8.11.09
My window tells me
The earth is frozen.
I make my pitiful rounds
On the screen again
And again.
When I get tired,
I change screens
And somehow start again.
I do not know why I do this.
Each page smooth and untouched
Like the snowy surface
Of a magazine or peanut butter jar
And it feels like magic
But wrong, idle magic
And I can’t help but wonder
What it was like outside
Today.

8.14.09

I kissed her ankles
Her small, delicate feet
Trembled with pleasure

I kissed her quadricep
Her flecked belly
Tensed and sighed

I stand in the doorway half naked
She sits in a tomboy pose
Clasping her shin

I recall a picture our eyes locked
Her hair is up but falling
I am enclosed

St. Louis

Not always,
but often you’ll find
gardens of shadows
on regretful French streets
a herd of chimneys
in the distance
the smell of a funeral
boiling in the sun.
Again and again this sky
shows me some new emptiness.
My own eyes obscure it.
Looking out the open vestibule,
from Frontenac towers,
Masonry Pillars,
bagpipe plains,
smokestacks of Soulard;
The town is a million splendid views
No one is allowed to see.
The evening will be haunted
by abandoned warehouses
toothless, back-alley grins
amber tiger-lily dances
on the sidewalks
prowlers loud and alone
the empty pubs and pizzerias.
Life passes from stall to stall
flush the blood with the ash
like it was never there
and pray to god
or whomever is there
it will pass by morning.
Take the woman and her babycart
Circling the poorly lit pond,
The fish follow her.
To the south an exchange of smiles.
Take two old men
muttering of miracles,
wheezing in the night.

Wake

We stand in a barren grassless
plot of soil gaping
before a hole where my grandmother
lays. Our brown hands
toss dirt and trinkets into the hole
for the Great Spirit to carry into the sky.
We take turns shoveling the dirt,
sweating, passing
the shovel onto someone else.

Cub Fur

The cubs meander
In and out of the den
Like halfway hermits
Never stepping far
From their dank sanctuary
Sniffing and pawing fresh soil
Canvassing the nearby dale
That is the world in their eyes
Starry, strategizing;
Retreating docile
To the comfort of dark
At the slightest wind
of what they deem danger.
In cold nights they bundle
A sprawled heap of limbs,
Knit with heads and paws
Their fur as yet unfrayed,
Swaying with their breath.