ALSO

Here are the other poems I made from the work of many many wonderful poets.

I NEED SOMEONE WITH SKIN ON
Unseen,
the gossamer curtain
falls
divides my soul.
Truth stumbles blindly
bruises and bites.

I go slow because I am
practicing non-attachment, but
pieces of me stick to whoevergetstooclose
& must be surgically removed.

Trees are my main weakness.
They grow into me.
You may have seen me high in the elbow
of an elm,
silhouetted against the night sky.

I find a mate once a year
on the coldest night in January,
& our duet makes even the coyotes
cower in their dens.

We block the fist, ease egos,
broker detente. Bandage
wounds. Tend the bruise,
the insult, the scab. Glue
and mop. Grab our time like
dropped money.


LITTLE GIRL LOST
likes chocolate ice cream
her favorite possession a
yellow bike
with a banana seat, plastic basket, streamers gleaming
she reads old men’s minds and chapter books
by judy blume

ribbons of her thoughts
tie her down, sometimes
with meticulous care

strainer of her mind
filters out what ails her
survivor that she is now
but with austerity takes out
the inherent spirit of hers

she stops eating meat
notices the shoes, the belts,
bags made of leather,
feels a shiver when she eyes
the skin stretched
over the couch, the ottoman

skullfingers banjo her ribrattle lids
her barebones grin–

if she carries enough chips
eventually they will become
too heavy to hold or swallow or
chew or lug in a massive bag
she will have to start letting them
fall away


SPEED TRAP
He sits in a corner
like a wombat and watches the flow
of people, the shuffle of feet
with their different sounds
according to the shoe
and to the shape of the person’s face,
to how the line of their lip
curves into the morning

beneath the warm smile
and pleasant gesture the radar eyes
scan the forgotten creases
ruffled hair and smirks
at clandestine getaways

The patrolman’s beam blinds the stars,
in her eyes, his own reflection.
He stands above the mirror
looks down into her pupils.
One of them can learn
a thing or two tonight
but someone must release the light.


THE NECESSITY OF PLAY
One Sunday morning
kids sneak onto the construction site
nothing but a cage of studs & trusses
they play for hours
running from room to imaginary room.

They have layers
and they peel away
all of the layers
thin by thin
skin by skin
and at the core is a hallway with
only open doors.