the girl’s braids flew around her head like:
(a) helicopter blades.
(b) she’d been slapped.
No one would ever know its true beauty and calmness,
the setting sun across an arctic lake, unless it is witnessed.
As speckled day owls, brants, and mergansers float in the sunset.
Notes in staccato igniting instrumental waves of burning wood,
a fiery spark over and speck dust played in harmonics,
as a coot hovers over a brook dives in comes back with a fish.
and I knew that he knew
that I knew he knew I knew—
especially once summer had come,
and the sun stayed up till we had
nothing else to do but wish
and wonder about fine sistas
Even if you can only faintly hear
the eighth narrative told in the corner
of the babbling wooden-slat house,
that is enough leftover hooligan grease
for the gods with killer whale ganglia.
The cats and houseplants are his to feed and water
and the sunflower blooming in the driveway’s border
of weeds. He drew our backyard to scale,
using map symbols, sent off to have it declared
an official wildlife refuge, left a good-night
note on my pillow, written in Egyptian hieroglyphs.
last year on my way up through Santa Fe
I made a detour and drove by a house of my design
the season’s first snow on the ground,
smoke rising out of the fireplace chimney
It was wartime
Daisies and Maisies in overalls
Worked in factories
Snapping gum in their teeth
Ration spunk
To keep them going
Puerto Rico was created when the pumpkin on top of
The turtle burst and its teeming waters poured out
With all mankind and beastkind riding on the waves
Until the water drained leaving a tropical paradise.