Devil’s Lake

The ancient Peruvians carved an enormous hummingbird

into the desert floor, so big it could only be seen

from space, and just because somebody said

it would never fly.

I’m like that, a man made of water, standing

at the bottom of the lake,

surrounded by myself.

But never mind when there are great wings

beating silently overhead, when the humming

is too deep to hear. Last time, I rode for miles

in a ’78 Plymouth with tribal plates

and a bumper sticker that reads

I break for anyone.

When I was a kid, every house on our street

was upside down. I would call to Tommy

and out the front door he would crawl,

carefully edging down aluminum siding

until he could safely drop

from an upstairs window ledge.

Poor Tommy, they never found the heart

that killed him.

But you know in the Odyssey, when old Ulysses goes

to Hell and sees the shade of his mother?

When he tries to hug her, his arms pass through.

Not because she’s dead.

Because she’s his mother.

Still, some of us glow in the dark.

Every single one of us glows in the light.

But no one can tell.