Last

Leaving laying

lines like bricks

one beneath the next

and then a song sometimes

creeps in, the mockingbird

shocking the night with his

trills and curlicue notes,

shrill rattlings

appropriated from car alarms

and other birds. I’ll finish this,

take off these heavy lovely

wings and return to baking,

laundry, and normal human things.

The birds won't stop

Cooped up in my chest,

my ribcage their permanent

nest, five families of finches

multiply their song.

The racket rises until

I lose my own mind.

Softer

The quiet hurts, make it softer.

The night is there and always

present, in her ears and a comb

in her hair. His fingers.

The dark is long, The stars forgot

their shine—tarnished gray marks

scattered in the sky, the black

blanket she can’t pull down to warm

her single body, the blanket that won’t

fall away, revealing light.

My fleet

Flee.

(Don't.)

Go.

(No.)

Suppose

(Yes.)

I'm supposing.

The doctor calls with my

results.

There's something foreign

hovering. The carnival's

in town.

I'm going on the ferris wheel.

And sit.

Think.

Let the pigeons, their

many gray wings,

in. And what happens?

They sing.

Praying in the Monster

No one can tell me there aren't beasts

out there waiting to eat me alive.

Monstrous creatures with big claws,

mouths a whole person could easily

live inside. Come to think of it, it might feel safe

there, in that wet dark, a place I've missed

since birth. And maybe, if I'm quiet,

and crouch near a monster molar,

he won't notice, and I can grab

an incisor whenever he swallows.

And three days later, if I stay still,

alive, the beast may stride

to my own Ninevah, spit me out,

and guarantee tomorrow.

In the antique mall or painted on a water tower

This is for finding.

It's for hiding and seeking.

This may show up in the meadow

under a cow, or hanging from fishing

twine dangled down the Merced tower.

If I could reach, I might rest these lines

on one of the soft spring clouds

or hang the words from an almond

tree, bursting with bloom. This

isn't a secret, it's a game--of the fun

variety. I'm putting poems in places

all over town. I write.

The search is on.

Egg hunt

Everywhere, new is hatching.

All over the lawn and in the bushes,

those brightly colored plastic eggs

are filled with chocolate and God,

for the children to find. I break

an egg in a bowl, stir it with a fork,

cook it in a pan. It changes

from wet to firm, and where the liquid

dissolves to, I do not know--perhaps

it's hovering with all the other invisible

things that we regularly discard,

only remembering them

when it rains or we suffer.

I run

The tulips strive open,

working so hard, they'll turn

petals upside-down, stretch each

until it breaks off, hits the tabletop.

I also work too hard, moving

a zig-zag route, cleaning and carving.

My body insisting on a go-dog-go

existence. If, rather, I sit and sing (or not,

maintaining silence instead),

the hole in my chest

finds its full presence,

and emptied, I finally

let God in.

Making things up

I dreamed of a black dog when I started to pack for the Valley.

I dreamed of a green light and a chain link fence.

I dreamed of a meadow that never ends.

I dreamed of small pools of water.

I dreamed of two trees, full of pomegranates,

starting to intertwine. I dreamed of traps

with glowing light inside. Glorious snails and blossoms

snowing in spring breezes. I dreamed of a heart

big as a ferris wheel, reaching the top with terror,

and thrill. I dreamed of a spider, its massive

web like lace in the light. I dreamed of a wobbly

swing-set, a half-dead strawberry plant.

I dreamed everything all right.

Everything's alright.

Immigration

I've forgotten the birds again (just like I lose God--

my mind wandering wrong waters until He

lassos me back in again). Six in the morning,

I remember to listen, and the tree's full of finches,

the males chest red, full of spring.

There was a man I loved and we chased

tanagers, orioles, and all birds flying

and blue. We ran across parks, up mountains,

down shores. We wove, more slowly,

around the windy estuarine foot paths.

Avocets and sora rails, wood ducks and kites.

We flew with the birds, fed with the birds,

wading and waiting for fish to surface, then

a fast dunk and a kill. I sometimes press myself

to recall our love for birds, even while the helicopters

hovered searching immigrants who crossed

the close border for a better life, a move

birds could perform freely, without sirens

or fear. No country owns the birds. We were

living local wars, down South and in our house.

Each time I crossed the boundary of my skin

into his, I risked my life and limb.

He was a dangerous thing

I fell into. Of course, I was only looking

for a warmer place than I'd been last season,

a place I wouldn't shiver in my skin.

I lost myself in birds, I nearly lost my life

in him. With hope, I crossed into to hostile country.

Please don't die

My mother gave me, wrapped for my birthday, that short book,

The Awakening. More like The Going to Sleep Forever--it

romanticized drowning. I lived forever by the ocean, never

sufficiently afraid of the the great monster of waves and saltwater.

Oh, what the moon's pull and the weight of water can do to you.

I used to dream that on the other side of the horizon, if I could bounce

across the glinting surface like a skipping stone or a big balloon,

a land of light, a kind of heaven, a new awakening was waiting

on that distant shore. Except it wasn't a shore, but a giant

bowl of shine. And all who traveled there, turned into weightless

forms of joy. This old thought died up in the mountains surrounded

by dirt and rot. Yes, sometimes life is so much pain, one will risk

whatever's after for at least momentary quiet, during that period of in-between.

No longer alive, not quite dead. There was a young man in our town

who needed out, who climbed, and then hung himself like a flag on a metal

tower north of town. But because we cannot know what comes after

her limbs give out and she lets the water heavy her down, one must fight

life's dark, and reach for light--a dance, a slice of peach. Oh,

today I wondered if my quiet phone meant my love left earth,

quite by accident. In my mind, he took his board out on the sea,

and was swallowed away from me. Waves are the largest arms

I've seen. The quiet safety many of us crave and leave this land

for can really be had wrapped in the smaller cylinder of a fellow

human's warm limbs and a blanket of insistent love.

Putting my father to rest

I learned to skip stones at the lagoon.

Who were the older boys who taught me?

My father would know, but he died some

years ago. His girlfriend ordered white doves,

let them loose in her backyard, with everyone

watching. Her son, who makes a living as El Vez,

the Mexican Elvis Presley impersonator, served

the liquor to guests, the liquor that killed my father.

My father tried not to fall down and hit his skull.

He was a smart man, but seemed to selectively

not understand how vodka, over time--and liters--

can poison you. I want to be at that same skipping

stone shore today, I want to grasp the flattest

roundest gray stones, flick my wrist

just so, and send the things flying,

then bouncing, again and again and again,

until they grow tired, lose control,

and sink under the water forever.

Little Feasts

My brother and I would tie

twine across the room--the first

looked like a slanted tightrope

wire. The second, too. We'd pin

one end to the wall and unfurl

the skein, pinning and pinning

haphazardly, working hard to deny

order or reason to our weave.

When we loved the composition,

we crawled through it, giant

spiders in a crazy web, a safety

zone. A place where drunk fathers

and sobbing mothers dare not enter.

We moved through the quadrilaterals

and triangles of twine, catching small

winged things in our net as we might

our missing hearts and lost hope.

We Wax

It's all the moon, he says,

pointing at hermit crabs &

poking a sea anemone in the rock

bowls of sea water above the shore.

It's just, he loves talking about the moon--

and while, yes, it causes tides, in his imagination,

everything--an early summer,

the bright of yellow, the East wind,

the dance of leaves along the sidewalk--

and even our movements, together,

slightly apart, and even more closely together--

all the world, and every inch of our love

depends upon the moon.

Drawn from the Water

Put the baby on the small boat, put her on the water,

let her float downstream to see where river

sends her. She may leave the country of her birth

or land just the edge of this county, held by reeds,

lullabied by the bu-bu-wah of red-winged blackbirds,

lifting her up, readying her for the flight, the fight,

the famine and fire, and finally--late in life, the light.

--with thanks to Russell Goff for offering the bird call

Night swim

Late spring, the small gnats are swirling

like fairy dust above the grass, and woven

limbs on a blanket, while faces drink the sky,

each other, in alternating minutes. Darkness

will land too soon, even if the moon's

a reprieve from the relentless night, a pool

the lovers dive into, swimming side by side,

searching for a new shore.

She said yes

She lived in a box, tied up with string,

holes punched on the sides, so she could breathe.

Inside, was everything she needed--

potatoes and beans, a blanket, and a book of poems

by Robert Frost. She sat in the middle of a meadow,

quiet and always. One morning, a tap, insistent,

but quiet. Whose fingers are that tender?

she thought, remembering her father's coarse

lined skin. Can I come in? a gentle voice said.

She paused a pause the length of Texas, then

heard the string pull against string, loosening

what she used as a lock. He unlocked her.

He came in.

Green Egg

All the Easter eggs I didn't find, the one

I broke open and the green dye had bled

through. And I laughed, "Green Eggs and Ham."

But I wouldn't eat it. Threw it in the juniper

bush and returned to the house

empty-handed. My mother forced my brother to give

me two. He cried. Thirty-six years later,

I write this poem to apologize.

Brother, I hated eggs anyways, though I loved

to peel away the shell, the thin skin within.

Brother, I lied about the hunt and what I found.

If I had to do it all over again, I would've opened

that green egg and handed it to you,

so you could, would, eat it "in a box."

I should simply say: I found an egg

I threw away and took

two of yours anyway.

Pretty Pretty

Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder. --Proverbs 23:31-2

Oo, oo, pretty pretty. I liked to watch the blood curve the thin

tubes while the needle sat in the crook of my elbow.

It looked like thicker wine

and I wished I'd find a Crazy straw with all those turns and circles,

a Dr. Seuss roller coaster for our juice,

only my juice was wine. I wanted it in me and on me,

I wanted to feel it in rain, climb in a bath

and smell and feel wet wood, dried roses, and the acidic bite,

the alcohol something I could take between my teeth,

and it rose to my skull, softening everything, the room a-glow.

My hand couldn't pass the bowl of a wine glass

without lifting. I'd pour from the bottle into a large bowl,

wash my hands and face with it, pour it to make

paths to follow on the floor. I don't remember

where it led. That's a lie. Wrong beds, bonkers--

finally stuck inside my head, where I kept a rope

and a tree--and no one had the key.

Home

And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. --Isaiah 58:11

I gave it up to God, though I could not

give it up. I mean, I tried to stop,

and I could not. I mean, black flies

roamed my skull, and still,

whatever they'd still, I'd swill.

My heart was a rotting fruit--

and still, I'd--. Pieced together with thin

twine, I walked the desert ranch

road. I could see my wasting bone

blow away as dust through my mouth.

I knew that if I were to fell myself

on a Spanish dagger plant, I'd drain like so

much sand. The gin invisible,

but the sun saw it still, wanted it

for its own. All that was left in me

this morning were fumes. The heavens

beckon; I looked up. The whispered

words to sky: take me please.

And I was lifted, watered,

and home.

Fall Down Watching the Sky

Spring's ridiculous--all that pink,

and lawns thick and green with rain

like money. I want to fall down,

collapse on the grass and wish

you here, your body blooming

with new tides (and am I

a tide for you? Faith: the moon knows

what it's doing). Preposterous--

does anyone really deserve

this much God? He's in the dandelion

and in your hair, and in my fingertips,

weaving new, invisible moons there.

Fall down watching the sky fall down

while the sky watches us fallen on the grass

below, a little sad to lose all those new

moons to you. But that's the sky's

job--What can I do?

Where she lives

The child floating up out of her body,
hardly knew how to use
her limbs. She fed on books
and lay in grass, wondering
into the clouds. My house
not on this ground. She
built a dress of birds,
slept on a net of stars,
every now again catching
the she below—dumb,
mute and hollow.
While here she swam
the early rain,
sang daily
the dawn.

Filled with light

I'm taking out

my crooked heart,

setting it in the yard--

garden art. Next spring

the sweet peas will climb

right up it, attach their tendrils

and hide what used to be with beauty.

In my chest now rests

a new cloud. It may storm

or disappear but it's light

and driven from above,

so we'll be alright.

We'll all be alright.

What's caged in my brain

There's snakes in my brain. My brain's made
of snakes. Not the nice kinds of snakes, like the one

my aunt had in the big house with the roommates--

it slithered across a rug of the United States

when I called "Here, Rosy!" (Well, I moved to where

she was heading before beckoning. She came every

time.) These are black, with green indentations

randomly scattered across their thin bodies.

And they're hungrier and hungrier, yet I don't

know how to get mice through my skull, so

the snakes whip, hiss, and bite--and I become a deranged

puppet, socking myself in the head, or crying.

As if I could knock a hole through my cranium,

or, literally, cry my eyes out, so the snakes could

escape, make haste for home and supper.

In the Stem Cell Lab

I want to grow the tiny things in petrie dishes,
wear a white coat with large clear buttons,
spend all day with my eye to the microscope,
watching cells stretch, flatten, connect,
bundle, grow into what I hope, and don't.
When I was a child, I thought culturing
cells was like cooking popcorn and for that matter
popcorn could expand on and on into the sky--
like cells, if fed and watched tell they're plump and beating.
But this little dish, no bigger than a tin of mints,
is making something one might make a new life from.

If you look at me you will go blind

The light is water floating just above the tall grass

flush green here, yellow beyond. I could take a boat,

row out upon the meadow to the new housing

development there at the North of town. Then,

when I arrive at the yellow swathe of--grass? lake?

I'll dip a silver cup in that bright shine and drink.

Only when I see it do I crave it--yellow.

And I need to take it in by gallons. Once

filled, I glow. If I climbed that tree,

the monstrous one near Avenue Three,

the whole town would forget the sun and worship me.

Bent

I've been folded, section upon section--

made small, a wallet-sized prize.

One might keep me in their pocket,

a used toothpick, cracked and bent,

poking at flesh through fabric.

The person I stab didn't even hear me cry.

Off he went to perform another miraculous

smashing. This is the part of the poem

where I might guess his mean motives.

Instead, I maneuver the tip of my head

into the light, notice almond trees in full leaf--

and they glint--new green everywhere.

Permission Slip

Dear people, I hereby give

you permission. Be joy.

Swing on swings. Dance a tango.

Play your trumpet through the streets,

along the river. Take off your shoes and wade,

feel the mud between your toes. Eat

butter or whipped cream on everything.

I feel I must remind you, life is small, over soon.

Insist on friends.

Swimming the Pacific or Meeting Madame Curie

We're aglow--if you shut off the lights,

our skin twinkles with radioactive dust, or we drank

a cup of the stuff. A flashlight

snaked down our throat would reveal

cavities radiantly purple, our cells thinning,

receiving an unnecessary treatment.

The news reports say we're destroying the planet--

impossible. Earth older and stronger than even our billion

stupid brains, selfish bodies. Earth roars with laughter,

toppling us with out own advances. I want to be taken

by radiation, crumble into a pile of glowing, eventual

stardust. We'll crumble side by side by side, wind

sweeping us together, raising us, a bit of each person

meeting to make new stars.

Under the Microscope

The world I can't see--my body

swimming with trillions of cells, an ocean

packed with fish or fluid

factories. And atoms, then nuclei and electrons,

a world tinier than my dumb eyes can imagine.

Sometimes, I want to be

that small, sometimes I want to be one of the many,

lost in relentless work, efficiency, invisibility.

I'd like to be a cell in my lover's

heart and travel with him behind the East Wall,

the region of his retreat. I'd join

him in those bottles and daydreams,

climb within him in those one-man beds,

nights of despair, stargazing, fear,

crying spells, freedom, and grief.

Within him I'd work, swishing like a fish,

always moving, always refreshing.

Here I am within his heart, working

tirelessly to repair what ails it.