1. A Formal Affair
In Cambridge, English bone china.
A floral pot of black tea.
Delicate cups with saucers.
A bit of milk.
Fine linen.
Lace napkins.

I’ve watched a squirrel three days in a row,
Squirting around the empty trees as quick as
Water from a hose, jumping, climbing,
Searching for the spot that bears
His meal.

No matter what the it
it often starts small, unannounced
undetected or unappreciated
It starts to grow or change in
some way, pushed or pulled by us
or self-induced

In the bedlam
of bed-land,
happy as babies,
active as rabbits,
me sky-father
you earth-mother;

Inside Notre Dame is a black hole
where worshippers find a secret passageway
to grace
After the fiery birth, sodden mementos:
A cross,
A crown of thorns
Sculpted stone and paintings
The smell of charred faith

The raindrops dribble down the shopfront panes
while back behind the counter the barista drips
her own creation into earthenware cups.
He’s always liked the tables here, the way
they’re cut with thick pine tops and sturdy legs
two inches thick, like they were made to last

She hid all these years
aloof, afraid of the camera
knowing it would add ten pounds
to an already unmeasurable amount of mass
No wonder she kept hidden
in support groups with
bigfoot and the lochness

Left the wine importer’s tasting,
denied a restorative cup of joe,
I passed out on a Manhattan subway platform.
The ambulance drivers lugged me
me up to the street, where I signed and was
allowed to go. Before wine the arid years

And no, not the state, though the state
of the state is cause to fret,
no, O’Keeffe, I say, and we
are painting red poppies. We
are sliding crimson beyond the edges
of our canvases and we

A fish taught me to swim.
He wore a woven crown of kelp upon his head—
he was, he told me, the king of the sea.
He found me standing on the sandy shore
and invited me to join him in the waves.
This really happened.

The silence of the dry lake bed is broken by the slow
countdown of a megaphone. Flashes of light ignite the
world white to uncomprehending eyes. As the shock
front cools into visibility, an enormous fireball grows
and grows before flaming out like the head of some
leviathan matchstick.

folks rarely stopped by our flat
high under the eaves
maybe a bill collector
or a nosey child welfare woman
out of breath
bringing with her bound files
and a jiggle of fat under her chin

My friend Feminism and I
enjoy long walks on the beach together
But there is a line in the sand that always approaches
where I must let go of her hand
because I don’t think my friend Feminism
understands how she can’t wear all her faces at once

Picture me,
as I am,
propped
on these ancient stones
to watch the gloaming
come lazily in.

birthday of a young man
showing him sights
events cold and crude
feelings heated and complex
mustafa’s
a youngster

Made my bones playing ledgeball on the block, but during college
no taxi’d drive back into the Southside snatch-‘n-grab boarded up
storefronts below Chicago’s elevated trains. Hertz’d have none of it;

A candle is lit,
Pink flesh melting smooth at first,
But as its silk ribbons
Cascade from its frozen bluffs,
It withers as its wick slowly
Bores deep into its heart.

declares the forgetting man
under the florescent lights
his face shadowless
in a shadowed world
that he knows where it is
once and for all

I found the answers
when the sky was
layered in pink, lavender,
and celestial blue.
I am a medicine woman
though my breasts have
never produced milk, and
my womb is barren.
I’m not bad seed.

Let me tell you something about the human
heart. It’s there
in the black paper cameo cutout shadow of a girl spinning a barrel hoop against
an almond wall by de Chirico. A nurse turns her back on
an amputated leg
waiting in motley for the orderly
to bring order.

at night I can’t see the owl I hear
but a faint outline
of the sandbox on the porch
a playground for unwanted crickets
who nestle to the bottom
waiting to surprise me one summer day

Feet splayed, leather between toes,
black claws meant for pedestrian tasks,
you meet me with your mate in the office parking lot.

Though there’s something regal in your head held high,
I’ve seen you eating grass on suburban lawns,
your hungry bill opening and closing as I approach,
greeting me like you were my pet.

your slow tongue peels my name
letter by letter by letter
Iris
my goddess

my platinum resistance melts
its afterthoughts drifting to earth
I must go

We’re revved up on Peet’s coffee
driven by Silicon Valley vanity
we’re unanimous
we’re equanimous
in our 24/7 disregard
for our city’s 25 mph limits
speeding up & down Middlefield Road
at 40 … 45 … do I hear 55?