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A woman with nighttime in her soul,
I am captivated by

the way a golden moon greens
a blue night sky

the dark-sharpened scent of a
honeysuckle bush
the warm, honeysuckle breezes
that fondle the dark

floating pools of candy-green grass,
uprooted from reality by artificial lights

the cheesecloth clouds drawn
across the mouth of the moonlight
filtering it soft and milky
into my thirsty eye

the way a star can wink at you

the ageless glimmer of Venus,
crown-jewel of the night

the night
that makes me wish
to press my back into the earth so my eyes
may travel upward into the deep
mystery of the dark

After a Picked-Over Meal

sunset over now,
I watch your arms
wade through the shallow blackness
beyond the deepening window
to gather up the scraped-bare plates.

if you come inside
bring in my empty glass
and yours too:
i've filled the pitcher now with something
cool and sweeter
we'll drink it before bed

and sleep a careless night
away

I'll wake you in the morning--
if you'll only come in now--
together, from the garden
we'll watch the mountains happen
in the sunrise

Glutton

Just how many times have I stuffed my face
with these unripe loves like bitter dark chocolates,
backhanded pleasures
biting back at my overeager tongue?

I'll end up paying for so much indulgence.

And just as the obverse of ecstasy
is a satiated disappointment,
I flip over another likely coin
to find it blank, too smooth too shiny:

your heart is a cipher,
And I begin to think my own heart too chapped
to leave out flapping
in the wind any longer

Past hopes that flew too high
are waxen cicatrices clinging brittle
to a weary tablecloth
The feast is over, no dessert

And endless self-recriminations in my mouth
savor better than the plain, unsweetened truth
of dis-self-illusionment

Poem at 30,000 Feet

flying on a cloudy day
rising in an airplane up and away from the anchor
of land
rising through dense, damp white before

seeing the sun

feeling its heat knowing
that people miles below shiver
under lowering gray

watching the sun revealed
through a veil of water vapor

light spills upon the floor of clouds
reflected white as on the surface
of a still, morning lake

your craft rocked roughly by the fists
of the fussing wind currents

above, the blue that fades to black
where the imagination dusts in stars

below, rolling hills, peaked ridges,
smooth plains all white and soft gray,
the landscape of the sky
and somewhere beneath this new ground
falls snow.
a second blanket covering
the distant memory
of the frozen earth.

Ambition-less

It is easy to consider
staying small like this forever,
continually cresting molehills
and imagining them arduous,
planting my pen and scrap paper flag
and reveling in the dirt-speck joy,
raising my thimble cup
to drink a rain drop toast
to tomorrow's triumphs.

I will not think of tomorrow yet,
when I must slide down
the other side to slog
through shallow, mindless flats
toward that hazy peak I can
just make out on the horizon,
the one my talents may never
grow large enough to scale,
the one I might never approach
if I stay small like this forever.

The Great Unknown

How we abuse you, letter x,
stretching you further and further
beyond your sturdy
little frame,

for here you are "ks"
as in sex,
the association that makes
you titillating.
Yet you slip from our grasp
into "z"
while initiating xylophones
in the memories of children
or into "gz"
ungainly center of luxury
to which you lend a certain
elegance.

The Chinese call you "hs"
when they bother with you at all.
The French think you are pretty enough
to be seen and not heard,
while the Spanish aspirate
you to the very edge of "h."
But the ancient Greeks
who engendered you
named you "chi,"
hence your link to Christianity,
crosses, Chi-Rhos,
X-tians and X-mas.
There you have become great
slashes criss-crossing life's map
to indicate a hidden treasure.

Sometimes you are simply past tense.
Over and done with,
last vestige of former relationships.
At others, you multiply yourself
to make t-shirts cover more
and porn stars cover less,
both concealing mysteries
and revealing them.

Long-suffering little
letter x, you steadfastly continue
to mark the spot
while you yourself remain
unknown,
eternally unsolved
in the algebra
of everyday language.

Postcards from Ma Baker

Howdy, Beulah! Long time no see.
Hope this finds you well.
Wish you were here.
(Is this enough?)

Happy birthday, Beulah! Fifty already?
How's the weather over there?
Wish you the best.
(Is this enough?)

Sorry I missed your call, Beulah.
I've been so busy lately.
Wish I had time to talk.
(Is this enough?)

See you on the flipside, Beulah! Sayonara!
Hope you had a nice life!
Catch you next time!
Bon voyage!
It's been swell, Beulah dear.
(Is this enough?)

From Their Side

I'm feeding some kids, skin brown
as mine or much darker,
some of whom have mothers
who care about them just like mine,
who live in houses just as worn or more so,
just as infested with shameful insects,
just as tense with the uncertainties of need.
I'm feeding some kids just like me.

Yet when I set before them
the carefully considered meal,
fettucine (al dente)
in a rich alfredo sauce,
their noses wrinkle, puzzled, turn up
as they eye the creamy substance
and accuse me of offering them
a pan full of mayonnaise.

Could those few thousand dollars
that divide our parents' paychecks
or their deeper shade of brown
or their street-flavored dialect
really stand so tall between us?

The alfredo sauce only exists
on my side of the wall.
From the other side, their side,
my magnificent feast looks
like the efforts of a madwoman
who ruins good pasta
by slathering it with mayonnaise.

One Year Later

I do not know whether
it is your hair like slanted sunlight
or your unfathomable
hot, blue eyes
or the intimate pink
of your tapering fingers
or the long, well-carved
line of your body
that I keep finding
echoed
in every other man.

All I know is that
when I let my eyelids down
I imagine a far-off paradise
where the men have dark
hands with stubby digits
whose tentative touch
does not call to mind
the lingering pressure
of your fingertips.

The Stranger's Voice

Only a constant reminder
of the possibility
of happiness
stands in the gap,
fills the interval
between me
and a sadness
like the absolute silence
of outer space,

a sadness that came from nowhere
and was dispelled by no one.

Through the shrouding stillness of grief
I saw the good things of the world
but was not in the world with them.
So distant
were the little dogs who serenade
my alley strolls, the shrubs that trembled
with the chattering of nervous flocks,
the neighbors' white-skinned cypress
and its leaves that shivered
and crumbled and then waxed
green again.

Then across the silence
like a smothering blanket
struggled a stranger's voice
a voice that flamed along
the edges of the stagnant air
mutely reminding me
of all these things
that live in the breathing
spaces beside me.

Only the pulsing presence
of this voice
from beyond my grief
saves me from sliding
away from life
and out of the world again.

Brought to Earth

from Daniel 4

- 1 -
At night, while he dreams
between silken sheets
an unearthly voice
calls him a mighty tree
scratching the floor of heaven itself,
demanding to enter within.

How good to survey himself,
the splendid king,
chest puffed, eyes cast down
to catalogue his wide kingdom.
Precious metal limns his temples.
Inside, the banquet table strains
to bear the weight of a feast,
and all his human odors are masked
by the sumptuous scent
of costly fragrance.
How can he not be struck
by his own glory?

That searing voice
makes its devastating decree,
"Cut down the tree. Strip off its leaves.
"Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven."

- 2 -
The king must be put to pasture.
His loyal advisers
set him to graze
discreetly on the palace lawns.
Seven years the man is whittled down
to a brute animal base,
his body wet every morning
with new heavenly moistures.
He feasts on grass,
nurtures his body with green,
runs on all fours,
scrapes the earth
with gnarled claws,
digs down deep
into the rich black stuff

until he finds it in himself
to spit the bitter confession
that he is merely a man,
that his glory
was never his own.

- 3 -
As though an eye had blinked
away those wild years,
he finds himself enthroned again,
restored to his former regal
trappings,
yet seated on his golden throne
somehow the dew of morning
now seemed a worthier crown,
the simple grass a banquet
more well-appointed,
the fragrant soil
a more flattering perfume
than any he could find
within the palace walls.

At My War-Crimes Trial

When the stealthy flea special forces
finally overrun my remote hide out
and drag me away, handcuffed,
to put me in the dock,
when the speck-sized prosecutor
reads the charges against me
and the bereft family members
point their hairy legs at me and moan,
I will plead, "Nolo contendere.
"Yes, I have committed flea genocide."

When the tiny flea wives with tears tell
how they sent their tiny flea husbands
out to gather blood, never to return
and the wiggling, weeping larvae
wonder why daddy had to leave,
when the mothers of murdered sons
invoke the full force of the law,
I will sit, the hollow-eyed accused,
to hear the tale of their loss.

With curling, black limbs the impassioned
prosecutor will grip the jury box rail
and regale the wide-eyed jury
with the story of that night,
how one million five hundred
thirty-nine thousand six hundred and seventy-
two innocent, hardworking fleas
were massacred, how the loved ones left
behind have no bodies to bury
because I washed them away down the drain
with the brackish run-off
of the kittens' bath.

The beady-eyed judge will shake his head
as the lawyer relates that after the slaughter
as I cleaned my bloody hands,
dozens of the slick, black
carcasses clung to my skin.
Not an eye in the courtroom will be dry
as at last, the prosecutor turns to me,
demands to know if I can defend
my heinous actions, my crimes
against flea-kind.

Silent, I will shake my head,
for what more will there be to say?
This is war.
There are no excuses.
It was my blood or theirs.

Encounter in the Alley

Those insubstantial-looking
little filaments of legs
caught me off-guard.
Butterflies are airy things,
ephemeral
and light
like perfect little metaphors
for the beauty of early spring,
so achingly brief,
so fleeting,

but this one lay bedraggled
in the dirt.
Tattered wings
torn by a hungry beak.
Too broken to rise from the ground,
nothing awaited it but death.
When I reached down to it,
the slender threads
of butterfly legs
gripped my finger
like a first time skydiver
afraid of the drop
into the unknown.

Why did I bother lifting it?
Above, a fluttering cloud
of its brethren
trembled in the trees
too high for me.
Too far for us to reach.
We settled for a low shrub.
Weary, the creature shuffled
toward a leaf where I left it.
I walked away
because my fumbling human
hand was helpless
to save this life.

My Roommates Have Set Up a Mouse Trap

It could break my toe:
a small thing
if only by comparison
since it will break the mouse's life.
Or was that the smaller thing?

Be it ever so small, my metatarsal
is a clumsy oaf to a slender mouse vertebra,
and the mouse's calamity
comes without a hospital bill, a splint or a limp.
No weeks of recovery,
just a squealing trip to the dumpster,
maybe a spritz of carpet cleaner,
and the price
of a new trap.
Because no price
is too high to pay
for a clean house.

Beyond the Ring of Lights

Humans are the oddest animals
in nature. Here's why: fire.
Other animals, spurred by instinct,
the elder sibling of intelligence,
know to flee in fear from the hungry
flames. Not us.

We stare at it, reflect it from eyes
too weak to see at night, play with it,
touch it, know its heat on our melting skin.
We want more and so we create
and feed the little toasty beast
until it outgrows the need for our care.

Of course, we know it is a gift
from a god, come down from heaven.
(Our ancestors neglected to mention
that it came down on a stormy night
and in the form of lightning)
And when it came, how we savored
the crackling beauty of it, the dizzying
heat that burned our worries away.

How eagerly we nursed the first
fluttering ember into a weapon
we could wield, as though we
ourselves were the mighty god,
against all the things
we couldn't conquer:
the dark, the cold, our hunger,

and the other animals
who knew enough to cower
far from our glowing eyes
in the darkness
beyond the ring
of the wild, dancing lights.

Whisper Sweet Nothings

Tell me you love me
for the size of my breasts
for the swaying of my hips
for the sheen of my hair.

Tell me you want me for my body,
not my bulging brain.

Tell me you love me
for my even, gleaming teeth
for their bright white
for my supple lips.

Tell me one thing and one thing only
is all you're after.

Tell me an irresistible force
has taken you over.
You will catch me up.

We will ride love
up and out and across.
We will be moonlight
on an open plain
or sunlight in the glowing,
green canopy.
We will conquer pain
and death and fear.

Tell me the truth,
or just tell me what I want to hear.

Holy and Set Apart

My friends had lives in high school, Mom,
though you think I did too just because you let me
go to retreats, devotionals, service projects,
lunch at the Dragon Palace
after Sunday morning church,
and if I was lucky, you granted me
a friend or two after school
to watch her parents' satellite TV
or study at her house.
Sometimes I even got to spend the night
if it was Friday, that blessed day
with no school or church in the morning,

but I lived in another world, Mom,
holy
and set apart
from the place where my friends
got their first kisses,
their first heartbreaks,
their first sips of alcohol,
where they had their first sex
and said yes or no to drugs
and learned how to move to a beat
and learned who they were.

Mother,
I had pen and paper, a fantasy life
where my own wishes ruled.

I had a good imagination,
and they had lives.

Running with the Small Dogs

Small dogs,
small, frenzied dogs,
slender dachshunds, crazed chihuahuas,
tenacious terriers
and moist-eyed min-pins,
fearsome,
ferocious,
innocent
of the calm and steady natures
of your larger brethren.

Little, trembling dogs,
compensating for something?
There are people I could name
who crouch and growl
the same swaggering dance.

You leap, you shriek,
reveal sharp, tiny teeth
when I strut past so
boldly toeing the invisible
line of your domain

am I the highlight of your day?

When I defy your grand show,
dare to thrust my fingers
through the chain links
though your rising hackles warn me
will I get the angry, snapping teeth
or a swift, conciliating
tongue?

Ekphrasis: Upon Viewing a Portrait of the Poet Rumi

The famous man exhibited with pride
his brittle, white beard,
wrinkled cheeks hanging dry beneath
dim eyes,
a bent back seeming too weak even
to bear his shirt,
and I, embarrassed to see him like this,
thought, "Why not show him as he really was?"

Which made me step back from the portrait.
Which made me blush for myself.

Can we already be our true selves
while our cheeks are still full of blood,
our eyes sparkling and quick,
our heads crowned with rich color,
our bodies upright and strong
like the spare, steel frames
of a new construction site?

How can we be who we really are,
who we always were,
who we will always be in memory,
until the years have stripped away
all the bright things
that cling stubborn as shrink wrap
to our exteriors?

Body Pillow

There is a kitten,
one pound furry weight,
snuggled sweetly
in the heated niche
between my breasts,
that notch designed
it seems for nestling

like all the curves
of a feminine body,
cushioned for comfort,
lumpy
like a well-worn pillow.

Perhaps a man's head
or a child's round, naked face
will rest here someday.

Or should I conjure
another fantasy:
children who demand
a taut, toned belly
in which to bury their sobs
and a man who requires
that I let him cuddle up
to all my body's bones,
a nightmare world
that sometimes creeps
into my daydreams,
someone else's
broken wish.

For now, the kitten forgoes
complaint, stretches tiny legs,
kneads the soft skin,
lowers her head,
drifts into dreams again.