Vincristine

Sad-boned
creature

poisoned,

x-ray
weakened
ladder...

climb.

Simple As That (or is it?)

Like proverbial roads, I was not chosen,
despite a will with grave intention, desire
with practiced, calloused hands; of talents
nature rarely gives to intricate inventions

favoring the thoughtless rose, the vacant
star, the mindless, howling winds. To be

is not the question, nor is decision found or
granted from within; the conclusive opinion
determined by a raw, imperfect accident...
initiates the inquisition: how and when and why?

If moral is a story, if dictums teach the halfwit
how to live, if faith is such a blessing then
what purpose can we have for meddling with
oceans, measuring the sky, constructing theories,

making queries, rearranging heaven for
the everlasting, contemplative "I"?

* Send your self-addressed propositions to:
10001 Confusion Ave. Suite RU4- Real
Backlogged, Rhode Island 77660

Ken and Barbie

We draw the shades to hide our clutter.
The dogs one black, another yellow
dream against the floor, clicking paws
across the hardwood; the sound of brooms

sweeping out a cellar.

You remind me to check the doors as if
what we've kept secret here, could return
and rob us of more; my right hand
purple-grey- a dead man, a careful thief

twist the locks repeatedly. Tonight,

there is no wind or heat, through
the skylight, a willow-fingered palm
slices through moonlight, a knife
through cheese or wet hair falling heavily

over a naked shoulder. I feel you

somewhere in the house preparing
for disappointment, drawing up
your knees, a uterine heartbeat slowing,
slowing progressively, an urban disease,

a neoplastic amnesia, like me-

a synthetic doll who lowers
the shades, locks the doors, ignores
the missing pieces, designed to fit in
perfectly, flawlessly, beneath you.

Like a Saint

I'll sit here for hours, the effort
of conjuring the dead or the words
to describe belonging or
how this relates to loss-

is an act of endurance.

I know, from experience what
it feels like to have your head
held forcibly under water,
to understand commitment

strength of the arms
that force you there,

the inevitable stillness
of muscles gasping for air,
how clear and spacious
vision becomes when you cease
to resist, to exist; the silence

split-open and weightless.

Belonging: to be part of
a moment that borrows
its meaning from touch,
from care, even, from rage

of another living being-

and loss? Could it be
leaving down long, white
stairs, forgetting, forgiving,

believing?

Finding Oz

I dreamt a room, a house,
a family of five; I was
daughter and mother.
There was no way out,
I wondered- who
had let us in?

Every floor, familiar shame,
in one, I died a virgin,
another, filled with mis-fit
keys that opened nothing.
Where were the gifts
that I'd been given?

In this house, time grew
hallways we traveled in,
our bodies moved but walls
remained unchanged; a furnace
never lit but stocked with coal,
our matches damp and spent.

When we escaped, my mother
and I,we bargained for the same,
brother, father, sister, lover
all fell asleep in a poppyfield
knee-deep and rising when
my dream began to rain...

ping, ping, ping of
the alarm clock ringing.

Waking Up in Kansas

You begin by assuring yourself, I can
tell this story... how easily the hill
sloped down to the garden like a giant
breast, the way sky hovered
over it- purple and swollen,

the sound of the windmill's
three-jointed- fingers, steel
bones glued together by rust,
the squash vines of Kansas
coiled up in its gut, the bells

of its flower tinted black...
in the skull of night, eyes
of clouds rolled back, the whites
flickering anemic fierflies
caught in a child's trap,

the smell of root, worm-warm
soil, clovered and moist as steam
rising up from the drinking well or
ghost-like haze pluming the pond
lifting its dark, heavy face.

A single cock, a rooster whose feather
shines and glows morning's favorite
colors- yellow, white and silvered-gold,
proud and dusty and old as the windmill
that woke him up... begins to crow.

Lie Still, Awake

Outside the door
the rain
found the dog
sleeping; what good
is pleasure
to the storm?

The Seal

That year, four and twenty
seals washed up on the shore
poisoned by algae. We found
a suede-brown female, yet swinging
her muscular throat as if to warn
what was left of her world-
nature is large and unforgiving.

Wider now, the horizon, bleak,
surprised and evenly matched
by her petition- like the jawbone
of some great, dessicated whale
opening and closing to the rhythm
of sea, stared back and agreed
this was not beauty, this ending,

this slow and graceless breach
from living. When her body became
an emptied shell and her eyes,
startled and dark and frozen
as a forest deer- we buried her
in a mound of stones and left
her there.

Go Quietly

You don't own
lonely, cruelty-

the price I've paid
for waking up

in a family
ruled by men.

How can you envy
a stranger's smile

when it mocks
your goodness

or steals
your little pills?

I am faithfully
welcomed

at the back door,
the last chair, while

the final star seen
gleaming from

the bottom
of the stairs, says:

go quietly, go
immensely.

Ursprache

Like a slit in the hood,
a dwarf's eye, the shape
of an eel swimming

sideways; its always
troublesome

to describe
the simple things.

When I say "this is
my flaw, my broken skin"
the body is emptied,

the fluid spills out
and dissolves

like salt
against porcelain.

To say "my worry
is splinter, a sting
in my veins" is to know

the primitive,
unqualified words

are the words
that will teach me

how to explain
the truest things.

Foretoken

At 4 a.m. it happened again
the drumbeat swiftly, loud-
a single wretched sound rushing
through cold-shouldered pines,
the sleeping woods to pound
against my window.

Now, the night lays down
its secret sadness at my door,
a gift to those who've dreamed it-

the sleepless owl, snow-covered hills
and I, awakened in the near-white
streak of morning.

Happy New Year, Honey!

I've tried to be honest,
even brief like a comb
missing a few plastic teeth-

still functional.

It's all about
what you have left
to give, not how

or why.

Sure, I made promises;
I can remember two
or three of them-

I believed.

Too bad you were listening
and God; that's the other
problem with resolutions-

losing them.

So this year, I've decided
to stay simple and focused
like the proverbial deer

in the headlights...

let's just pray
you're not the one
driving the pick-up.

Jeremiad

Now I know,
there are blacker
things than sadness;

the departure of my shadow
steaming in the light
that wounds it,

the recall of a life
too eager to remove
itself from brilliance,

the stubborn
embers of a flame-

now I see the emptiness
of silence, how it drills
meaning through my bones.

What is joy
and who can find it
hidden in the soul?

For now, I listen
to the roses, wait
for signs of my extinction...

a guest whose invitation
is a road, a door, a mirrored
vision of estrangement

like words that
will be written
on my stone.

Prosopopoeia

My stories, you've heard
and sometimes, during storms,
I speak them again, to remind you
of how we were formed-

this is constancy.

In a rusted tin pail
we set by the door,
rainwater collects
like thickened, black oil-

that is tolerance.

And swallows, without grief
or joy, sit stoic and silent
in the water-logged boards
dormant as dusk-

this is conviction.

When morning arrives, pale
as a girl, the world becomes
glistening hills and spirited
open-mouthed birds; this

is adoration.

Sirens (draft)

Fore-warned, of sails
aflutter, fluttering.
Hurry! the river,
its sleepless flesh,

directionless,

must find
the water's edge.

Of accent, ocean's
clear,symbolic voice,
a moon,a sunken ship,
a tomb and this-

who can bear
my sadness?

Sea-hair roped,
bone-colored
wood,yellowed ash
of marigold and wind

the strength
of bulls,

spiraling wings
of feathered foam,
the bright, blue
darkness

that sings like
Phorcys daughters

calls you home.

The Rock

The sands lie down;
a towering rock
the darkness of a house

becomes my heart
in the cradle of sea.

A great hand or
some will against
my own is pulling,

cracking, crushing
bones like an axe

against a tree.

Wind, the ghosts
of sky, the endless tide-
keepers of a thousand

miles above, around me
show little sympathy

for a mountain's child.

These veins within
the stone, the heat
that melts to foam,

break the waves
that haunt me...

assure that I remain
a standing force,
though, separate from

the distant shore
that owns me.

Anamnesis

What you remember
your remembering-

the wake
of a plough

churning
clay fields,

seeds slipped
sequentially

in rows; further
down still...

cool of
the worm

shifting
the soil,

releasing
the fever

of a fiery
core.

The Hunter's Wife

A woman's chore
is to mend
the clothes
and scrub them
clean; the men
carve the hunted

beast

cleaving it
joist to joist.

A dress I make,
the world I sew
button to hem
like eyelids,
like a perfect
voice

I sing

of splitting seams,
of removing pins.

Between the eyes
of mountains, the hips
of hills, the deer
move graciously then
disappear; the hunters'
aim loosened, torn

like stitches
I have pulled.

The Frozen Woods

I do not move
as often as I should,
snow-laden gate
that bends-
a shattered ray
through water.

To be silent,
or transfixed,
a lesson in loss;
a wall of fog
broken, dispersed
like spoiled milk.

I know what terrifies
the screeching owl,
the shadowed wolves-
stillness of
the frozen woods

and when the breath
of mist and rain
becomes uneven,
labored in
the chill

grey mountains
lay as quiet
as they should.

The Abacus

Breach the interrupted span
come down, shaken...on guard.
A number not unlike a name
is written on the bedframe-

counting each quill wilting
from the shoulder's ridge.

Higher up the ceiling
a flaw- a moth painted
into the flat faux universe
that the landlord built

a reminder: your wings
will not secure escape.

In the evening when
vision surpasses vision
quiet, crisp, clear as
Medusa's face; fixes stars

in their tracks, bends back
light in unatural horror;

the neighbor upstairs
pounding nails into walls
as if to barricade night
outside in its cage-

a reminder of counting
the stages of dying,

each withering quill,
every wasted breath
or nail. You lie still,
memorize the numbers

tatooed on the wood...
the score of feathers

fallen.

Care, Caution, and Good Judgment (Skipping Stone)

Carefully choose
the even, faceless stone;

study the middle of its weight
train between the wrist and hip,

determine the narrow space
of a skies jaw bone, how

to feed it.

Consider the balanced wave
the fidelity of its surface,

then

throw like hell.

Drowning In

... the weight of water,
algaed pillars of a moor,
a finger torn to bone;

a boy diving in the lake
touching the bellies
of wood-ribbed boats,

his small hand
anchored there-
a misplaced ghost.

A turquoise ring,
the skeleton of a dog
grown out of shore-

what's left of its hair
matted and soft
and the smell of sea.

A Version of Repair

I would say to you
without a spur of panic
"My effort is a useless page,
a cracked and leaking cup,

a leveled synagogue".

All day I read the clamor
of glamorous things, a version
of contemporary dancing, words
formed like wings and fury,

ecstatic bodies where

the young, loud princes
compete for immortality,
the most precious winnings-
the multi-colored coat

of fame and season.

In a million years my words
will count for this: a seat
on the whitest horse, a silver coin,
reconciliation, a clear voice-

a ticket for repair.

In the corner of the page
a captive monkey stares;
in a forest fire there is
no time for speaking-

so I prepare a new,
unspoiled manuscript.

Diving Deep

For eight
and a half

minutes

it is impossible
to hold your breath-

my life
is like

that

some times.

The Oyster

The day is my shell;
don't rush me.

Here is where
the pearl is born,

tendered exactly.

A speck of reason
is worth far more

than a towering
giant...

how you overshadow
the small things
I examine

My mouth is filled
with promise,

my throat, a vessel
of strong feeling

and when I
smile the world

becomes
a moon.