English Poems

we all got tickets to The Truth
finally we thought finally
when the curtain fell away
our indrawn breaths could be heard
even in the next theater
even the gasp of the mime
who had slipped in among us
a loud whushing like reams of litter
whirling upward in a gale
hands shot to mouths and mouths
fell open I couldn’ t say within
how many seconds
all our minds shut some
slamming others just a click
like 300 parallel
rows of tipped dominoes
a racket of almost unison

A momentary rupture to the vision:
the wavering limbs of a birch fashion

the fluttering hem of the deity’ s garment,
the cooling cup of coffee the ocean the deity

waltzes across. This is enough — but sometimes
the deity’ s heady ta-da coaxes the cherries

in our mental slot machine to line up, and
our brains summon flickering silver like

salmon spawning a river; the jury decides
in our favor, and we’ re free to see, for now.

I was arrested because of that internal memo,
and ended up in a cell, then I was told to sit
with the police and the local bigwigs.
In the hushed and fast darkening room they said
someone — someone — had reduced the safety margin
on the airport risk factor, and I got the blame.
The sky that day was a pale, clear blue, but
that was happening outside, and far away.

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking

I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker,
Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek,
Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek,
Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker,
Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek,
Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak.

How do you explain why elephants
appear to move their unwieldy hulks
with greater dignity than most humans do
in their finest moments,
as if they had evolved beyond wanting
anything but what they have?
Why does the field begin to ripple
before the wind arrives in whispers,
as if there were a communication,
as if the landscape were poorly dubbed,
and we weren’ t expected to notice?
What butterfly does not dart away from us
as if it could sense our latent cruelties,
and yet return to check and double-check?

Brutal to give
the prisoner a window —
a blue sky glimpse —

as if an afterlife
existed. Brutal
for you to parade

in a body
in the same
room where I dream you.

Panic attacks your pain-porous skin?
Imagine the layers of onion, Sufi-circling
and circling until there is no tear-making body.
If the issue is anorexia, taking starvation’ s
dark spirit-flight, or anhedonia, running from
the skin’ s having fun, consider the mushroom’ s
fleshy erection, and the pumpkins, earth goddesses

As was my custom, I’ d risen a full hour
before the house had woken to make sure
that everything was in order with The Lie,
his drip changed and his shackles all secure.

I was by then so practiced in this chore
I’ d counted maybe thirteen years or more
since last I’ d felt the urge to meet his eye.
Such, I liked to think, was our rapport.

I was at full stretch to test some ligature
when I must have caught a ragged thread, and tore
his gag away; though as he made no cry,
I kept on with my checking as before.

If I stand
alone in the snow
it is clear
that I am a clock

how else would eternity
find its way around