Two poems by Michael Galko

My Relationship To My Rabbit Mind

I wake and try to follow the instructions.

White dot, single syllable,

mind a spot tucked in the gut,

(for some it is in the throat

or the forehead.)

I am having trouble locating my spot.

In the fridge I need milk, grapefruit,

berries, and half and half for espresso.

At the lab the finance people

want to know where is the progress report?

Should I respond today or tomorrow

to the email from the cute woman on Match?

Perhaps I should have peed first.

My spot has wandered off. And changed color–

now blue, then red, finally green.

The facilitator says I should not judge myself.

He calls it monkey-mind, the racing,

the flitting from topic to topic

with no defined order or purpose.

He asks me to visualize monkeys,

leaping from branch to branch,

as if chased by other monkeys,

all of them using toes, hands, tails…

I think of mine more as rabbit mind.

The world comes at me– the cute woman,

the rejected poems and grants, the dishes

left in the sink, the crazy man in charge…

The mind is the den tucked under the brambles.

It is warm there, and the wind is blocked by the leaves.

I try not to judge myself for liking it there.

Maybe my spot is in the shower.

I hop into the warm rain, the day.

The Lonely Fishmonger Prepares For A First Date

Tying his tie

he smells ocean,

his collar flapping

like gills in air.

The red silk itself

runs neck to gut

like some ventral line

showing where to cut.

Michael J. Galko is a scientist and poet who lives and works in Houston, TX. He has been a juried poet of the Houston Poetry Fest three of the last four years and is a 2019 Pushcart Award nominee. In the past year, he has had poems published or accepted for publication at descant, Picaroon, Gargoyle, Gulf Coast, Mojave River Review, Riddled with Arrows, and San Pedro River Review, among other journals.