utmost appreciation for this
architect of words – she uses them
to make small polished perfect
spaces (nautilus, the hidden cottage,
white room) – each more liveable
than her maybe messy life
that’s filled with need – clients,
files, dogs, and a curmudgeon!
what’s ideal, what’s real, both
set to music in Missouri

naked sadhus happily apply
their coats of ash, but the
grihasthya has to make his
cloak of hopelessness: sacrificing
for the priceless family, prisoners,
poets, politicians who offer their
mistakes like bait, take it! or –
hesitate for food and drink
while socializing on the brink
of next week’s fresh abyss

last night your hot winds
raked my body into dunes
the tide of your mouth
assaulted me the salt of
your sweat exalted me you
filled me like a sail

skidding ‘cross the surface of
this scalding sea while dragon
pours rainstars moonfog alert for
northernlights so “bring it on”

first babysitting job, brown-eyed
bambina, couldn’t calm her
when she woke and found a
stranger taking care – hush
and observe, her curly hair, her
woe, the soft rough texture
of the eczematous skin inside
her elbows, many creams and
medicines, a phone number that
didn’t work, an anxious 12-year-old

princess in a castle near
the high school, where we
gathered to puzzle over physics
problems – soon bored with
studying, we asked to see her
closet, she graciously obliged;
it’d be flouting natural law for
this group to sustain more interest
in mathematical equations than
those turtlenecks in rainbow colors

except for lots of curly
hair and glasses, I don’t
recall the details of his
face – the shape of nose
or mouth, a mouth upon
which once I forced a kiss –
I remember friendship, talks
of film school, but especially
his last name, a Deutsche
concoction “from the middle village”

bluegrass musician with a deep
basso and gifts for dominance
he holds so firmly to
beliefs that would have us
drowning in a sea of living
embryos – it’s impractical, quixotic,
admirable? – I just don’t get it,
but he does, and mounts
a televised defense, but

would he take them home?