1
Is this writing mine
Whose name is this
Did I underline
What I was to miss?
2
An upheaval of leaves
Enlightens the tree
Rooted it receives
Gusts on a spree
3
Beauty makes me sad
Makes me grieve
I see what I must leave
4
Scaffold, gallows
Do whose will
Who hallows wood
To build, kill
Here and there
White hairs appear
On my chest —
Age seasons me
Gives me zest —
I am a sage
In the making
Sprinkled, shaking
Did you ever have a family?
Dark
dining room,
bright kitchen,
white steam
from the big pot my mother’ s stirring
reaching in wavy tendrils to her face,
around her face, all the way around
What never comes when called.
What hides when held.
Guest
most at home where least
expected. Vagrant
balm of Gilead.
What, soon as here,
becomes
the body’ s native ground and,
At last I can be with you!
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright.
Now I have unclasped
unzipped, stepped out of.
Husked, soft, a be-er only,
I do nothing, but point
my bare feet into your
clean smoothness
feel your quiet strength
the whole length of my body.
I close my eyes, hear myself
moan, so grateful to be held this way.
Hair still Titian,
but Botticelli's grip has loosened —
not now Rubenesque,
and probably never;
Ingres approaches,
but Courbet might capture me.
Could I be surreal?
It seems almost likely —
bells in my ears
and fortresses under;
cones have been set on my eyes.
My spring is gone
and summer's upon me,
rude in its ripening.
I'm espaliered, strung wide and tied,
pinioned, and thus can I fly.
Are we on the ground now? Ally cells and I said operations.
We cleared 50% of a wonderful friend and enduring opposition.
Take the solid.
Louder.
We clearly are loud. We are the postal system.
No evidence has been information.
Attacking the caves. Are you on the ground enduring?
A wonderful friend ramped it up.
You ought to open your mail.
Opposition element: the air. The talents work with precision.
84%. The population attacking the caves, the talents work with the
caves and tunnels.
Correct answers: c, d, d, b, b, a, b, a, a, c, b, b, b, c, b, d, b, d, c.
— If you scored 14-19, you’ re a well adjusted person, a home-owner, with and income of at least $50,000 a year.
— If you scored 8-13, you either rent or live with your parents, never exercise, and consume at least a 6-pack a day.
— if you scored 7 or less, you’ re in trouble with the FBI and/or the IRS, cut your own hair, and use public transit as your primary mode of transportation.
Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.
I won’ t promise
you’ ll never go hungry
or that you won’ t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe
but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart
forever
In different cities, on different
forms of transportation, a woman read Daniel Deronda
until the year became the arbitrary pink
the calendar chose for the middle of winter.
And finally she sat in the reference section
of the public library finishing Daniel Deronda
for days at a slowing pace between pieces
of newspapers and foreign language newspapers
whose syntax she enjoyed, not understanding.
And when she didn't anymore she wrote in the margins
of Daniel Deronda for someone
who might never see. Thought of that person
