The selection below makes up the first few pages of a book-length poem partly inspired by Trivial Pursuit cards, but mostly inspired by everything. I’m interested in the way little facts can yield bigger truths.  A friend pointed out that all the letters of the word vital are included in the word trivial. Vital can mean essential to life and deadly (vital organ, vital wound). This poem is about the past and the present and the future being the present. It’s also about trying to be oneself.

 

from Vital Pursuits

 

 

 

Edwin Budding invented the lawnmower.

Read all 44 Sonnets from the Portuguese

aloud to self, was jealous of Mrs. Browning.

Somewhere beneath the wilting

or flowering, the grass is green.

I want to be being in action. Tree limbs

grow through a chain linked

fence. Drawing a sword,

I could never quite capture the glint.

On a road in Chile, we

dropped our bags, sprinted

toward an active volcano. Would have cost

too much to climb. The dog digs

and digs. There’s nothing there. The dog digs.

As the road gets longer it appears

to narrow. Too narrow. Two narrow

boats on a river in Providence.

The bridge I have never seen

down is not down. Bet it’s been down.

In one of the intervals I was away,

I was a way to be believable

as the conception of myself I imagined would have

imagined. The best Chagall paintings mend

floating people to happy corners out of the blue

background. These images mark the months

of mother’s year. My mother Mary.

My mother who loves Jesus and is sad

when her children are home and she is going alone

to Mass. Molecule is Latin

for little mass. I count my blessings

in blades of uncut grass, sing

praises. Glass in the name

of the father. The wave’s

strength is measured by its breaking.

Mother’s mother died in a car crash.

The round specks of wind-

shield, the road, the glisten. Listen, the sword

is words turned on their sides.

I understood everything she said

except her insistence I did not understand,

which was everything.

 

.   .   .  

 

Needles pushed into a pillow           

shaped like the planet.

All eyes look out.

I am the camel

trying to take Jesus up

on his offer. Through

and through, it’s been

rough. Down boy,

down. Stay. The dog listens

only to the woman

who is the hand legs lips brain bliss

that feeds him. Friends

don’t understand how I eat

so much. What can I say—

I am always hungry. Knead less

and the bread will be lighter,

the recipe advises. Head full

of compatriot sway,

the drunk at the all-night diner

tries to pick a fight with me.

The waitress delivers his

Belgian waffle with strawberries,

bananas, and whipped cream.

A bit of cruelty’s a necessity.

If I didn’t shorten the leash,

he would waste the whole day

looking for the best place to go.

 

.   .   .  

 

Posing a higher risk

of death than sky-

diving or motorcycling: rock

climbing. Ever an optimist,

the scientist thought he could

mold urine into gold.

Up or down, not between.

It was phosphorous

they had in common.

From the Greek, meaning light.

So highly reactive,

it’s never a free element

in nature. High speeds

into the wind trumps

grabbing onto sediment not

there. Sentiment: I am

suited for a queen.

At the turn I hold.

I hold at the river.

Christin, I want to hold

my hand in my hand

(unconscious of either)

over the button of your pants

as we look out

on the Great Salt River.

Ether: an inaccurate explanation

for how light moves across

the emptiness of space.

Shed skin and it’s lost.

Shed light and it’s gained.

Shed scales for scales

bright black.

Father had an old shed

filled with tools

I was not taught how to operate.

 

.   .   .  

 

Galileo measured moon mountains

by measuring the shadows

they cast. Before going out to sea,

the old man says, it is perhaps

better to be lucky, but

I would rather be exact, then

when the luck comes you’ll be ready.

The point of view

is what gets me. Surrounded

by salt water and super thirsty. 

If I don’t play in at least one

NBA game in the next two years,

as per the contract signed in 1991

and since tucked in mother’s desk,

I will owe my brother one hundred dollars.

Quit so close, as Jennifer says,

to quiet. Galileo went blind in 1637.

The year seems random

but one plus six is seven—

three numbers. The point of distance

is the stance it requires and creates.

It’s always bugged me how

when there’s an even number of objects

no one can be at the center. 

 

.   .   .  

 

We begin by claiming a color.

I call blue. She says I cannot

be blue, she is already blue.

Left my lamp beside the golden door,

visited a town in Haiti

I can only mispronounce:

Grow, mourn. I can only miss,

pronounce: the more grown, the less

left. Groan. In a new place, the dog

sniffs everything he can get his nose on.

Ezra said less is more.

Walt said more or less.

Evan said no then no, yes, yes.

How can I explain being defined

by indecision, I thought.

Then seconds guessed myself.

Gilt: thin layer of gold on the surface.

Guilt: that muck beneath the surface.

The tasted fruit does not keep long.

The parking meters hiss:

for every moment you stay,

you must pay, you must pay.

Bigger the space, bigger the heating bill.

Peddling in others’ affairs,

my legs tired. I spoke

of the frame and the tread.

Takes forever to balance

when constantly fearful of falling.

Bad paint job in this apartment:

patience, patience.