Anxiety lodges under my skin
a splinter pricking a nerve
when I tap my fingertip
or brush it against my shirt
I need emotional tweezers.

David M. Frye
April 20, 2009
Denton, Neb.

When oblique sunlight
slices through streets
in Sunday’s solitude
even ordinary objects
like a twisted juice box
a rusted sign post
a broken and barked stick
cast transmogrified shadows
across dewy pavement.

David M. Frye
April 19, 2009
Portland, Ore.

Once I learned how sea creatures
died in prehistoric oceans
fell like snow upon the depths
and glaciated over millennia
their calcified bodies
forming limestone and marble
depending upon pressure and time.

I hold out no such hopes
for the drifts of detritus
blanketing the tables
at Portland’s biggest garage sale:
dusty blister packs of Spocks
from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,
empty one-use Coke bottles,
Armageddon on VHS,
customizable scratching posts,
pristine volumes of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

All the wonders of America’s search
for satisfaction through consumption,
sifted and sorted, tagged and tabled,
will someday settle into landfills
and be tucked into bed
under bulldozed blankets.

Is there time enough and pressure sufficient
to make plastic limestone and vinyl marble
from the husks and shells of our shed refuse?
Who will mine the strata we bequeath?

Everything must go.
Priced to sell.
No reasonable offer refused.

David M. Frye
April 18, 2009
Portland, Ore.

Once I took the day’s newspaper
to my dad’s darkroom
pulled the string on the light
and arranged the comics page
on the gridded green surface
of the paper cutter
lined up the Mark Trail comic
with the edge of the cutter
grabbed the blade’s handle
and brought the cutter down
slicing my left thumb
from nail to knuckle down to the bone.

I don’t remember
the pain or the blood
or the trip to the ER
or the needle and stitches
but even after thirty-eight years
recalling and dwelling
on the memory makes me queasy.

My thumb is scarred and if it’s true
that one’s cells turn over
every seven years then Thumb VI
is scarred, but faithfully
grows a scarred nail
reminding me daily that
actions have repercussions
changes persist and
I am an abiding and identifiable
pattern painted in matter and memory
the sum and product
of all the cuts and scrapes
the tears and pain
but also the joy and hopes
the love and faith
of forty-seven years
equalling the man
known as David.

David M. Frye
April 17, 2009
In flight to Portland, Ore.

No leaves on trees
catch the plit of drops
a cloud shakes its pinions dry
and finds instead
a flat of stone
a back of dog
a cheek of face
baptizing
earth and beast and man
as night flutters into day
and wind’s towel dabs
skin and fur and rock
leaving only a memory
shed like a feather
from weather’s wings.

David M. Frye
April 16, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Water and hand and wheel
raise a pot
from a lump of clay.

Slurry and hand and screen
sift a page
from a soup of wood.

Heat and hand and hammer
forge a leaf
from a rod of iron.

When hands touch
and eyes behold,
when minds recall
and hearts embrace,
then wood and iron and clay
conspire with us
in re-creation.

It is good.
It is good to be embraced,
to be recalled.
It is good to be beheld,
to be touched.
Whether clay or iron or wood
or flesh and spirit, it is good.
It is good.

David M. Frye
April 15, 2009
Denton, Neb.