Mingling on the porch

thoughts dangle while they strangle

innocent children eating cereal

from Cambodia in sections of tears

trailing coughs apples spoken tomorrow

or never

watches on wrists that never turn to see the time

rings ringed by horseshoe ringers falling from the sky

slapping faces of teenagers from high above

trail.

Holmsbrook Park       

 The green heron balances
                on a fallen sycamore branch
                               at pond’s edge 

head thrust forward―
                an imperative
                                to cease our noisy wooing: 

his concentration hunched on minnows
                below the mossy fascia―
                                minute evening meal― 

when the cowbird, scavenger
                of wren nests, of silence,
                               drips his notes like 

black pearls                
                from a string
                               into the dusk.

how can I talk about the city

if I have never walked barefoot through her streets

and nicked my soles on broken bottles?

to bleed on her asphalt is the least I could do.

to bleed at her hands and across her thighs – only

then can I talk about the city.

how can I talk about the forest

if I have never been chased through his tangles?

if I have never let his roots and vines embrace my bare

bones, or let his sunlight kiss the lining of my viscera?

when I am dried and split by the sunlight and become

another hole in his ground, only

then can I talk about the forest.

how can I talk about my mother

if I have never broken myself from the inside out?

how can I talk about my father

if I have never chewed the callouses off my fingers

until they were soft and bloody?

how can I talk about my sisters

if I have never buried my feet in the soil and waited

to see what grows?

how can I talk about the moon

if I have only touched her out of fear?

and how can I talk about the sun

if I have only touched him out of lust?

Nobody tells you about
what all the elephant leaves
all over the house
as he travels from
room to room.
Piles of shadows
left behind to be
stepped over
and seen by visitors.
If more than one family member
goes to the home of another
the elephant goes with them.
“There he is.”
She would say to others
but they would not
acknowledge it
and then began to
forget that she was there.

You died shivering,
nestled in your own shit, 
curled tight between wing and concrete.

Someday, I will lie
prostrate beneath vinyl
ceiling tiles, hands clenched 
in sterile bedsheets–
I hope that God
fills me with the dignity
of a common sparrow. 

A couple ambles in after their day of foster parenting.
A lawyer brings his teenage son. Another couple
has been packing for a trip. Someone else showered after a run.
All have come to listen to a friend read from his new book.

In the back of the store, between cookbooks and children’s books,
a few rows of chairs face the wooden podium.
As the audience settles in, a late arrival collapses a molded plastic chair.
The loud crack sharpens our focus.

The space is tranquil as words pour out in measured phrases.
The poet banters and connects with his audience,
who smile and nod as they relink to their own experiences.
The poet dryly comments on his unchanging tone.
His friends murmur in appreciation.

A child curled up in a chair looks up from his book,
wondering at the serene mood of the store.
What secrets might he overhear?

After the reading, friends wait for a book, a signature,
congratulate the writer, linger in this marketplace
of heightened feeling.

We savor leaving our own bodies for a few moments
and entering into the mind and soul of another

before we slip back into our own day,
breathing a bit more deeply
into the inner space
of imagination.

She will fill her hat
with apples, red skins
kissing blushing in
healthy orchard ombres,

brown oxfords dew-laced
in the morning’s rug; an
invitation to tea at the
house down the road.

This is when houses
had names, neighbors
were tightly bound,
and letters commonplace.

When her hat becomes
a cornucopia, she will
turn and trot back to
the place where her bed is.

What happens now?
I was told to barricade
my interests, to build
a fort, hoard bottled water,
expect more than the worst.

Did my nightmares turn
into wishes, tattoo themselves
on the folds of my brain?
Was their resolve to exist
the source of the jinx
that wiped them into oblivion?

Laser of hope, bright light
of salvation, you only blind
those who cannot relinquish
the vindication of fear.

Spend all morning in the garden

weeding. Discover a way

to learn the name of all the weeds

and find out that some of them

are actually edible

although you pull them out.

Wonder in what ways

the weeds are more beneficial

than the flowers you plant:

local, non GMO,

obviously deer resistant,

attract bees.

Learn to love the clover

and the blue wild flowers

that have taken over our lawn:

they do more for the bees

and dig deeper

into the truth.

Praise the old couple

who let their garden grow wild,

unwittingly creating

a bee sanctuary,

weeds high to the hips.