Am I Evil

I think my belt's too tight or my trousers are often high waisted

enough to choke my stress all the way up to my chest,

it first alerted me in 2020 and the doctor told me relax

even though it was a pandemic and it was pretty

obvious there was a baby in the mix

and I'm stressed now because I am actively plotting

somebody's downfall and am certain I've handed him

enough rope for the two of us and meanwhile I have

a three year old who the other day said this is my penis

and I turned to him and noticed he

had snapped a glasses case shut on his sweatshirt,

so it was dangling there between his legs,

and the news of course and everyone's parents

what are they perceiving at this moment in time?

What is it to be in the middle and wondering how

to moderate everyone's intake

and is this presumed expediency because I've 

lost patience or have we actually run out of time?

My tiny little heart, beating, now I know

what you look like, 

how you looked as I first looked at my son

thank you, thank you, thank you

for going on and not asking anything of me

what did I do to deserve you

your quiet work and what I put you through

and my palpitations are your 

steady protestations

you've earned it, now earn it, you've earned it.

A Centurion Wakes Up in Tennessee

Don’t ask me how it happened. 

Something to do with the sulfur 

in the baths or the strange plants 

the locals had been eating. 

What matters is that the next thing 

the Centurion knew, he’d woken up 

in an entirely unfamiliar land. 

The air smelled like a smoldering foundry 

or the sulfur pits of Sicily. 

It sounded like a thousand smiths 

had brought their work to watch 

while some strange war was waged. 

The chariots were covered in glass 

and jewels and flew by without horses. 

Somehow he knew he wasn't dreaming. 

He had a terrible headache.

He couldn't remember why. 

He looked around at the chaos

and confusion, the strangers 

dressed in the strangest clothes,

and found two reasons to hope.

The first was the writing: he knew

those letters, even if he couldn’t read.

The second adorned the jewelry he saw

and the tops of the strangers’ monuments:

as long as they so prominently displayed 

the crosses on which criminals were slowly killed

he could not have strayed all that far

from the heartland of Roman law.