For Today

 ship's bow shaft

of winter light

proud at the pointed

intersection and

scalloped by swells

of garbage holds me

in one place long enough

to look

up at the co-ops and the 

glass beyond, my

birthplace and my child's,

and also our present 

and only our present.

For days my father has been

telling me what motivates Macbeth,

or scares him, or delighted King James,

or delights us, or him when he was young,

or me hopefully one day, and how

nothing is more tragic than an evil heart

wrapped in a poetic mind.

We repeat ourselves, he looks pained

and at the ground, "I wish you could have seen

my Macbeth" and so do I.

ship's stern shaft 

of evening light 

flat along the staid 

planned streets, today

was like tomorrow (and tomorrow and...)

without ambition

there is only light, 

my partner's, child's, and my own,

without light there is only

another day in winter

in my birthplace,

in my home.