Poet

 You asked me where I live.

I said I live in someone's garage behind a cat's ear.

I live inside a book where the pages smell of furniture polish.

I live at the edges of a memory of your aunt's house years ago.

I live on the surface of the sun and the appliances keep blowing up.

How about you?

You made a weird face and walked away curling your lip.

So, I answered for you.

You live in a graveyard and lick the frost off tombstones.

You live in a dog's mouth and bite the postman to taste blood.

You live in a penny on the train track and kiss the wheelsets.

You live in an auctioneer's gavel and catalog the successful bids. 

I say these things at your back. You're cute when you flinch.

___________

An almost total reworking of a poem from 2017.

When They Come For Us

 In a cramped gov't office

let our affair begin. 

I shall publish my passion

on an illegal press in the basement 

of an abandoned apartment complex

run by a nice foreign couple.

They had to flee

one step ahead of an inflamed mob,

but who now tend window boxes

and play cello duets.

Undress for me

like a chrysalis.

Speak to me

through a paper cup

and down a long string to my heart.

When they come for us--

having already disposed of the foreign couple--

we will sing,

our song enhanced by the ropes

around our throats,

Our dignity flying proudly

like a banner

or a prayer flag

or a balloon man at a car dealer

Until we kiss,

infuriating our tormentors

and made to dig our own graves beforehand

with love trinkets,

and our bare hands

as if making love or committing homicide.

Be Good

 You know,

how does a person get to that place?

I mean,

you're born,

someone loves you,

you find a place in the world and take each step until

there you are,

looking like GI Joe,

blowing the brains out of a smiling woman in a mom-car

then sauntering on

like a cool breeze.

Bad as it was

bad as the lies about it are

bad as the blood all over the stuffed toys and the airbag were,

the thing that made me finally cry, and scream,

and not know how to contain what I felt

was the "before" image

of the pet dog in the back seat.

How does someone get up in the morning,

slip into their army man bullshit,

and go blow away a smiling woman with her dog?

Jonathan Ross, how did you get there

with a gun in your hand,

her death on your head,

and a pet dog rolling away with its dead mom at the wheel?

Moon Rocks

 I've been thinking about moon rocks.

Are they dark gray like the walls of your bedroom?

Silver like the cuffs you gave me

   back when I loved chokers and cuffs?

These days I don't even wear scarves anymore.

What do moon rocks remember, when they think back?

Harsh white, like a cop's flashlight

   shining in the driver's side window of their memories?

Or endless darkness, a constant turning way

   the way you used to do once you'd decided to move on?

I wonder, what if I had built a circle of moon rocks

   on the table underneath a calendar for the year 1996?

A circle of salt keeps negative spirits at bay, but 

   I wanted you to stay. like a fluorescent star on a ceiling

or a passage in a gnostic gospel that only poets ever memorize.

What happened to the moon rocks, I wonder?

Are they the kissing cousins of spring tulips or bright pansies

   in some retired NASA wonk's side garden?

Or do they sit forever in a silent room like bus station ghosts,

   with no ticket home, feeling melancholy and missing it all

even though it was nothing but rocks and dust, bright light and darkness?

Circus Monkey

 Circus monkey, my old beau

it's like muffins and ovens and kitchen windows

to see you purse your lips, then stretch them

into a grin like a drunk or a Jaycee

but you don't drink, you never did.

You just rode your trike in the rain

when the circus was closed and the place was quiet

and there you'd be, like a planet in orbit in the dark.

I'd come by with my unsold tickets--

"I got a million of 'em!" like a rich widow on a spree. 

My wagon was as big as loneliness, bright as poppies,

and I'd say Bobo my baby, come on in.

You'd bounce on the bed, the cutest knuckle-dragger ever,

wearing overalls and a yellow tee like a cheerful janitor.

You liked me without make-up, my clown face soaped off

and my striped dress on the floor but my socks still on.

I have been around the world, Bobo, and at night

I lie there thinking of all the dumb things I've ever done.

Everybody said, "Girl, you can't love a monkey" so I left

but now I'm back with a cardboard suitcase and a ukulele.

Can't you stop pedaling and listen? Yes I see, no hands,

they're over your ears, your eyes, your mouth--

I get the picture. I'm sorry I hurt you, Bobo, I really am.

Okay, see ya,  Mr. Monkeyshines. I'm a dope,

and right after I mailed your three rings back, I knew it,

My clown car's waiting. Sure ya don't want that I should stay?

We could really knock over some milk bottles, you and me.

I know, that's for the marks. Bye, sugar pea. Ride proud.

The Call

 There is moonlight

on corn stubble

by the side

of a highway.

The moonlight

is a Gypsy

a profligate

reflected child

and yet it kisses

the corn stubble, denied all wandering

except into death

where it has already gone

by the side of the highway

which only runs

east or west

north or south

this way or that,

never varying,

like an office worker who has been there

for far too long.

My bones are a tarmac

that I have traveled on from earliest memory

to this very moment.

I am an old barn, gone gray.

No one touches me

and I touch no one

except with these poems.

I write them

to keep from screaming.

I wonder,

where does this road end?

Am I a cornhusk doll

in the hands of time,

or am I moonlight--

a messenger from a mother a million miles away?

I have been a child,

a partner,

a parent,

a friend,

a cautionary tale

and rain in the desert. 

Now I am tired

though I still love leaves

dogs,

sunrise,

books,

poetry.

If I lay down in the moonlight

between the old rows

near where the semi trucks rumble 

going here

or there

could I rise

into firmament?

Is all of this some kind of holy circle

or would I just turn to dust

inside my flannel and wool?

I will ask the corn.

I will ask the traffic.

I will ask the moonlight.

I will ask the night

that has wrapped me from cradle to grave

and if it answers

I may get up in the morning

and call you--

yes, it's me

and I am as surprised as you are. 

________

River Song

 Here is the river--

the river full of stones.

The mourning dove and the dawn

come to hear the river rush

over the many stones.

The hem of my skirt is wet

as I cross the icy river--

the river filled with stones.

I have come to cross in the quiet dawn

across the passing years and the rushing river.

I am a mother who was never mothered--

a river rushing over the many stones.

My child and the mourning dove of dawn

come to watch me crossing

the cold waters of the rushing river.

Here is the river, clear and cold

like the breath I borrow from every dawn.

I am a mother who was never mothered.

The icy river flows and is filled with stones--

I step carefully, feet numb, heart rushing like the river.