THREE POEMS BY TOM HEALY
A Labor of Moles
My tongue remembers
when I first
tasted dirt
and knew the thing
was no longer
to see myself
digging,
but furiously
to dig.
Alarm
Excuse me, I said.
my room is on fire.
I’d been watching
the flame a long time.
A nervous little dog
sniffing the wall
until it found a spot
where it dug and grew.
The spark turned mean
and I turned cold.
I went down into slippers
to a table of trouble,
the family dinner
I wasn’t having.
this time I smiled
while they ignored me.
Excuse me, I said,
and bit hard
into the rage
of no one listening
then took my slippers
out into the snow.
The Metaphysics of Being Well-Mannered
The way you eat pizza—
fork and knife,
cloth napkin,
making careful cuts
in the direction
of all four winds—
is black tie in the desert,
a blizzard lit by candles.
The way you eat pizza
a lullaby among jackals,
prolegomenon to peace—
the night’s hunger call
suddenly so hushed
in admiration
of the way you eat pizza,
cicadas forget to stutter
and the moon’s thirst
is well-said.
*all from What the Right Hand Knows, Four Way Books, 2009.
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