Who taught
the slug-brained?
That bovine seat of thought
that runs the basic body,
five and dime.
Be wary,
for the tether of its beast
may be quick to snap,
and, the hurtling act done,
the brain-child will stand protected,
in its blameless innocence.
A cure for the chills
Me, I like a slate-tinted sky.
Shales of ice,
opaque underfoot.
The remains of thistles and rushes.
Holistic winds that purify
all but notions.
Think: How our bones and tears
have fed the oceans.
But now, I am for home.
Pour myself a cup of tea,
and think about the bubbles.
a working man
Old Man.
He come every day
at twilight time.
I hears the bony drum,
cicada’s hum.
He wear raggedy clothes,
canvas cap,
yellowy beard.
And his work he does.
Cranks that gear handle
round and round.
Powers up the tiny lights.
Pinpoints
in the pinwheel spiralled
sky of night.
Surfacing
don’t mind me
at all-
I jump in frivolity
from one to the other
as the bee tests for honeysuckle nectar.
The proper endings of songs are not known to me.
Only a taste of a part of the art.
A tip of the hat, and I hot-foot it away,
Stay too long, and the feet soon get cold.
Ancestral memory
In want of stories,
and of someone to read them to me,
I spoil the fun, envisioning
hillsides of mossy flow, far off in a fog.
An anxious kerchiefed woman
watching her man hammering a glowing sword.
Then, his returning, cut muscles bound with cord,
staunched with a maid’s cloth.
In here
So many, here,
write words of love.
Words of yearn,
longing and lonely.
Are they for one
who is here,
or has left
and cannot come home?
For one who wants a conjuring
to bring warmth to a sad siren.
In dream, I conjure you,
the writer,
with hands
soft, warm, and strong.
Alone.
The face in the shoebox
That polaroid. Buddy was going through his shoebox of old photos, dealing them out like cards on the coffee table. I was stunned, but faked disinterest. The party drifted to the kitchen. He wouldn’t miss it. Xenia, how came this? So young. So innocent of your appalling destiny.
The stairs, the stars
I will want my eyes open if I can,
when it happens.
Don’t stay
if it’s too hard.
But if you do,
you might see,
in my dry eyes,
a struggle of the soul.
A sea-change,
as I watch the silver sun,
and all that’s earthly folds its book.
For I’ve already peeked at the show,
And I know.
Jesus
“Don’t worry, Lina”, Jesus says to me.
-Meg Sefton
Sonse, Ospedale delle Bambole, Rome, flickr
I am not supposed to be touching little Jesus inside my purse while I am at church. But Uncle Danny gave me Jesus. Now he’s dead. I say sorry Jesus in case I touch his no no square. Mama gives me a look. Don’t worry, Lina, Jesus says to me.
132
we’re feeling closer than ever before
greeting hellos in distant passing
an acknowledgement of an external fight
we’re fighting inside
there’s no blood on the streets
and the lights illuminate every window
we’re living a history book, real time
we talk so much about nothing at all
we ask about each other’s day
and mean it
Aremyfeetofftheground 