Sun and Fog

Sun draws the soaking, drenching fog,
shooting it with light at the bottom, while
the top is the obscure white of clouds, as if
the earth’s spirit is gone and only the body,
still warm and glowing, remains.

Truckstop Waitress

Honey, darling, sugar, baby, anything but Lacey, though
my name's right here where any Tomfool Dick
or Harry could read it if he cared to, 'stead of leering
greasily like a coyote, licking buffalo sauce off his fingers
like there’s a napkin shortage in Kentucky.

Winking, squeezing, grabbing, sticking out their hands
on the sly like its an accident when I walk by: some day
I’ll sling a handful of nickels at ‘em and scream,
“Keep your filthy grubs offa me or I’ll run you over, Charlie,
Mack, Ed, Billy honey, darling, sugar, baby”.

Winter City

The old man is talking to his cat again
in the next apartment I can hear him, the walls
are so thin, just layers of onion.

Today is grease splatter and grey sky
more soap in the dishwater and I
wish it were hotter, I feel that dirty.

Its the dog crap on the sidewalk
and cigarette smoke and people
who won't talk when you go by

or look in your eyes and sometimes
you want that. Sometimes I want to be
touched so badly I cry.

I'd like to take off in a Volkswagen van
camp by the ocean, sleep on the sand
feel the sun, my muscles firm as I run looking
like an ad on TV where the blues are more blue
and green is more green than you've ever seen.

But the girl in the ad doesn't need kerosene
for cooking or get tired of eating hot dogs
and beans because she only has enough money

to camp for a week without working and
the ad doesn't have to tell me I'd be as alone by the sea
as I am in the filthy grimy city.

Seven Stanzas

I like the way shoes wait for the impression
of a foot and their next destination.

I like the way ivy greets sunlight: always with eager
arms, even if the sun is not having a good day.

I like the way flames kiss a breeze fluidly, agreeably,
acquiescent. They never say "no".

I like the way a leather chair agrees with a body
on where it should and should not give.

I like the way the earth balances a house
on her head without letting it fall.

I like the way ribs cradle a heart jealously
from the world’s sharp elbows.

I like the way words meet a page honestly,
black on white without a trace of grey.

Seven Hallelujahs

Heaven's a blue so clear its ringing
ice bells, chimes in branches clinging.

We've come for diamonds in drifts a' winking
and a glimpse of the moon, low it's sinking

o'er the eve of the world's last turning, or
perhaps it's first and brightest morning.

We are hailed by seven spirits singing
hallelujahs, or the final warning.

The Green Beyond

In memory of someone who loved this place-
an inscription on a greening stone marks
the trail we took to see the catfish dance-
slowing then starting, shivering in unison,
intent on the surrounding cloud of eggs
they didn’t notice when we slipped our hands in
and felt their fins.

Winter found the faces of summer cottages
forlorn, boarded windows staring like empty sockets
across the ice-bound lake. We skidded long trails,
looked for cracks and any sign of our fish,
frozen mid-shimmer in the greenish glaze.

Next year someone we loved was captive
beneath a stone. We lay on the green grave
feeling down, through the ground when
a lucent flutter above us showed
our fish had broken free. Released
mid air they danced once more.

Navy

Rain drowned the windowpanes
as we lay- me half asleep, you
dreaming of being deployed.
I brushed the would-be curls
of your military hair, forehead
cool with logical thoughts,
submarine facts and radar,
my fingers a continuous convoy
of rippling waves on the sea
that takes you away from me.