Little Owl

Little owl
What do you think of us?
Strange big faces cooing close
The mere sight of you
Compels us to make idiots of ourselves
In ancient days, in ancient caves
Ancestral idiots made faces at ancestral babes
This is why we've all survived, little owl
This is why we're here, little black-eyed soul
Upon your shoulders does history unroll

Someone's Bubbie

Ancestors can vanish in the confusion of history

Elders

Some days it is good to search their faces

And see your features there

Some days it is good to search their stories

And hear your story there

Or the shadow of a curve of a feature

Or the whisper of the beginning of a story

Or the story you wish you had

I had a grandmother once

I heard I did, long ago

Lost in the confusion of history

Did she tie a scarf under her chin, like this?

Did her mind drift in dreams, like mine?

Old ladies dream the longest dreams

Life is longer than it seems

Come To Me

Come to me
Future friend
I have lolled in many gardens
Wet with honeysuckle
I am covered with fingerprints
Tattoos
Stories in 100 languages
Scrawled across my skin
Friend
Lie by me
I will let you read my stories
Whisper to me under a tree
Time and space, a mystery.

Other Women's Husbands

They come from afar

Galloping over hills, blood astir

Their senses quiver, their nostrils flare

Wives saddle up

While mistresses ride bareback

That's how it is

That's why they thunder over hills

Loud and eager

Looking for girls who ride bareback

Girls who smell of lemon and lilac

Horse and rider know the game

Ride, ride, 'til all's aflame.

What If?

Certain people
Certain strangers
Capture you
Certain elements
Streams of winter sun
A woman crosses her legs a certain way
Smiles secretly into her book
Certain people
Could be your friend
If they happened to look up a certain moment
Could enter your world
Certain people
But if they read that one extra sentence
You must go without them
Through all of life without them
Certain people, when you pass them by
Break your heart, though you know not why.

Jungle Daydream

Sometimes, perfect is known only in retrospect

You rested, drowsy, that summer day

Languid

On the edge of motherhood

Luscious

Open, a mango

Bird of paradise

Twenty five years later

Your son is much taller than you

Spinning the world on his fingertips

Will you ever say

Darling, I know now there was that one perfect summer day

When no one could break your heart or bust your dreams

Darling, I know now there was that one perfect summer day

When you danced in my belly, warmed by those sunbeams.

Is Heaven Really Real?

The big flaw in being human is being human

That's why the idea of heaven is so seductive

I would like to float up

And find slouching armies of lovers

For different moods

Motorcycle men, slick and rough in leather

To bruise my lips with kisses

Slender aesthetes full of poems

To murmur of love and sky and heather

Witty men, chefs, philosophers, musicians

I would drift from love to love

O paradise above

The big flaw in being human is being human

We plant our feet on mother earth

Be all things for me, we shout

And nose to nose we slowly burn out

Heaven, please be real, place of bliss

For something here is so amiss.

When Anything Can Happen

Young lion, spirits running free

You are the nth of cool

Beautiful hooded mystery man

Tie your shoes and walk, like Moses

Through parted waters

Where girls with mermaid hair

Sing

They say there's scientific folklore

Winds blew across the Red Sea

Exposing a swath of sea floor

But no, I say

The sea will part

For young men confident as lions

The sea will part

The sea will part

And so will girls, sweetheart.

Keep Me Close

Baby

When you came into this world

It was your eyes, your eyes

That mother-child look, that gaze

You know

I dare you to find that gaze elsewhere

Grown-ups cannot dissolve their walls

Put down their bows and arrows

Drop their egos

We try

But baby, I can dive into your eyes and swim around

Your eyes, your eyes, have me spellbound.

The Empty Chair

Some men are no good at loving

Not loving as women yearn for it

But give them wood and hammer

And during long wintery nights

Banging and swearing in the basement

They will build you a chair

Once a man who had no word or touch

Built a chair for his new wife

Built it to last forever

But chairs, like love, get weathered over time

Now the chair braves each winter

Empty and inconsolable

Like the man no good at loving.

Bittersweet, But More Sweet Than Bitter

An argument, tears, roses, forgiveness, a kiss

It can take five minutes

Or five years

Or fifty years

To get to forgiving

Humility feels like losing

I have taken the fifty years

The five years

The five minutes

Kiss sooner

Tears dry, roses die.

Girls in White Dresses

There is that little moment

Remember?

When girls are free

Giggle-dizzy

The swirly center of all things

This goes underground for years

I know, I know

Where am I?

It comes back. Listen.

It comes back years later

Your dress will dance in the wind.

Golden Boy

Some people gleam

You cannot read their faces

But vacant beauty has its moments

I cannot remember your eyes now

But you shed glitter on my skin

And we were gold.

Time, They Say, Is Curved, and So Is Space

A woman is an hourglass

Sometimes, world, you ask too much

I must at moments turn my back on you

World

Remember, time, they say, is warped
And space is curved
Beyond geometry or ruthless
Measurements of man.
The wisdom of the world is in its curves
Because they are not closed, contained, or sealed
Let the pillow be “X” and the foot “Y”
And when you bend to me
The point at which our bellies meet
Is the intersection of the graph
Not to do this would be highly out of place
For time, they say, is curved, and so is space.

Happy New Year, Babycakes

Ah, Ah, domestic life

Give me a little mood lighting

Some bubbles in a glass

Give me my love

Who knows everything about me

Who knows nothing about me

New Years tumble by fast

Quick, take off your fake face

Show your true self to the one who

sits beside you

Drink a glass full of surprises.

Not All Angels Are Made of Stone

Sometimes goodbye is a deliriously good word

Not goodbye to our beloved

Not goodbye to our dreams

Not goodbye to pure things

But yes goodbye

Yes goodbye to bad years

Yes goodbye

Let all stone angels breathe with life

And wrap their arms around me.