You found a baby millipede in the garden. When you saw it under the roots of a weed you'd pulled it reminded you of another creature, fast asleep several thousands of miles away. You leaned down, picked it up, and laid it on your palm. It looked even smaller there, a russet spiral in a valley of skin. Perhaps it was dead, but you told yourself that it must simply be sleeping. You thought about the other creature and wondered ...
Through the slats
of a powder blue staircase
bright red bougainvillea
a neighbor chatters
someone practices the piano ...
She bites off an arm’s length
of black thread.
Putting spool back into workbox
she licks the tip—
straw.
Elbows braced on cold windowsill
she holds needle to grey light ...
Remember the yellow house that stood
for years, empty, used for nothing
but secrets?
A house built to last
until the end of days, or rot
in place? ...
“Where are you from?” you asked me—
my throat closed on the impossible answers.
Can I claim a nation, a state or a city
as mine, without disowning all others? ...
Left, unread books in the shelf
Bend over the sliding glass;
See evidence of dereliction
While peeping through
Its last touched pages...
The flock flew through a hailstorm,
unaware of pelting ice.
In mad darts, flight without form,
the flock flew through a hailstorm. ...
Gray regime breakfast
blunt and slow: rain pouring
intermittently, sideways.
As the television drones
of political sports,
the dry eggs assault me
with unknown ingredients.
Finally, the big game:
the crowd watches, aghast...
Coffee house philosoph
playing open chords on a hollow body,
knock off beats penning cynicisms
over poetry,
the shutter-speed-dealers and
faux-pigmenters sullenly sly-jiving pomp and prints
to sleep with easily impressed marks,
confusing ego and creativity...
The compost brings growth to the garden. Every rotting body
drags itself into the earth.
Cremation is for those afraid of their flesh falling to ribbons,
streaming through hairy grass,
a festival for the end of the day. The sun gives itself over to storms
to imagine the scoured face revealed
when the rain ends and, heat-kissed, the world steams into newness.
Rawness. Salt of the earth where nothing grows...
