When The Circus Boat Sank

When the circus boat sank

there in the sound,

both schedule and physical limitations were suspended

and everything slowed down.

Children dove to us as falling leaves

with apples in their mouths for our horses; 
manes like the arms of women whose chests hum with lullabies 

remembered from the drowsy south.

The tiger and I dance as months go by

and rescue loses meaning, light its immediacy.

One child has kept with us, here,

and looks to me for starfish and story.

"Once upon a time," I say to her,

"there was blue tiger, blue water, drowsy you, dreamy me." 

And so the story goes,

ever blue,

ever more,

everlastingly.

_____ 

for Sunday Muse #4

The Other Sister

Born in a house of wind,

I leaned hard, a little animated stalk.

In a house of rain and mud,

Mother Rot stuffed endings in every word.

The Other Sister, the One Denied,

set the fields on fire

as signal and salvation.

Catching her scent on the gale,

I ran hell-for-Sunday

into the burning wild.

_____

A 55 for my BFF.

Night Support

You will argue that it's none of my concern

who you embrace,

what fruit your mouth accepts and expresses

as the pulp and sweetness of your desire.

Doesn't sick soil poison every leaf?

Doesn't richness bless every bloom?

I am the Quantifier and Keeper of Carnal Particulars.

The muscle of his shoulder beneath your cheek

 two Novembers ago?

Bin 47, lot 5.

The dusky sound of her woodsmoke voice

on a bridge above the river on a night last July?

Shelf 21B, Warehouse 2, Compound A.

You just wait.

Let that grating emptiness come over you when you're alone

remembering his paint-stained fingers

or the caramel curl of her hair.

You'll need to retrieve it then,

more than blooms need stems,

sharp as a outcasts need warm mercy.

There I'll be,

rolling my cart to space 4G7 in the auxiliary bay,

requisitioning the very thing you need,

sending it out,

replacing it,

maintaining inventory and your equilibrium.

I'm good at what I do

because I understand need and weakness and lack.

Envelope G, in file B7GK4

should contain your wicked smile,

the angle of your teeth, your lips,

your tongue,

and the 27 catalogued effects they had on my dissolving bones.

Inventory shows them on-hand,

but though I search your name, 

your skin,

your scent,

I can't find any particle of you;

just a ringing emptiness

and this paltry job to fill it.

______ 

for "job title" at Toads.

When I was in the USAF, I worked night support in a warehouse, finding aircraft parts for delivery to the flight line. I drew on that, for this.

The Marxist Coffee Mug

The Marxist coffee mug

hid itself in a packing crate,

deep in the excelsior.

Swinging from a dock crane

above ship and below blue summer sky,

the Marxist coffee cup left the bombs and arrests of its homeland

in favor of the welcoming warmth of Castro's Cuba.

Class struggle dissolves

when conga and brass trumpet combine

in the rising air of sultry evenings.

The parrot's wing is 

red for passion,

yellow for unity

and green for plenty, by the hand of the noble proletariat. 

Imagine the alarm of the Marxist coffee mug

when, a day after arriving and being thieved from a government-owned warehouse,

it found itself in the hand of a woman named Consuela

who smashed it over the head

of her unfaithful lover Miguel.

When you dream,

when you love,

and most of all when you take up a cause,

remember the Marxist coffee mug.

Realize how closely the bones inside your flesh

resemble ceramics,

and the white around the sideways eyes

of your fellow traveler,

El Noble Loro de la Revolucion. 

_____

("The Noble Parrot of the Revolution")

 

Pottery Of Ancient Cultures

In your eyes,

the pottery of ancient cultures.

From your smile,

sunspots

that leave vervet monkeys sitting, perplexed

At the breath-thinness of a peasant blouse

reclining between August stars 

and the skin of your shoulder. 

They find, in every stitch and design,

a catalog of figs, and vertigo.

They are drunk

on the ferment of your lazy accent.

At the Museum of Utilitarian Wonders,

I find

the pottery of ancient cultures.

A brochure contains the beginnings of nests

for birds who do not exist--

vervets who do not exist--

drunk under a sun hidden by clouds.

I clasp ancient ornaments onto your wrists,

your throat,

your ankle,

but your body is clouds.

You cannot accept these gifts, or anything else--

Just rain,

love,

colors,
reversed images,

that do not exist except in the singular attentions

of these useless lines.

_____

If, In The Morning

If, in the morning

you wake alone,

it is because it has rained while you were sleeping--

drops suspended from pear blossoms

like fruit in dreams.

If, in the morning

you miss me,

let our love be blackbirds' feet

wrapped around stems of marsh grass.

In afternoon, the sliced loaf

drips with blackberry jam. 

_____

A 55 for my BFF.

Contained

"The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration." ~ Frida Kahlo

As a small child,

I caught my mind in a jar.

All day, under the sun in the grass blades,

I was monarch,

dandelion,

daddy longlegs. 

That night,

terror held its regularly scheduled circus.

There were lids on every eyelash,

and glass between me and morning.

The tigers said, "Hide in our mouths."

The great ape said, "Hide in my hand."

In their eyes, jars of murder.

People smile and say,

"I wish I could spend an hour inside your head."

Inside, Bengal and Silverback.

Outside

--even still--

monarch,

dandelion,

daddy longlegs

and my face against the glass.

_____ 

for Susie's goose at Toads. 

Image: "Ophelia" by Antoine Auguste Ernest Hebert