Maze

There are tattoos in mind, a wolf and a dead deer 

half submerged in still water reflected like a rorschach blot, 

one on either arm, drawn from a Nat Geo mag in Ben’s Greenpoint apartment, 

then painted on Haskell’s deck, the original drawings lost need to be redrawn. 

The idea is that if those around you act like wolves it means you are behaving like prey, 

if you find yourself standing over a wounded deer you must then realize you are acting the wolf.  

The goal is to live somewhere between, on your left breast a picture of an English maze, 

an ordered knot, the dizzying parallel lines betray intuition, vision blurs, the beginning and the end are clear, 

they stand like a tree or a house or a heart.

My carefully constructed walls of sand are destroyed by a sudden flood of emotion, and now remain small lumps, 

almost indistinguishable from the rolling peaks and valleys of an everyday mood swing, 

the uphill shimmy in fourth gear, the bumper sticker adlib respect local combo.  

I continue down the same paths, following the tides, motions, 

I plant flowers for a future I’ll never enjoy, 

but a new leaf unfurls before my eyes 

and I share in its happiness like a secret, 

I’m crouching inside ready to spring, 

the promise and infinite potential lingers outside 

seductive, dangling