and then slowly slowlyclosing on us.I always imagine those gateshanging over the oceanfiery over the stone greywaters of evening.We cast what we mustchange about ourselvesonto the waters flowingto the sea. The sins,errors, bad habits, whateveryou call them, dissolve.When I was little I criedout I! I! I! I want, I want.Older, I feel less important,a worker…
The shop windows snickerflashing them hurrying over dresses they cannot afford:you are not pretty enough, not pretty enough.Blown with yesterday’s papers through the boiled coffee morningwe dream of the stop on the subway without a name,the door in the heart of the grove of skyscrapers,that garden where we nestle to the teats of a furry…
and miniature GE stoves and ironsand wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:You have a great big nose and fat legs.She was healthy, tested intelligent,possessed strong arms and back,abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.She went to and fro apologizing.Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.She was…
My hips are a desk,From my ears hangchains of paper clips.Rubber bands form my hair.My breasts are quills ofmimeograph ink.My feet bear casters,Buzz. Click.My head is a badly organized file.My head is a switchboardwhere crossed lines crackle.Press my fingersand in my eyes appearcredit and debit.Zing. Tinkle.My navel is a reject button.From my mouth issue canceled…
the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawingmilk from his mother’s forgotten breasts.Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.You feed me, I try to feed…
and pay for the same liquid, coming and going.In bus depots and airports and turnpike plazassome woman is dragging in with three kids hung off hershrieking their simple urgency like gulls.She’s supposed to pay for each of themand the privilege of not dirtying the corporate floor.Sometimes a woman in a uniform’s on dutyblack or whatever…
without dallying in the shallowsand swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.They seem to become natives of that element,the black sleek heads of sealsbouncing like half-submerged balls.I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,who strain in the mud and the muck to…
air, the shames raisedover the restfor its hard work.Darkness rushes inafter the sun sinkslike a bright plug pulled.Our eyes drown in nightthick as ink pudding.When even the moonstarves to a sliverof quicksilverthe little candles pokeholes in the blackness.A time to eat fatand oil, a time to gamblefor pennies and gambol
did sacrifice themselvesto the long green phallic godand eat and eat and eat.They’re coming, they’re on us,the long striped gourds, the silkybabies, the hairy adolescents,the lumpy vast adultslike the trunks of green elephants.Recite fifty zucchini recipes!Zucchini tempura; creamed soup;sauté with olive oil and cumin,tomatoes, onion; frittata;casserole of lamb; bakedtopped with cheese; marinated;stuffed; stewed; driventhrough the…
with the doors banging on their hinges,the cupboard unlocked, the windroaring and whimpering in the roomsrustling the sheets and snapping the blindsthat thwack like rubber bandsin an open palm.It hurts to love wide openstretching the muscles that feelas if they are made of wet plaster,then of blunt knives, thenof sharp knives.It hurts to thwart the…
