UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS

AFTER NERUDA’S UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS 

If the sky bent over to paint robins’ eggs and breathed 

cerulean madness into the breasts of bluebirds, 

did it shun the fatted bluejays asleep in the laurels? 

When the wind blew through the Wife of Bath‘s teeth, 

and Malvolio cross gartered his stockings for his lady love, 

what dark secret love was offered to the moon? 

When the rhinoceri returned where did they all run to? 

Where did he hang his wrinkled skin 

when the sand in the hourglass ran out of time, 

and the door wouldn’t lock? 

Who took the measurements indicated in figure #1, 

when trilateral symmetry, like fish in a mirror, 

breathes fog on the slopes of Haleakala? 

Giraffes harbor entire continents on their backs. 

Trees once stretched in a continuous line from coast to coast. 

Now squirrels have nowhere left to leap, 

they are flattened casualties of the road, 

and PG&E continues to construct Diablo Canyon, 

Livermore, San Onofre, while the wildflowers sway 

like laborious guilt on the salt breeze. 

Where am I going, getting there by the wind 

filling my head with the secrets of trees? 

The door of my heart isn’t marked with a neon exit sign 

darkened by shadows of bounced checks and kites. 

If the moon were full of holes and made of green cheese, 

and money became obsolete, 

how will the chicken Cordon Bleu? 

Freud already tried to analyze the dark side 

of the moon and failed. Miserably. 

Look where that got him.

spring 1984