Outrageous, abundant woman,
spirit of fire, spirit of thunder.
You sang fugues to me as a child,

rocked me to sleep with your stories,
made grand entrances and exits
in a black Russian coat,

befriended the egg lady, painted
a black Christ crucifixion for her country church.
Your presents at Christmas were books

or piano music, giftwrapped in old newspaper.

The one-seed juniper defiant
in a sand-drenched wash
grasps against wind and rain.
Earth engraved by crawling roots
broad sap-scented trunk tanned soft
like deer hide now enfolding
barbed wire. Resilience—

In the summer of 1998 I was a lantern-
fish, no
I mean waitress,
but all the same
the water was freezing cold
and the pressure was pulverizing.
yet (animals) somehow survive in this most
extreme environment
which was the Mucky Duck Shanty (bar and grill)

a starter home
with kitchen and bathrooms redone,
six percent down
an unlocked car
an affordable five-bedroom
in a neighborhood
with good schools
a crowded floor
in a stumbled-upon squat

Leaving Work
The shrubs are flush—branches scarlet
by the red brick dormitory.
Rolling past Hickory Hill park
leaves blaze into miniature suns.
At Home
In our backyard, the swing set is
as empty as a hollow gourd,

31 scorched—one week
before I went home
to London. I was lost.
7 years since I left
my childhood in England.
My father told me
to meet at King’s College,
I arrived at King’s Cross
6 miles away. Accosted
by roses, carnations, lilies,
a meadow of flowers

a conch shell emptysea-gifted
carried back to window sill
trapped voices now extinct still
in shifting sandsbreeze-lifted
sounds of surf on gentle winds
crashing pulselife’s quickened flash
mutes the tracks with ocean slash
silent ciphersexpunged suspend

Sleepy baby, sleepy baby…Drift
away with me. I’ll
take you to a place I know, it’s
called the Dreamland Sea. It
lies beyond the moon and stars, among
the silvery skies. A
splendid dream awaits you there, behind
your tired eyes. Sleepy
baby, come with me…We’ll
sail until sunrise.

Picture Rocks Canyon: Paisley
scarlet bandana caught on gray thornbush
sprouting from naked rock. Lavender-
blooming ironwood, swift
zebra-tailed lizards and always
the cactus wrens for company.

i am outside in the oven
chin ups and dips
and laps[e] in the grass

around the poured concrete
and picnic tables bolted down
with music in factory
ear buds playing loud
enough to drown
the chatter of fat, angry men

in the darkest of caves
illuminated by night
i sought answers in your shape
you sought refuge in mine.

it was lust, masked as love
the highs, worth the lows
you were broken
mysterious
destructive
light.

When she delivered him, occipito posterior, the back
of his skull cradled against her sacrum,
when he crowned, face up, chin up,
it was her father’s chin, her father’s
nose, his broad strong Scotish countenance.
My father was there, wearing a hospital mask, ear to ear,
stretched across his face like a sheet spread at birth,
she would say later it was the first time
she’d seen him cry, her husband.

We are projections on a sheet in the yard,
suspicious spools of film liberated from metal cans.
When there is nothing left to play, the children retreat
to flashlight tag, and the women refresh their wine.

The men huddle in the darkness.
Someone is talking about the circus,

It came rustling through the mangrove forest
howler monkeys with their megaphone voices
heard long before seen swinging through trees
on sweltering Costa Rica mornings

the pacific surf came rolling
sometimes pounding and sometimes
playfully lapping the black volcanic sands

Weary sun sighs deeply.
Rattlesnakes seek solace.
Tumbleweeds bleed wisdom.
Saguaro reach deep into green pockets
of scattered water loose
in rancid blankets of arid certainty.
Scorpions seethe, swallowing sand,
each and every granule
a microcosm of the infinite.

My cousins and I bunk in the impromptu nursery
cribs crowded together with a sewing machine

and drapery fabrics and unfinished curtains

near the sunset bedroom originally Olive Plant’s,
across from the Roosevelt room and the guest bath
white porcelain tile, needle surround shower, fixtures of brass.

Three chains:
The first hanging in the hall
Just within reach, but
High enough not to disturb traffic through the short hallway

when i was eighteen
i lost sensation
in my cheeks. it was only
years later, once i felt the
slightest tingling
return to that same skin
that i let myself mourn
its absence (easier to numb
with positivity and denial
than to recount
the beauty and
brokenness
that led to its loss).

SHIRT
A favorite blue shirt wears my loyalty.
Beside –
hangs a pima cotton. Fine stitch
for my affection.
GLOVE
When young, I wore a glove of wonder
snug to my hand.
Held with fame of little round stars
falling in day.

my skin is a lead bodysuit
and other than the hope
that it might crush me one day
it hides my vibrating bones
so that I am the only one
that feels them shaking
inside of me

If I had an amazing tool
it would be a decoder ring
straight from my cereal box
that would morph into a briefcase,
when I pressed a button
into the hand tooled leather satchel.

At my picture window, I raise the blinds
On the graveyard side. And, it’s you, July,
Lovely ghost? Not changed much since you were ten.
That’s how old I was when Pap George sold me
To Seth Woodall. I was thin as a seam,
Fearless, too; Runaway? Not so bold, see?

It was all that jazz
it was the city — San Francisco
it was the venue — Keystone Korner
a former topless bar on Vallejo Street transformed
into a world class club its interior intimate its memory indelible
& all that jazz

The General Sherman bounds 1,487m
all wood
***
Like a bird god lean and hard
Sherman surveys Atlanta
His face bewhiskered, pockmarked
his choice to end this here