Saturday morning farmers’ markets
where girls in bandanas and tanktops
talk to you as if you were one of them
a groupie, a belle du jour.
Marinate fruit by first excavating
the core. With berries, consume
the juice first, then the kernel.
Seconds matter like days
full and slow, our rhythms
preserved in mason jars.
Names flower after blackberries.
Posted in Uncategorized
Soften the sun
close the shears
dust tumbles out.
A circus performance
of molecules
twisting and releasing
as rays open
the space in fuzzy
lines, forgiving
stains and tears
in the fabric
damp with dew.
Posted in poetry
What would it take to be invited and if we were so
blessed, would the invitation be embossed in jewel
colors, the lettering slick to touch, tasting of cinnamon
coffee, sealed with the image of a hawk, ruby red?
. . .
We would wear school-girl uniforms, green and blue
pleated skirts, wool even in the flush of summer
in Southeast Europe almost to Africa. Pressed
together in the streets, sweat pouring from our eyes
. . .
as we follow with telescopic lens the golden statue,
halo of stars, blue train whipping as she ascends
just above our heads, eyes skyward
though we imagine her glancing down.
. . .
Once more each August, in Madagascar, Croatia
East Timor, Cyprus, Poland, New Brunswick, Haiti
(in New York, parking is free — the streets in reclamation)
we are suspended in this hallowed time, even the uninitiated.
Posted in poetry, Uncategorized
Come in from the cold and wrap your hands
around a cup of jasmine green tea
. . .
the table for two is free though too near
the door we fear, leaving on woolen hats
. . .
waiting for the tea to steep before pouring
as the sextet just in pulls back heavy
. . .
curtains to see if the laquered tables
slide together so three can sit in a row.
. . .
Everyone chooses noodles it seems for the soup
for the steam and the salt, for the bowl.
. . .
We try not to hear but the tables are near
voices carry, we eavesdrop reticently.
. . .
Without much to say, we bow our heads
eat clumsily with chopsticks, savoring while slurping.
. . .
Hungry from the cold, heating up now as others talk
of chopping wood and children leaving, flying home to Idaho.
Posted in poetry
Ice can be monotonous from a distance–
crystals merge into a plane of white
sharper than the sky, particles colder
than air. Here we are in this frozen
land, uncharacteristic, under
cover, the land and us.
Remember the bay tree, limbs big
as pipes to a small child
looking for inscape. To escape
observation by others in a land of
ochre and moss, rough and spongy
against a bony spine.
* * *
To go out in the ice-sketched snow
make indentations of form against
form, a footprint to be filled or erased
a mark or measure of whom or what
we used to be, a substance
or other, impressions recovered.
Posted in poetry
Not any blue chandelier but this dusky Thursday
milky blue unlit window display.
When I return to the corner
for a second look I’m certain this Medusa
of glass will be gone or transformed.
Such a mirror I held up, such measured
resistance, such semblance.
How could you have known all along
while I skirted the boundaries, not
realizing the water right here was
glacier fed, mercury free, warm
enough to run fingers through
stretching the surface.
Posted in poetry
I was talked into this by the children
convinced it would help with moving on
as if move necessitates onward
especially if the feared directions
are backwards or sideways.
What about not moving at all
I said amidst strained stares
what about a sitting class
or a class in staring out the window?
Nobody laughed or even glanced–
as if I weren’t in the room, sitting
near the cat on our own formerly
stylish green suede sofa, faded from sun
and use. What is the purpose of thorny,
I asked, to appear to have thorns
to pretend thorniness, with what purpose
if there are not thorns? What purpose indeed?
These thorns I have never possessed.
Posted in poetry
Campos de Luz Crianza 2006, Garnacha, product of Spain
Posted in poetry
There’s an island in the Hudson
River, close to Manhattan
closer to Brooklyn — former Coast
Guard station, landfill, photographer’s
disneyland — sold by the U.S. government
to the city of New York for $1.
Strands of Chestnut trees thrive
alongside Oaks, ancient East Coast
monikers. For decades, no one has
seen the island; it wasn’t lost
just bypassed, not in use.
Les Hikikomori
I’ve been reading about Vermeer
especially the painting of a girl
sleeping. What are we to make
of the man looking over her
shoulder, the one we do not
see (he’s been painted over)?
It occurs to me he could
be Vermeer, a little too
close to this one, had to
shut himself in.
Posted in poetry
The judge of the sea has a watery
seat, mighty Poseidon swims
from sandbar to sandbar
hangs from knots of coral
reef, dives with the Minke whale
practices echolocation with eels.
We no longer swim underwater–
even in pools–for the sake of ears
the useless childhood
shaking and stomping of feet.
We sit instead on the concrete
lip, tracing currents with our toes
imagining the perfect dive
water parting before us
no one watching, no applause
just the sun glinting, warming the tiles.
Posted in poetry
