wooden

In the presence of supple

goodness, some people

grow less flexible,

experiencing a woodenness

they wouldn't have thought possible.

It is as strange and paradoxical

as the combined suffering

of Pinocchio and Geppetto

if Pinocchio had turned and said,

I can't be human after all.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It

new rooms

The mind must

set itself up

wherever it goes

and it would be

most convenient

to impose its

old rooms — just

tack them up

like an interior

tent. Oh but

the new holes

aren't where

the windows

went.

~ Kay Ryan 

from Poetry July/August 2012

with thanks to whiskey river

chinese foot chart

Every part of us

alerts another part.

Press a spot in 

the tender arch and 

feel the scalp

twitch.  We are no

match for ourselves

but our own release.

Each touch

uncatches some 

remote lock.  Look,

boats of mercy

embark from

our heart at the 

oddest knock.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It

shark's teeth

.

Everything contains some

silence.  Noise gets

its zest from the

small shark's-tooth-

shaped fragments

of rest angled

in it. An hour

of city holds maybe

a minute of these

remnants of a time

when silence reigned,

compact and dangerous

as a shark.  Sometimes

a bit of a tail

or fin can still

be sensed in parks.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It

counsel

.

It is possible 

that even the best counsel

cannot be processed

by the body.

All supplements to

our personal chemistry

are screened by tiny fanatical secret organs

that refuse much more than

they accept.  It is hard

to add even minerals.

Iron tablets, for example,

are not correct

and pass through us like

windowless alien crafts.

What the body wants is so exact.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It

age

.

As some people age 

they kinden.

The apertures

of their eyes widen.

I do not think they weaken;

I think something weak strengthens

until they are more and more it,

like letting in heaven.

But other people are 

mussels or clams, frightened.

Steam or knife blades mean open.

They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

.

~ Kay Ryan

from The Best of It