

of the smaller crab. It must have molted

and while its shell was soft the bigger one

had attacked and tore it limb from limb.

I didn't know crabs do that. In my mind

the two had made a fine pair. My son 

kept saying he'd fed the bigger one that

morning. It shouldn't have been hungry.

 

Remote Learning

I was supposed to teach that class

but upon going in the students' eyes

went wide and they started fiddling

with their phones and seconds later

someone from the office rushed in

to tell me I was supposed to teach

this class remotely so could I please

proceed to a remote location before

starting the lesson which seemed 

odd but being an adjunct who was I

to argue so I left the classroom and

the campus and wandered the streets

until I came to a temple at the base

of a hill with a pond running along

the side teeming with colorful carp

which gathered below my shadow

mouths agape but I had nothing 

to offer them and no way to convey

my nothingness to them and all I

could do was hope my students

were somehow getting this. 

The Same Old Problem

Being vampires, the air conditioner

is important to us. When the man

came to clean out all the mold

we were perfect hosts and I even

offered him some tea. But this

made me thirsty, and I just had

to take his blood right then. 

The others got mad at me, saying 

at least I could have let the human

finish the work. Summer is coming 

and the days will be long.