Just finished a writing program in Paris, and as part of the finale of the program, we had a reading at Shakespeare and Co. Here's a clip of me reading the poems "Aubergine" and "Jealousy Viewed with Binoculars from across an Ocean."
12.7.09
Aubergine
From beyond the barbed wire fence property line
I watched the workers in the eggplant field
The Mexican czars of the North with worn fingertips
And prepaid phone cards. Hopelessness is a lung
Condition suffered from spending hours in a phone booth
Just off of Highway One. The eggplants are purple
But that purple seems to have nothing of O’Hara’s evening skies,
Purple and becoming more so. These men are not colorblind
Like the poet. The sky is blue during the day and only darker blue
As their shifts come to a close. Azul is azul and it has nothing
To do with purple like a drag queen and an immigrant
United by nothing but their nothing in commonness.
From between the rusted wires,
They handle the amassed Faberge delicately as a surrealist
Before puberty, cynicism, and vampirism. These aren’t even their orders
But they fear for a crack, the inside a geode of all thirst quenching sin
And wonderfulness. In Pescadero, there is a taqueria in a gas station
And in it, I sat amongst the dead czars of the Pacific
And they spoke about alcohol and sea breeze and
Girls just old enough to fuck and the best SPF for a California summer
Between rows of an old person’s favorite dish. They eat them
In the years before they die because they love what’s inside
Like forgotten lust and beach sand in welcome mats.
Tonight, I will drink red wine just this once
And we will break eggplant together at the table
Of the Lord and yes it will be good before the morning dew
Evaporates into the day’s haze and life continues as always.
I watched the workers in the eggplant field
The Mexican czars of the North with worn fingertips
And prepaid phone cards. Hopelessness is a lung
Condition suffered from spending hours in a phone booth
Just off of Highway One. The eggplants are purple
But that purple seems to have nothing of O’Hara’s evening skies,
Purple and becoming more so. These men are not colorblind
Like the poet. The sky is blue during the day and only darker blue
As their shifts come to a close. Azul is azul and it has nothing
To do with purple like a drag queen and an immigrant
United by nothing but their nothing in commonness.
From between the rusted wires,
They handle the amassed Faberge delicately as a surrealist
Before puberty, cynicism, and vampirism. These aren’t even their orders
But they fear for a crack, the inside a geode of all thirst quenching sin
And wonderfulness. In Pescadero, there is a taqueria in a gas station
And in it, I sat amongst the dead czars of the Pacific
And they spoke about alcohol and sea breeze and
Girls just old enough to fuck and the best SPF for a California summer
Between rows of an old person’s favorite dish. They eat them
In the years before they die because they love what’s inside
Like forgotten lust and beach sand in welcome mats.
Tonight, I will drink red wine just this once
And we will break eggplant together at the table
Of the Lord and yes it will be good before the morning dew
Evaporates into the day’s haze and life continues as always.
Loveable Dust
You’re an old racket and I admire your science
Emphatically like a pet or oil
Jumping out of a hot frying pan.
I am also old and low as the place you pray
When grandma used to make the real peach jam
With the jars from the attic
And I am myself more each day
That I know you are still alive.
The only difference between us
And forgotten potted plants
Are the piles of paper full of sea breeze.
Dear old bike, tomorrow I will take you out
For a ride, and even in this weather,
I will wear shorts
And keep free from the chain.
Emphatically like a pet or oil
Jumping out of a hot frying pan.
I am also old and low as the place you pray
When grandma used to make the real peach jam
With the jars from the attic
And I am myself more each day
That I know you are still alive.
The only difference between us
And forgotten potted plants
Are the piles of paper full of sea breeze.
Dear old bike, tomorrow I will take you out
For a ride, and even in this weather,
I will wear shorts
And keep free from the chain.
They Speak With Men Who Smoke Cigarettes
This is certainly not a street for cherry sales—
The owners are wise to keep their prices high
—so the old afternoon shadow fathers feel fine
Letting their daughters out in the streets
To drink up hopscotch, pretend, and play
With handguns, their hands pointed out in the shape of guns.
Though this is all in show,
Like a woman taking off her clothes,
To trick the subtle moist of father’s eye
So his face won’t go the way it did
When mother made him cry.
The owners are wise to keep their prices high
—so the old afternoon shadow fathers feel fine
Letting their daughters out in the streets
To drink up hopscotch, pretend, and play
With handguns, their hands pointed out in the shape of guns.
Though this is all in show,
Like a woman taking off her clothes,
To trick the subtle moist of father’s eye
So his face won’t go the way it did
When mother made him cry.
The Fifth of July
“I’ve missed the most important afternoon of all,”
Words that are a confession
And somewhere in heaven Ray Charles can see
It and hear it and laugh and slap his knee,
Moving his fingers over an organ made of nothing
And it’s America the Beautiful and hotdogs
And catsup stains on a pretty girl’s summer
Dress and fireworks to play the only night game
For Ray and for everyone here and the throaty Oh Beautiful,
The thought getting all lodged up in your chest
And in the places in your hands and behind your ears
That make you get a twinkle in your eye
And you know you’re only a year older
When you’ve heard that boom just after nine
On a humid, deep fried night near the ocean
Close your eyes, close your eyes.
Words that are a confession
And somewhere in heaven Ray Charles can see
It and hear it and laugh and slap his knee,
Moving his fingers over an organ made of nothing
And it’s America the Beautiful and hotdogs
And catsup stains on a pretty girl’s summer
Dress and fireworks to play the only night game
For Ray and for everyone here and the throaty Oh Beautiful,
The thought getting all lodged up in your chest
And in the places in your hands and behind your ears
That make you get a twinkle in your eye
And you know you’re only a year older
When you’ve heard that boom just after nine
On a humid, deep fried night near the ocean
Close your eyes, close your eyes.
Or Twice
Stone cut and pretty eyed
Like someone out of the Sunflower Sutra
And as damning as a right angle,
She’s watching the advance of the parade
From a sea of parasol lovers
Though she herself not para sol
But rather por sol and I wouldn’t dare
Confuse those two around her mother,
A hawk with a mouth full of mouse meat
The color of a split pomegranate.
In accordance with the style al fresco
She averts her eyes from the course of my stare,
Climbing out of sight to her heavenly home,
Which is decorated with black and white
Photographs and silverware from abroad
With which she might part her lips,
But don’t take my word for it
As I’ve only been there once.
Like someone out of the Sunflower Sutra
And as damning as a right angle,
She’s watching the advance of the parade
From a sea of parasol lovers
Though she herself not para sol
But rather por sol and I wouldn’t dare
Confuse those two around her mother,
A hawk with a mouth full of mouse meat
The color of a split pomegranate.
In accordance with the style al fresco
She averts her eyes from the course of my stare,
Climbing out of sight to her heavenly home,
Which is decorated with black and white
Photographs and silverware from abroad
With which she might part her lips,
But don’t take my word for it
As I’ve only been there once.
Bleached Blue Collar
“But it was snow all right,” rang the bells after supper
Calling the drunks home to beat the dogs under the porch
And sing out of slack T-bone cut jaws of iodine scars
And Indian summer tattoos under smallpox blankets.
Sing to me of dear Italy
And put a step or two into the song
I whistle to my wind whipped dishtowel of a wife
With her cross-eyed hate affection
For my brown paper bag wrapped sugar cake,
And she’s a doll just like the mutt bitch under the steps
Missing half of her tale like a drunk storyteller
Just before Easter in a country pretending to be America’s
Red-white glue that’ll hold your teeth to the bottom of a bridge
Just give ‘em any two broken cities and they’ll mortgage
Those bright canines all the way to sale Sunday hell.
The booze is coming down real hard outside and my shoes are getting wet
In this flurry of cats and dogs chasing invisible cats
Who I invite to curl up on my lap just before a knock on the door
From the girl with eleven allergies and one awful temper
Who’d love nothing more than to call out to a night
Full of candles and mosquito bites with wrists
Pointing toward bed and the lock on the door.
Calling the drunks home to beat the dogs under the porch
And sing out of slack T-bone cut jaws of iodine scars
And Indian summer tattoos under smallpox blankets.
Sing to me of dear Italy
And put a step or two into the song
I whistle to my wind whipped dishtowel of a wife
With her cross-eyed hate affection
For my brown paper bag wrapped sugar cake,
And she’s a doll just like the mutt bitch under the steps
Missing half of her tale like a drunk storyteller
Just before Easter in a country pretending to be America’s
Red-white glue that’ll hold your teeth to the bottom of a bridge
Just give ‘em any two broken cities and they’ll mortgage
Those bright canines all the way to sale Sunday hell.
The booze is coming down real hard outside and my shoes are getting wet
In this flurry of cats and dogs chasing invisible cats
Who I invite to curl up on my lap just before a knock on the door
From the girl with eleven allergies and one awful temper
Who’d love nothing more than to call out to a night
Full of candles and mosquito bites with wrists
Pointing toward bed and the lock on the door.
Soloist
It is only windy on days when I must carry an orchid
Says the priest as his way of cursing.
Once, he wept when the audience began to clap
Between movements—even after the head violin had motioned
With his bow held hand that he was not at all reluctant
To make the exchange on faith. His grey eyes stare out at the audience
And betray a sense that she cares little for what he says anymore
Despite the weight of her left hand and the curving letters
Of her last name. In this frenzy—and sometimes they would say,
Seven days with four seasons—the room is filled
With the sounds of polishing glass. If this man in audience of the holy man
In his audience had ever truly known, the way he feigned
With his eyes, then he would have never risen his glass in the dark
As he once had.
Says the priest as his way of cursing.
Once, he wept when the audience began to clap
Between movements—even after the head violin had motioned
With his bow held hand that he was not at all reluctant
To make the exchange on faith. His grey eyes stare out at the audience
And betray a sense that she cares little for what he says anymore
Despite the weight of her left hand and the curving letters
Of her last name. In this frenzy—and sometimes they would say,
Seven days with four seasons—the room is filled
With the sounds of polishing glass. If this man in audience of the holy man
In his audience had ever truly known, the way he feigned
With his eyes, then he would have never risen his glass in the dark
As he once had.
Foie Gras
And every summer
There is a small family of ducks
On the pond. Bring the bread that mothers do,
Stale like a grown dog, which distracts the children
From undressed statues, who, as any cut marble might,
Enjoy the afternoon hours in ecstasy and sleep.
The garden around the water is quiet save for the odd
Kick of a motorcycle, a sound that bothers only the eldest
In the crowd.
While mother smokes
He counts the duckling who eat his bread. One
For God, two for his hands, three for the Holy Trinity, four
For bad luck in China, and the fifth to remember father by.
Numbers all which to him are only fingers
And meanings ascribed in retrospect—perhaps
After forgetting a girl’s phone number
Some years later—but for now he speaks
To the birds about nothing in particular.
If he scrapes his knee, he cries, and if not
The ducks continue to watch the bread floating in his hands.
Of course there are seagulls
Bored of the pleasures of the sea, intent
Upon disturbing the peace of Sunday churchgoers in the park.
Grey and white and more beautiful than the pigeons,
They nearly seem stupid in the way they admire
Green stained brass like old men. They refuse
Expired baked goods loudly and from the egg
To this day, their only family are their own feathers.
Their keen dead eyes obscured in the glare of bicycle tires.
And soon the summer stretches on,
Mother’s newest habit is magazines and the ducks
Keep preening. The sales have ended and the old men
Can only think of winter, though fall is yet to come.
Again he counts the ducklings, this time in a language
He won’t learn until university, and he stops at four
And counts again. But still his thumb stays
In the glove of his palm. Four four four, he asks mother
Through a hem of dress gesture, and she, the match fumbler,
Begins to speak like rain on a silk flower. At night in bed
With a stranger, she can sigh as another difficult conversation
Is spared through a simple dance of gulls and a duckling.
There is a small family of ducks
On the pond. Bring the bread that mothers do,
Stale like a grown dog, which distracts the children
From undressed statues, who, as any cut marble might,
Enjoy the afternoon hours in ecstasy and sleep.
The garden around the water is quiet save for the odd
Kick of a motorcycle, a sound that bothers only the eldest
In the crowd.
While mother smokes
He counts the duckling who eat his bread. One
For God, two for his hands, three for the Holy Trinity, four
For bad luck in China, and the fifth to remember father by.
Numbers all which to him are only fingers
And meanings ascribed in retrospect—perhaps
After forgetting a girl’s phone number
Some years later—but for now he speaks
To the birds about nothing in particular.
If he scrapes his knee, he cries, and if not
The ducks continue to watch the bread floating in his hands.
Of course there are seagulls
Bored of the pleasures of the sea, intent
Upon disturbing the peace of Sunday churchgoers in the park.
Grey and white and more beautiful than the pigeons,
They nearly seem stupid in the way they admire
Green stained brass like old men. They refuse
Expired baked goods loudly and from the egg
To this day, their only family are their own feathers.
Their keen dead eyes obscured in the glare of bicycle tires.
And soon the summer stretches on,
Mother’s newest habit is magazines and the ducks
Keep preening. The sales have ended and the old men
Can only think of winter, though fall is yet to come.
Again he counts the ducklings, this time in a language
He won’t learn until university, and he stops at four
And counts again. But still his thumb stays
In the glove of his palm. Four four four, he asks mother
Through a hem of dress gesture, and she, the match fumbler,
Begins to speak like rain on a silk flower. At night in bed
With a stranger, she can sigh as another difficult conversation
Is spared through a simple dance of gulls and a duckling.
Lightfighter Drive
If you really want to be able to do it well
Then you should fill five glasses with water
And turn the television off. Don’t make any sudden movements
And have a drink. Imagine watching a sunset alone
While having some kind of a flashback. Know that somewhere, the sand flies
Are still fucking even after dusk in places where other people
Who are in love but not you put their feet before going to
Their own rooms to fuck. If this is going to really work,
Then you really should have an artichoke on hand. Try buying one
That isn’t from Castroville and we’ll see where that gets you.
Make sure you can keep your eyes open for at least thirty seconds
Without blinking. Your eyes will dry and bloodshot. Focus
On that lonely sunset miles from your porch for hours
Until it could actually already belong to the next day.
Then you should fill five glasses with water
And turn the television off. Don’t make any sudden movements
And have a drink. Imagine watching a sunset alone
While having some kind of a flashback. Know that somewhere, the sand flies
Are still fucking even after dusk in places where other people
Who are in love but not you put their feet before going to
Their own rooms to fuck. If this is going to really work,
Then you really should have an artichoke on hand. Try buying one
That isn’t from Castroville and we’ll see where that gets you.
Make sure you can keep your eyes open for at least thirty seconds
Without blinking. Your eyes will dry and bloodshot. Focus
On that lonely sunset miles from your porch for hours
Until it could actually already belong to the next day.
Santa Cruz
Screams, happy screaming echoes across
The dirty, red trash can beach scene and into the ocean
Only to be pushed back by barking seals.
The hydraulics of the Double Shot and rollercoaster
Are more jarring even despite hearing them ten times each.
The lifeguard stand could itself be a spaceship ride
And a two way radio echoes from the inside.
It is a woman’s voice and there is very little chance
That she is beach weather attractive. I am the oldest person
Here by years and I only just learned how to change a tire
And make love with my eyes open.
Is it better to have seagulls or pigeons when you’re trying to have a good time?
Boards and tattoos and accents
Are the only form of identification
Around the funnel cake man and the last guy got fired
For winking at a high school girl who was flirtatious enough to wear braids
In her chlorine green and uncomfortably beautiful hair.
All the children on the beach are digging to China
And their skin cancer parents cheer on with the champagne
Of beers and a knowing chuckle.
In accordance with southern California beach regulations,
The sun is only exposed every other moment, replaced
In the interim by a cold sweat sea breeze and graying seagulls.
The dirty, red trash can beach scene and into the ocean
Only to be pushed back by barking seals.
The hydraulics of the Double Shot and rollercoaster
Are more jarring even despite hearing them ten times each.
The lifeguard stand could itself be a spaceship ride
And a two way radio echoes from the inside.
It is a woman’s voice and there is very little chance
That she is beach weather attractive. I am the oldest person
Here by years and I only just learned how to change a tire
And make love with my eyes open.
Is it better to have seagulls or pigeons when you’re trying to have a good time?
Boards and tattoos and accents
Are the only form of identification
Around the funnel cake man and the last guy got fired
For winking at a high school girl who was flirtatious enough to wear braids
In her chlorine green and uncomfortably beautiful hair.
All the children on the beach are digging to China
And their skin cancer parents cheer on with the champagne
Of beers and a knowing chuckle.
In accordance with southern California beach regulations,
The sun is only exposed every other moment, replaced
In the interim by a cold sweat sea breeze and graying seagulls.
Castroville, CA or The Artichoke Center of the World
Produce truckers eating lunch at the wheel
And the pickers huddled behind a stack of tires
Obscured in their three o’clock cervezas.
A man small enough to be a jockey
Tries to sell me mota weed
I ask him the best place to buy a platter of shellfish.
And the pickers huddled behind a stack of tires
Obscured in their three o’clock cervezas.
A man small enough to be a jockey
Tries to sell me mota weed
I ask him the best place to buy a platter of shellfish.
California Cash Refund
Rusted residue in the joints of my father’s knees,
Which are now mine. My morning has cataracts as does
My night. Because California is now broke
From its own sincerity, then they will now have to pawn
All obtuse angles of the sun.
Which are now mine. My morning has cataracts as does
My night. Because California is now broke
From its own sincerity, then they will now have to pawn
All obtuse angles of the sun.
To the Lighthouse
The no-see-em’s bite my neck as I look toward the West,
China, Japan sit quietly and unseen. The same can be said
Of the fishing boats, though closer to my stone’s throw
And all of them and the islands beyond can see the lighthouse.
The wickies who once worked here are dead and their bodies lay to rest
Farther away from the sea. All of their paper notes, logs, and books
Were perpetually damp.
Picket fences run along
The pelicans and the flowered cliffs
Watching for old Ford headlights
And unfiltered cigarettes all aglow.
Tonight we could dine in a linen heaven
And eat turtle soup and wear the skins of otters
And sleep together deep beneath the ocean
But my arms are full of groceries
Your eyes will be in someone else’s wallet photos.
The ivy can still grow at this height,
The thoughts of a narrow road in summer
In all its hillside bliss
Will remain in the humid stick
And the wearing red paint of the guest cottage.
China, Japan sit quietly and unseen. The same can be said
Of the fishing boats, though closer to my stone’s throw
And all of them and the islands beyond can see the lighthouse.
The wickies who once worked here are dead and their bodies lay to rest
Farther away from the sea. All of their paper notes, logs, and books
Were perpetually damp.
Picket fences run along
The pelicans and the flowered cliffs
Watching for old Ford headlights
And unfiltered cigarettes all aglow.
Tonight we could dine in a linen heaven
And eat turtle soup and wear the skins of otters
And sleep together deep beneath the ocean
But my arms are full of groceries
Your eyes will be in someone else’s wallet photos.
The ivy can still grow at this height,
The thoughts of a narrow road in summer
In all its hillside bliss
Will remain in the humid stick
And the wearing red paint of the guest cottage.
Posted
No parking no fishing no skating no news
North east west south, the final
Rest. No dairy, please, she asked me
With no sex in it. Hold the guardrail
Permanently at all coffee shops
With someone, a ghost, you haven’t seen
In time not long enough to forget
No talking no flash photography
Behind the boardwalk amusement park
Where there’s a couple all shoved up
Against no parents and the wall.
Know no when it’s read
In a book and you’re going to a party
And it’s your party and you can’t
See because with and without glasses
First for seeing and second
For the champagne you can’t
Be on that sidewalk at that particular time
And you can’t
Buy me flowers I’m a man
And there is no feeling
And certainly no love
And no kite flying.
North east west south, the final
Rest. No dairy, please, she asked me
With no sex in it. Hold the guardrail
Permanently at all coffee shops
With someone, a ghost, you haven’t seen
In time not long enough to forget
No talking no flash photography
Behind the boardwalk amusement park
Where there’s a couple all shoved up
Against no parents and the wall.
Know no when it’s read
In a book and you’re going to a party
And it’s your party and you can’t
See because with and without glasses
First for seeing and second
For the champagne you can’t
Be on that sidewalk at that particular time
And you can’t
Buy me flowers I’m a man
And there is no feeling
And certainly no love
And no kite flying.
21.6.09
Written on a Train in Italy
Perhaps it will never come out of the hilltops
and the lake filled valley will only just skip into the next day
without the fifth and final prayer.
I don't know the sound of my own stress
nor do I feel nostalgia for its written notes,
the echoes left in stone and bar tabs.
In Germany, the word for this means before dark
and full of many other excited expressions
like the supreme leader of Iran his holiness of the painted veil
and the cartooned absurdity of fourteen cherry blossoms
forever in heaven.
This is not very hard to imagine
if you know the sound of trains
moving through a tunnel.
Sustenance in the imagination of fresh daylight.
and the lake filled valley will only just skip into the next day
without the fifth and final prayer.
I don't know the sound of my own stress
nor do I feel nostalgia for its written notes,
the echoes left in stone and bar tabs.
In Germany, the word for this means before dark
and full of many other excited expressions
like the supreme leader of Iran his holiness of the painted veil
and the cartooned absurdity of fourteen cherry blossoms
forever in heaven.
This is not very hard to imagine
if you know the sound of trains
moving through a tunnel.
Sustenance in the imagination of fresh daylight.
Half Moon Bay
Foggy Sunday San Francisco near the Marina
And I feel claustrophobic trapped between that moisture
And the hills and the buildings which grow taller toward
The heart. In City Lights I asked if they had a restroom
To the cashier as she left the employees’ restroom and
She said no
As if I didn’t believe in words as much as she
As if my piss was as worthless, pound for pound, as
American lager beer. The trapped room feel of this
San Francisco does not play well for the hangover. Now I
Perceive sky above the ceiling out here in Half Moon Bay.
I don’t worry for the surfers’ lives as the man with binoculars
Who calls to boats from shore that they are a threat like a cut
On the arm or a pack of harbor seals, kissing wet-suited feet
And confusing the careless Great Whites.
People are going home, but why now? There is no mass
After noon and perhaps even the sacred virgin is enjoying
The basketball game on television. Even as they all go, the high tide
Moves in like a lonely dog, begging to go home with them
To large chicken dinners with rice and family prayer. God,
You too do think of revision, and as I turn my back and face
The parking lot, you continue counting the scattered rocks
And keeping the Pacific company.
And I feel claustrophobic trapped between that moisture
And the hills and the buildings which grow taller toward
The heart. In City Lights I asked if they had a restroom
To the cashier as she left the employees’ restroom and
She said no
As if I didn’t believe in words as much as she
As if my piss was as worthless, pound for pound, as
American lager beer. The trapped room feel of this
San Francisco does not play well for the hangover. Now I
Perceive sky above the ceiling out here in Half Moon Bay.
I don’t worry for the surfers’ lives as the man with binoculars
Who calls to boats from shore that they are a threat like a cut
On the arm or a pack of harbor seals, kissing wet-suited feet
And confusing the careless Great Whites.
People are going home, but why now? There is no mass
After noon and perhaps even the sacred virgin is enjoying
The basketball game on television. Even as they all go, the high tide
Moves in like a lonely dog, begging to go home with them
To large chicken dinners with rice and family prayer. God,
You too do think of revision, and as I turn my back and face
The parking lot, you continue counting the scattered rocks
And keeping the Pacific company.
A Return to Cannery Row
Breakfast with four members of the Manson family
And they’re saying that Point Lomo, “A little private
Christian school,” is probably a lot like Harvard.
Sharpen your teeth ruddy high-grass stalkers
With night eyes all alighted and keen
For fresh pieces of you. They seemed to be able
To tell that I had smoked the night before,
Sniffing the air like religious zealots and going on about
Black gospel choirs—don’t be fooled—the mother
Dressed up like a distant outpost for 1960’s housewives
Vacuumed up in pearl and her hand reached for orange juice
Like a forgotten hand for a glass at a far. “Before I met
Your father,” she tells her two tabula absolutely empty daughters
And they grin about something else like constellations of teenage
Kabuki theater and they trade sidelong glances like masks.
The sun bursts through the haze and the trees,
Still gnarled and mocking, beckon blood soaked feet
To the beach, and I’m watching that trail out to sea
With my head in my hands as the terrible orchestra
Reaches its peak. Leave the door unlocked,
They’ll find a way inside either way. Four knives
Glint in the moonlight.
And they’re saying that Point Lomo, “A little private
Christian school,” is probably a lot like Harvard.
Sharpen your teeth ruddy high-grass stalkers
With night eyes all alighted and keen
For fresh pieces of you. They seemed to be able
To tell that I had smoked the night before,
Sniffing the air like religious zealots and going on about
Black gospel choirs—don’t be fooled—the mother
Dressed up like a distant outpost for 1960’s housewives
Vacuumed up in pearl and her hand reached for orange juice
Like a forgotten hand for a glass at a far. “Before I met
Your father,” she tells her two tabula absolutely empty daughters
And they grin about something else like constellations of teenage
Kabuki theater and they trade sidelong glances like masks.
The sun bursts through the haze and the trees,
Still gnarled and mocking, beckon blood soaked feet
To the beach, and I’m watching that trail out to sea
With my head in my hands as the terrible orchestra
Reaches its peak. Leave the door unlocked,
They’ll find a way inside either way. Four knives
Glint in the moonlight.
8.4.09
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