Poetry

No thoughts to say about the moon. The novelist jokes about not being a poet. I feel the lie.

Night, only barely. The shadow
of a bird has just tucked itself
into yonder branches. A black
feral cat skulks his way behind
the hydrangeas, which soon
will bloom.

Skull-faced Venus impales you. Chalchiuhtlicue, Goddess of the East. Venus, West. Directions, too, in conflict. War inside creates war outside. All the outsides. All the insides.

One by one the neighborhood songbirds visited
and stripped us of our brightest threads of pain

carrying them off for purposes that we couldn’t
quite fathom. So we got a dog, felt a little better.

Ixchel, I feel you crossing. Night womb. Tell me where the seeds go.

how many of you sitting
here
think some woman of color
Black Brown Yellow White
woke up this morning thinking
“Goooolly … I can go to the airport
and clean toilets?”

In half-light of morning the red car appears / over the bridge, suspension wires like streaks of rain. 

Cheap child’s toy/ incompetent user/ pilot error—tangled and hanging / Sway, spin, climb, and fall on its ladder its helix of string / Pleuston (meaning dwelling on the surface) / (meaning sail meaning float)

When I sleep, you dream, turning and turning
on a soft earth.

Light drools down, blinds me. I can’t see your cheek
curve. Words rise

My Latin is limited
My Greek is worse
And the languages
And signs
The drawings
The bones
We find