Fat Time Under purest ultramarine the raisedgoblets of trees overrun with gold.We should be reeling drunk and portly as groundhogsthrough these windfalls of russet, citron, bronze, chartreuse. Everywhere color pools like butter, like oil of ripe nuts,like piles of oranges under a striped tent. Oh, let us be greedy of eyeball,pigs scuffling in this gorgeous…
Wise to Cinderellafor Mary Brown At five, we liked the same stories,laughed at dissonance, were wise to Cinderella. We dressed in women’s clothes, tried them onfor size. No tulle or glass slippers,though we’d have gone for a spangle or twohad anything shiny been in the box. You were Puss-In-Boots: skirts hiked up,ready to swash buckles,…
Second Childhoodfor Lucille Clifton Bless Lucille’s big hips!And bless my own free-at-last hips!Here they are dawdlingand not worrying onebit about where they arein relationto anyone else. You can look at me or not.I am not saying anything personal anymore. I am saying hips breasts belly legs feetroots branches and big thick trunktidessunrisesmonkeys lithe and witty…
Woman With Crows There is a woman who catches crows on her tongue.They speak when she is tongue-tied. In the mornings she advises balloons.How high it is safe to go, and when to retire from politics. At night she turns into creek water and sleepsin a quart berry basket. A crow could carry her. When…
Humus Let the spacebetween tree and “tree”be humus. Let the space between usfill with rootsthat are (not) mine. Let form come from this exactplace, be knit to this tree’s branchingas close as bark. Because nothing is another thingor a puppy of our thoughts but only thishappening here between us: let me grow a word for…
November by Cazenovia Creek Clear sky, flying clouds. Elsewherea terrible storm — tornadosin the southeast, hail in the Dakotas;in Buffalo, high winds. But herealong the creek,in thin late-afternoon sun,in Arleen’s woods, only the sound of the river,wind held in the cuppedhands of trees.Molasses sunlight, a tangof darkness. The afternoondistilling. Over the creek,one last dragonfly. Leaf…