Evolution

Hooting into lunar dandruff
coagulated, mid-sky
I was an owl
the night I drove through clouds

Wearing a suit jacket
on top of his woolen petticoat
He was a wolf
the day I drove through 1855

Hey, he said, his tail keeping company with his knees.
April dollars won't buy March bread.
What's a girl like you doing with empty pockets?
Get yourself
babies for each breast
a welcome mat
flat and heavy
like you stomach mustn't stay
like your heart can only be

I don't argue
get your grandma
a loaf of bread
Only tell him 'bout the time

in my weathered Honda civic
I followed a sign on a whim and
spun down a side street
into dark gravel
swerving to spare the rabbits
blindly chewing on rocks
the night I drove through clouds
I got gloriously lost
five wheels spinning mud into margarine

I tell him
My heart isn't heavy.

I tell him
My heart sings on empty,

a one woman band,
bells fog stomach and car horns
swelling
with the breath of black swans
and tarmac
and dry red leaves

and I tip my hat

Things That End

Things that end:

hiccups (usually).
heartbeats, heatstroke, senate
elections. Bus route 7 in Saigon,
the road less traveled, ink pens,
fantasy, flexibility, being on fire.
Constipation (usually).

The Roman Empire, dinner yesterday,
contact with my 8th grade
science teacher. The sky
the way our eyes can see it.
Haircuts. Spelling bees. Cricket matches.
The sky the way our eyes cannot.

Ceilings, balconies and being
tucked in. Newsweek subscriptions,
egg whites only, teeth, law
and order, dry sponge, wet clay.

and Christmas mornings
my Christmas mornings
Hamlet's life, Pete's dragon,
all blood and breasts and
berlin walls.

Quite Possibly, But Not Necessarily, a Love Poem

people make all sorts of absurd promises
safe in knowing no one expects results

knot a rope around the moon
wedge it in a gift bag
beside the whole world,
delicately wrapped in red tissue paper?
Anything for you, dear.

I don’t have enough to buy you the world, *****.
I won’t wrestle a mountain lion
I’m too fond of my limbs and face

but I would get your car doors fixed
so they open both ways

No Use Crying Over a Lost Cappuccino, Camp St.

A freshly bought cup of coffee
is at once a wet bar of soap
crushed and lathering
between desperate hands, battling—
like General Custer—
unsuccessfully.

An elegant dive towards pavement,
free at last! bursting, rushing, trembling,
tumbling, thank God almighty,
tides of caffeine, flowing,
a cordless bungy suicide

or perhaps righteous free fall liberation?
The salvation sought in the swallow
could be, too,
in that very spread
insulting the wailing sidewalk

while the spiller’s hands
are curling away, white as foam,
vanishing into pockets and sleeves.

But what of the sprawl?

This hazelnut mess,
smatter of Brasilia’s best beans?

Will the rain, nature’s janitor, take care of this folly?

A piece of litter can be tossed, a doorstep swept,
a runny nose caught and put in time out.

But how long till it rains?
How long, screeches the sidewalk, till it rains?

Short Prose Piece

Stewart Island, Kapipi Bay, 2010, March 9

Very likely the manifestation of the word solitude. I have never been somewhere so quiet. My own words, as I often speak aloud, I respectfully swallowed. I can hear everything here--even little changes in the way the water is lapping at the rocks makes me glance up, wondering what creature has moved the rhythm of the bay. The only other noise comes from dueling birds, singing each other out of tree and nest. There are bright yellow spots on a rock--like mustard rust. Marigold time. That's what time feels like here--golden, frozen in bloom. The turn of this page resonates. I can hear myself blink. I can hear myself be. Stewart, how did your island come to be, or rather come to stay, so silent? Here, close to Antarctica, this patch of the end of the world more resembles the beginning, which would explain why I, in all my modernity, feel like such an intruder.

Vampires, Voyeurs, Exhibitionists

If no one's watching, what does it count?
A parade with no floats is a crowded street,
a mirror to a vampire, just glass.

Even a poet
--despite protest to the contrary (and there will be)--
lacking readers, is nothing more than a delusional English Major
left dusting off stacks of synonyms
to make more room in her study/office/den

For even onlookers
hope to be onlookees in some facet
we all need to be eyeballed
(by our own if circumstances are dire)
to fuel the grotesque need

to brand those shadow monsters of feigned dignity,
our silhouettes,
onto the spotlight

where once situated,
we can bark orders along the lines of...

all floats must process and exude campiness as expected
guffaw over syntax, tired professors and linquistic critics must
judge us! pet us! encourage us

to peek
over the edge of our vanities
and wait for the worst
our most fearsome,
our reflections

Ask Again Later

Sipping soup, I begin to wonder
if the Answer would be worth the destruction
were the world a magic eight ball

Imagine: shaken bakin' babies, confused epileptics,
and a surprising plethora of Baptist Preachers
reenacting the sermon on the mound
with slightly inappropriate enthusiasm

then, hark! the seizure subsides

Sleepily, possibly hungover,
the Answer tiptoes in

gleaming white through the rubble
framed in a beautiful blue acute...

Has-Been

once, a tab of acid
burned the roof of his mouth
snaked through sinuses
into his spongy mass

seduced, he'd worshipped
curvacious dancing bears
rocking coquettishly, playing
heavily discordant piccolos
music hollowed, heavy,

shattering
like most Mondays
like this Monday

like his last family reunion,
and that one porno
he always wished he'd seen

like the devil's sirens--
feared trumptets of nostalgia--
jolting him awake
in the middle of a conference

Where's your hair, man?
Where's the reefer?
How'd your hands get so clean?