fifty words from December 1998:
Don has a tremendous sense of moral duty. It’s against everything I stand for. Ha, just kidding. I have a tremendous sense of moral duty as well, but I’m trying hard to transfer my sense of duty from what — Grindstones and Millstones and Treadmills, to Whispers and Bubbles and Honeysuckle.
she has a definite immunity
to everything – weather, earthquakes, mishaps
at work, misunderstandings among friends,
aging, unemployment, ill health, ill
will – what protects her? youth,
skills, unassailable prettiness, her coats
for all occasions? or more
subtle forces, such as her
grandmother or a jade necklace –
whatever, may it last forever!
rare – a personal moment between
me and a teacher, 1969,
8th grade – you struggle to
compose a written message in
my yearbook – it turns out
grammar-garbled, a mess in
ink, endearing – a revelation that
an English teacher (though Italian)
could make such mistakes – my
dumb wonder, did you like me?
sunlight lover, her surface seems
to brighten every year, new
layers of gilt and polish –
she aspires to become a
minor sun, gleaming here in
a select system of admirers –
her warmth extends to lost
and grieving children as she
must have grieved when
members of the family left us
we pulled in your driveway
off Lokoya Road – couldn’t knock
so late, slept snuggled in
the car, listening to foxes
coughing in the wild grass
when I morning-met you, felt
surprised at your mild ways,
such cherubic plumpness – stories of
sensuous danger and romantic chaos
always circled ’round your name
emerald and orange – the emerald
of the isle you’re from,
of the grass you mowed
next door – the orange of
your hair and the fire
in your temperament – emeralds and
oranges – and water – snow drifts
between us, oceans surround us,
let streams of peace flow
in you and your family
from the deck of paradise,
we overlook the cove named
after you, serene in lake
love – antidote to aches and
pains, ills and wells of
loved ones, now numerous as
blueberries in the local fields –
how often does your mind’s
eye conjure future accidents or
past bombs falling over France?