Crossings — The Complete Collection

For LOML—Always.

For my family—

those who remain

and those who have passed

into the other room.

Dad—You stood in doorways asking

if everything was copacetic.

It wasn't always, but your asking

made it so. You taught me that integrity,

acceptance of human frailties,

and generosity to others

should be our valued aspirations—

I try.

Mark—Together with friends under the bridge,

the warmth of your arm around my shoulder

was as comforting as your protective spirit—

I feel.

Helen—Your crooked toes from shoes

passed house to house,

your rosary and Daily Missal

that sit on my desk,

your accord with all that life brought,

your devotion to God—

I strive.

Mom—Your fingers touch the contours of my face.

You hope I'm happy. Not completely,

but your abounding optimism brings me closer.

The truth is in these poems—

I'm grateful.

For those who love me,

your words and gestures

are sacred—

I learn.

I see you now. I always did.

This book is my way of saying:

Everything is copacetic.

As copacetic as it gets.

Memory is an act of attention. We choose what to preserve,

which words to carry forward,

which silences to honor.

In this collection of poetry, I return to thresholds—

doorways where my father asked, "Everything copacetic?"

Near a fire under a bridge, when my brother hugged my shoulder,

in a hallway where my grandfather touched my head,

by the hospital bed where a face I knew would soon be gone.

I write about an Irish American family across generations—

men who couldn't cry, women who worked until their feet hurt,

children who waited for words that never came.

But love was always there.

Many of these poems were inspired

by epiphanic moments in the presence of those I love.

My family members are my prayers.

My poems are my prayers.

My family members are my poems.

The word of the day is copacetic.

My brother and I are packing for a trip.

My father stands in the doorway.

"Everything copacetic?" he says.

Once, I asked him where he learned that word.

"As a Marine." He told me, "Korea. It was tough."

Years later, in the hospital

I held a spoonful of red Jell-O.

"Don't want it."

"You've got to eat, Dad."

"I'm not hungry." He pushed it away.

I sat by him until shadows crossed his face.

Mostly, he slept.

Sometimes he asked the time.

I left at nine.

Soon, the nurse called.

"Your father's agitated.

He wants to leave—

something about a trip."

When I returned, he stood at the window,

wearing the robe my sister said,

"brought out the blue in his eyes."

"Everything copacetic?" I asked.

He turned. Looked at me.

"It was tough," he said.

I guided him to the bed

and slept in the chair beside him.

At dawn, he was gone.

On that gray day, you chopped the Steinway with an axe.

Yellow and red leaves scattered on the hard earth

as you raised your arm and smashed the instrument apart.

You were a man raised to think

crying was weak; strength and power—

the measures of a man.

Men like you couldn't voice

their secrets or despair.

You shattered the shiny veneer—

wooden ribs, dovetail joints,

padded hammers, strings—

The soundboard heart cracked open

as small planks of air-dried wood

joined the miscellany on the ground.

I thought of my mother,

the day she moved out,

how you changed the locks,

emptied closets,

erased every vestige of your shared life.

If I had stepped outside,

I might have seen your tears—

glistening strings

on the soundboard of a broken soul.

Today, I saw a father and son

step onto the crosswalk.

I braked and watched them pass—

the boy on his father's shoulders,

headed to the park.

I drove on, wondering

why did you never lift me,

hold me,

or bring me to the swings?

Once, we built a shed together.

Years later, at a family party,

I heard you say,

"Remember when Danny and I built the shed?"

But it wasn't my brother who cut wood

and hammered nails with you.

I was bothered just a bit.

I had other memories—

your hands over mine,

knotting my tie.

We looked in the mirror.

My face reflected in yours.

You patted my shoulders.

Someone crossed the room

and took a picture.

It was on the table by your coffin—

proof that we had closeness

for a moment in time.

On our way to the dance,

we built a fire on tracks

beneath the bridge.

Snow fell in the distance.

We sang about the beer

we lifted with gloved hands.

Your arm lay on my shoulder,

and your face orange from flames.

Twigs crackled, embers rose

in smoke-filled wind.

Streetlights flashed on icy rails

and sleepers underground.

Soon, we'd leave this tunnel,

step into the whiteness beyond.

But now, I loved the circle

of our fire and our shared song.

Sometimes in the blackness

of my room, a fire blazes.

I see our faces lit by flames.

Hear our voices,

feel the chilling wind,

the warmth of your arm,

protecting my frigid skin.

I wish we had stayed

in our sacred space.

Never tread outside

into the glare of light—

Toward the cloak

of snow and night.

My only memory of you—

in the dark hallway of your Boston house,

just off the sunny kitchen.

I was two, you were sixty.

Tall and thin, wispy silver hair,

light-blue eyes lit by a slant of kitchen sun.

"You don't know me?" You smiled.

I couldn't speak,

but I understood

as you rubbed my head

then walked down the shellacked hallway.

You died in your sleep

a few years later—

years of hard work behind you:

gravedigger by day,

hauling bags of mail onto trains at night,

raising five children.

Whenever you sat in your parlor chair,

sleep came.

Close to your age now,

I visit your homestead in Ireland.

Cars whiz by where a dirt road once lay.

No one lives in the tiny stone house.

Birdsong.

Cut grass.

Sheep amble through the fields.

The sun moves into clouds,

then brightness returns.

What were you thinking

as you exited this door?

What conflicts stirred in your mind?

Twenty-one years old,

off to America,

leaving nine siblings

and parents you would

never see again.

From Athlone on the Shannon River,

dead center of Ireland—

you walked,

somehow reaching Southampton,

where you boarded the Adriatic,

a name that means "dark city."

You knew no one

in the promised land of your imagination.

You carried courage and a dream.

A few belongings,

hardly any money.

Mostly, you carried hope.

I press my palm

against the homestead wall,

as you touched my head

so many years ago.

I see you move from darkness

into brightness,

and beyond.

When Mom and I arrived,

you hid the donut behind the picture frame.

You sat in the sunny kitchen, embarrassed

to be caught with a sweet.

My mother tsk-tsked, shook her head.

I stared at the old photograph—

gray and yellowed as your sagging skin.

A girl waded in the ocean

not far from the shore.

"That's me." You said,

pointing to your former self,

in a bathing suit like a dress,

your body small against the dark water.

You swam toward a boulder

battered by foam.

I moved closer to look, and I smelled your sweat.

"Did you climb the rock when you reached it,

and was it scary in those big waves?"

My mother rummaged around us.

She put dishes in the sink and ran water.

You laughed,

hand cupping your cheek.

"I was gathering food—sea lettuce, we called it.

We'd scrape the rocks

and make stew.

'Twas most of the food we had,

but all we needed."

You paused,

living in a memory

only you could enter.

My mother's voice brought you back.

"Time for your bath. Jimmy, help your grandmother."

She touched your knee.

I wrapped my arm around you.

"Up you go. On the count of three," she said.

At the bathroom door,

she told me she'd take it from there

and asked me to wait in the living room.

"That was Clew Bay in County Mayo,"

you called out.

As warm water eased over your skin,

I listened—

My mother scolded you:

your diabetes, donut,

and denial.

Silent, except for sighs

as she sponged your back,

you swam again—

over 29,000 miles away.

Cold waves struck your skin,

but the sweet memory of the sea

was all you needed.

You sit in the corner,

oblivious to the old teacher watching—

too busy evading the eyes

of "cool kids" who gawk and giggle.

You feel pain when they whisper

each time they walk by.

Peering down,

you press your palm on a page

you're not reading.

Lines of Coleridge or Keats—

Words you love

when left alone.

You feel distracted,

sad like the speaker in Keats' Ode,

longing for "songs of spring,"

wanting to be invisible,

feeling unlikable,

trivial.

Why would anyone care

to talk with me? you think.

Someday, when you're reading

the rhythms you adore,

I hope you find this poem

by a gray-haired teacher

you inspired.

He admired you—

your devotion to words,

your quiet brilliance.

Know this:

You were never insignificant.

Those cool kids were simply silly.

And you mattered to him.

Colleagues ask for my criteria

when grading English papers.

Family members want the meanings

of mystifying words.

Students praise my speaking skills

and assume I am smart.

My erudition impresses them—

then they walk away.

Nights, I scour Shakespeare,

wander the web,

lauding lines of literature,

commending clever craft—

focused yet saddened,

longing to be liked,

to feel significant to someone,

distinct like a Dickinson dash.

Mostly,

I feel small—

a tiny font,

the blank space beyond a colon,

an abandoned thought.

A letter lacking closure,

or a line—

Stranded and incomplete.

Preceding naught.

During class

Mary complained,

"Professor, reading about

a slave whipped and abused

makes me feel bad."

David, by the door, added,

"Why do we read

about slaves'

horrid lives?

It's just too sad?"

Others nodded,

moved anxiously.

The word "triggered" lingered

in the air. Someone argued,

"But we really should care."

When class ended

I studied the image—

"The Scourged Back"

of an American slave.

"Gordon" or "Peter."

Historians are uncertain

of his name. Was he

married? Children?

What was his age?

History confines him

to a picture on a page,

the photo of his keloids,

the record of his life.

Did the photographer

ask about Gordon/Peter's life,

or how he survived the eighty-mile chase?

How did he find the strength and faith?

Escaping a plantation,

bloodhounds at bay,

onions to smother

the scent of his

dripping sweat

the entire way.

And the pain

of whip wounds

still wet.

Tattered clothes,

scratched

and bug-bitten

face.

Running

through

thickets,

thorns,

and mud.

Hungry,

tired, terrified,

until he arrived,

exhausted at Union lines.

Had he sat in class,

would Mary plead—

"You hurt my eyes.

Could you please leave?

Your story is so sad.

It makes my heart bleed."

Lions prowl the streets of Johannesburg,

a sleuth of bears rise on hind legs in Yosemite,

wild boars advance through the city of Haifa,

crocodiles surf waves in La Venta Nilla, Mexico,

penguins parade the streets of Cape Town,

mountain goats march past shops in Wales,

scurries of squirrels spring freely in a Santa Monica park,

flocks of birds cry out, a chorus begins.

"Free at last, free at last," we say behind our masks,

inspired by their joy, humbled by their presence,

sad it took a plague for us to see.

One day there is no news.

The anchors stare at empty teleprompters.

Eyes wide and twitching, lips quivering,

they look into the camera.

We change channels.

See black screens or people scrambling on sets,

passing blank papers, whispering.

We can't hear what they say, and we do not care.

We are too tired and drained to move.

Through the living room windows—trees and sky.

The wind blows and birds fly.

Somewhere snow falls and thunder booms.

But not here. There is no weather.

No drama, conflict, or story.

No wars, crimes, or political crises,

no empty talk, no sound and fury.

In a forest, sitting on a sycamore,

Thoreau's wood thrush sings.

Deep in a dark sea cave, the red drum knocks.

Somewhere—a judge's ruling:

this session's end.

I'm no longer desired.

I was once called handsome

but now I'm invisible.

People avert their eyes

if they see me coming.

Just a strange old man

with a barnacled hollow face.

I enjoyed my beauty once,

when everything felt new.

Now, I wade in different waters—

a more pacific stage of life.

Mostly, I sit,

recalling places I've been,

people I've known,

many now gone.

Loneliness increases;

memories of faces decline.

I know uncertainty

is the keel of life—

guiding our illusion

of control.

Better to submerge

in a sacred stillness

beyond unfathomed questions,

the haze of thoughts.

Enjoy instead the flow of repose.

Accept the softening of cognition,

like birds growing smaller

as they fly toward distant lands—

Reminders of our passage

to another realm where some say

eternal happiness abounds.

Or maybe it's a bluff of nothingness,

a shadowed, fraudulent shore,

where existence

endures no more.

When we were children,

we knelt after Communion

in a church that smelled

of stone, incense, and shellac.

I wondered what you prayed for,

as you bowed your head upon the pew.

What secrets did you know?

I admired you—

your certainty,

your quiet strength.

I wished you'd talked more.

Years later, you picked me up

from the airport

and asked how I'd been.

I told you about my life,

my worry for a sick friend.

I saw sadness in your profile,

thought you'd offer advice,

but you simply looked at me

and crossed yourself

in the dashboard light.

Now I understand:

Communion is the road we share,

as when you traced the cross

and turned to me

with a soft and caring glance.

The twenty-something blonde offered

to lift my suitcase to the overhead compartment.

The thin boy with glasses said he'd push my cart

if I wanted help to my car across the lot.

The high school girl behind the glass

slid a senior ticket without my asking.

My principal inquired, "When will you be retiring?"

My neighbor, close in years, has cancer.

My doctor said men my age

have difficulty peeing.

I've taught stories of rites-of-passage

my whole career—

a first kiss,

the first date,

marriage,

children.

When the young woman looked at me

and offered to take my luggage,

I thought of these rites,

and the Last Rites, too.

As the plane rose through the clouds,

I felt turbulence.

Beyond the rain-pattered window

was solid blackness.

I saw an old man.

I knew what lay behind me.

I knew what lay ahead.

How strange that an act of kindness

made me think so much.

When we landed,

the suitcase seemed heavier.

My exit was clear.

I was only twelve.

You were thirty-four,

living in an apartment by Wollaston Beach.

On your porch, we loved to watch

waves crash on the soft, pebbled shore.

Once, you showed me a painting—

shapes of greens and blues.

A black stroke, apostrophe-shaped, stood out.

"That's me lost in a crowd." You laughed.

I thought the painting was the ocean.

You, the apostrophe,

tumbling headfirst toward the shore.

I don't like the contractions that apostrophes create,

though I just used one.

Ellipses bother me too.

When I'm somber,

these marks

recall the void of loved ones lost—

my father, my brother,

many others.

And the fear

of losing you.

Now you're eighty-one,

and I'm fifty-nine.

I wish I could enter the past,

change the apostrophe

to an exclamation.

No—my heart.

A steady pulse in the light.

Beating like the waves,

green and blue,

assuring you with their rhythm—

You were not lost.

Just part of a current

carrying you

safely home.

I imagine you looking at the robins' nest

in the maple outside your bedroom window.

You can't see the blue eggs,

but you watch the male bring his partner

dry grass and twigs.

He offers dirt too, dipped in a birdbath

or gathered at the yard's edge.

The female smooths and seals the nest,

protecting her brood of four or five.

Sometimes you stare at your body cast—

a remnant of your spinal surgery,

but most hours you watch the tree,

the birds,

the clouds,

the sky.

The days pass slowly,

yet after two weeks

you see tips of yellow mouths,

like tulips or other flowers

you used to smell in the lawn beyond.

You imagine the day

your hardened mold cracks open,

and you walk outside again—

how you'll look upward, smiling

searching the blue,

the clouds,

the sun,

hoping to glimpse a fledgling

or any free bird

flying far across the sky.

Where it travels

won't matter.

Your joy is simply

that it does.

I miss the avocado-green rotary phone

and its coiled cord,

the cadence of your speech,

your wandering words.

We talked of trivialities—

our jobs, mundane and menial.

Complaints of coworkers,

disappointments,

dreams.

Even pauses pleased me—

our breathing replaced

when voices halted,

like the trilling

of sparrows at dusk.

Our talks comforted me, brother.

I'm sad at their end.

Now you text—

"Thinking of you,"

with emojis or a pic.

I reply, "Thinking of you, too,"

"All's good," or "Thanks."

The truth is

my thoughts of you subside

as our shared talks decline.

I no longer know

the changes in your life.

We're not connected

as we once were.

I long to hear your voice

whenever my phone rings.

The old man—

flaccid face,

blue-water eyes,

rough-sloped nose,

broken capillaries

like tributaries on arid land.

His belly—

a white boulder

strewn with seaweed hair.

Spindly legs—

coarse, rippled skin

in muted tans

and specks of brown.

Purple ankles,

a small delta

scattered with patches

dried and aged.

On the dock,

hands cupped,

bending—

Toward water

he'll never reach.

He woke to the dog whimpering,

scratching his arm.

The phone rang.

His wife answered.

"It's for you," she said.

He pressed a pillowcase

against his bleeding arm.

"My father's dead.

Can you shine my shoes?"

Downstairs, something crashed.

They walked in silence

because that's what he liked.

In the living room,

the cheap print of The Last Supper

lay on the floor

its frame splintered.

At the wake, he knelt

beside his father's coffin,

said an Our Father

kissed his father's forehead.

Leaving, he asked his wife

when they'd last seen him.

"Just before Easter.

We took him out to dinner."

"He was mostly good," he murmured,

"but he did some bad things."

She touched his shoulder.

At home, he knelt

beside the shattered print.

His shoulders drooped,

his back shook.

She knew he was thinking

of that last supper—

what he said,

what he wished he had.

She wanted to tell him

he'd been a good son,

that his father had loved him

deeply.

But words

could not relieve his pain.

She watched,

offering silence,

offering time.

Later, she would hug him,

but she wouldn't say a thing.

You know the meeting

when a question asked

hurts someone's feelings.

The goal of the discussion

disregarded

like a raised hand

ignored.

My grandmother lived

in a dirt-floor house,

walked a mile to a well,

slept in a bed with two siblings

and a few fire-warmed bricks.

Never once said,

"My feelings are hurt,"

wouldn't understand

the word

fragility.

Her schooling stopped

in sixth grade.

Most mornings, she knelt,

said her rosary,

then stepped across

a broken-planked porch,

hugged a wooden pail,

and trekked to the water.

Coming home,

she gingerly avoided stones

that stabbed her feet,

stones that bruised—

Still, she whispered

blessings

into the early light.

"Do you have the yellow teapot?" my mother asked.

"Beth told me I promised it to you long ago."

I searched cabinets, closets, every shelf—

never found that gold-trimmed porcelain.

Part of the china we used on Christmas Day,

set on the mahogany table with several desserts—

Apple, blueberry, pumpkin pies,

all that food.

My brothers and sister gathered,

parents at each end.

Streisand's album played softly,

the candlelit room.

Years later, I found the teapot

in an upstairs room.

I remembered the roast,

green beans, stuffing.

Nanna's Irish prayer—

"thy gifts"—received.

Mike and I jested.

Beth complained a nun

mocked her purple tree.

Mark, red-faced, boasted

we ran from cops.

Dan eyed the clock.

Mom repeated,

"Doesn't anyone want more?"

Dad listened, eyes agleam.

Memories—"these thy gifts"

of Nanna's prayer.

Christ's bounty received,

blessings I revere.

I'd like to be

the Wife of Bath's scarlet stockings

poor Yorick's skull

Dickinson's sherry in the glass

Gatsby's dock

Hulga's wooden leg

a flattened sneaker on some highway

a crushed beer can in a restaurant dumpster

a lost sock under a sagging couch

a rip in a screen

a penny on the walkway

a snail shell beneath a blackberry bush

a crow's feather on a deck

a broken twig on a lawn

a puddle by a drain

or that dried leaf

you crumble in your hand.

Too old to put her shoes on,

she watched me place her feet

into her favorite pair of Doctor Scholls.

"My toes are crooked. They must look funny to you."

I smiled, trying to ease her embarrassment.

"My mother cleaned houses for the rich," she said.

"We had to wear the shoes she brought home.

They were often small.

That's why they look this way.

The toes, I mean." She laughed.

"I know." I pulled the second shoe over her heel.

She looked out the window and sighed.

Did she see her mother

hugging a bag of discarded shoes

as she walked down the street,

shoulders curled in the wind?

My great-grandmother,

moving slowly,

her own shoes worn and broken,

like the skin on her red, cracked hands.

She would be teary

but smiling,

relieved she had something

to give.

She asks me to put Bacitracin on her heel.

"Do you see a small cut?"

I nod and rub ointment against the crack.

Her feet are calloused and rough.

"That feels good." She sighs.

I see a honeymoon picture on the table.

My parents could be my children.

Waving, bright eyes and lips,

she resembles Elizabeth Taylor in a hat.

Both dressed in their best attire.

Joyful expressions—

laughter mixed with apprehension,

slightly teary, expectant but insecure.

"What you looking at?" She turns her head.

"Oh that."

I rub Aveeno on her feet.

She reclines in the chair,

closing her eyes,

smiling at the memory.

The room darkens. Rain taps a pane.

Thunder booms, lightning illumines the shade.

I think of how far these feet have walked,

the tenderness at the bottom of her sole.

Kneeling, I'm thankful to ease one hurt.

Her chest rises and falls. Soon she sleeps.

Someday later,

I'll hold the photo,

remember this night—

the rain,

her shadowed face,

and raw skin.

My mother will be waving to me.

I'll see her eyes,

recall her pain,

feel her warm hand in mine.

I will wonder again

why suffering

is entwined in life's design.

That fall day, we raked leaves

from behind the shed.

Smell of earth and wet decay

rose in the cold air.

We saw our breath

in a blast of breeze.

Worms and beetles

scattered in debris.

I saw dirt,

thought we had finished.

"Not yet," you said.

The sky grew darker,

the wind colder.

When your flashlight

showed not a speck of leaf,

you said, "We're done."

Today I look at wet leaves.

Kneeling, I clear your grave.

Again, I smell the earth,

feel the biting cold.

Leaves shimmer with my tears.

"We're done," you whisper in my ear.

I recite a prayer,

cross myself,

and rise.

My breath clouds the air.

Yours is mist on my face.

I smell your sweat.

I should leave,

I think,

but not yet.

In the pew by the stained glass

of Veronica wiping the face of Jesus,

I stare, enjoying the play of light—

red, gold, and green illuminations.

Jesus, a wooden cross covering

his cream tunic and carmine cape,

bends and speaks to Veronica,

a woman veiled in blue and white.

She holds a cloth to wipe his face.

What does Jesus say to her?

Thank you, I suppose.

The guard behind them watches.

Is he a sad witness?

Does he have doubts like me?

Perhaps he's eager, as I am,

for enlightenment.

Or does he want to escape

the risen, searing Sun?

Each morning, I injected insulin into my dog,

made sure she had water.

Watching her wobble pained me.

Sometimes she collapsed on cold tile,

left lines of blood in the yard,

shouldered hard walls.

When she could no longer hold herself,

I bought diapers that sagged and slipped off.

When she stared at the door,

I carried her outside.

My mother said, "Can't you put her to sleep?"

I said, "When you become incontinent,

should I do the same?"

"Guess not," she said.

Eventually, I euthanized Ethel.

The girl at the desk said,

"Sorry for your loss."

In the parking lot,

I leaned on the steering wheel

and cried.

My mother, eighty-two,

is losing her sight.

She listens to audiobooks,

holds a magnifier an inch from a page.

Her body is laced with bars and bolts—

surgeries on her spine and leg.

When I visit, she says,

"Move your chair close."

Her fingers trace the shape of my face.

"How are things, my number three child?

Are you happy?"

I pause too long. "All is good," I lie.

We share a meal,

talk about the past,

the cruelty of our president.

I turn on the TV.

She listens.

I watch the light wash her face.

Later, my mother says,

"Is it late? You need rest."

I tell her no.

She wrings her hands.

"I enjoy your visits,

but they seem so short."

We sit until her eyes close.

I touch her shoulder.

"Mom, time for bed," I whisper.

I place my arm under hers

to help her stand.

She kisses my forehead.

When she dies,

I'll unlock her still apartment.

When I see her walker,

I'll remember her resolve

to always move forward.

I'll feel her fingers

softly trace my face,

and hear her say,

"I love you, sweetheart."

My mother asks if I'm happy. I hesitate,

then lie: "All is good."

The truth lives in these poems—

In the space between what we say

and what we mean,

between presence and loss,

memory and forgetting.

When we express our feelings,

we discover meaning.

The people we have loved

are the substance of our life stories.

If we do not remember or reflect,

our lives are diminished.

If we are not true to who we are,

have we lived? (Carl Jung)

"Our lives begin to end the day

we become silent about things that matter"

(Martin Luther King).