Orzo and Equanimity

Tell me things
Like why there are so many different kinds of rice.

Coax me out of these foxholes I've made,
Crumb by crumb,
And laugh at me in the helpful way.

Always, part of me does not consent.
Bring me back some Riesling
And have it with strawberries.

We can dance when you come here.
We can revel in food and in iambs.
We can pretend and pretend and pretend.

Tell me I am beautiful and absurd.
Tell me Plato. Tell me we are
Philosopher kings, you and I.
Tell me you and I.

A Mutt's Petition

"In darkness when all cats are equally black, I move as gracefully as anyone."
-from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

My foray into storytelling has led me to the
rather disconcerting conclusion that I have
no tradition. My father's heritage is all Sicilian,
which might have meant more more had I been raised
with a cannoli in my moth or a coppola on my head.
And my mother knows only that because of the lay
of our rears and our thighs, we must have some black ancestry
in us somewhere. I lived for seventeen years
to the east of Cajun heartland and to the
west of New Orleans, close enough to be teased
by the streaming smells of file and andouille,
but not quite close enough to change the alkalinity
of my blood. My speech, besides
being peppered with the occasional "y'all,"
is not heavily accented. I cannot
claim Brer Rabbit, any more than I can claim
Marie Leveau, any more than I can claim
zydeco, any more than I can dare someone
to go in against me when death is on the line.
These things are not mine, not in the way I want them to be.
I may learn them, but they are not native to my soul.
My petition is this: my blood does run so it
must run with something. I have bones so there
must be something in them. I hereby request permission
from my ancestors to invite any bits of
someone else's heritage to run in my veins.
Let me welcome Coyote and Loki and
Puck and Anansi. Let me make it known
that Erzulie Dantor and Sita and Nasreddin
and Sedna may always have a place in my pocket.

Don't Think About Elephants

I stare and I stare and I unfocus
my eyes, and maybe if I squint, I can
imagine being in the foreground of a painting
wherein a naked woman gazes longingly out of
her frame, and behind her is painted the life
she wants
and it’s hers

and she can have it

but she doesn’t know
how to take it so
she keeps staring.

Maybe she’s watching for elephants.

Post-Ridinghood Red

My mother will not let me catch fireflies;
I am not allowed outside past dusk.

My days have turned relentlessly predictable.
Which is not to say that I am not grateful
To the Woodsman. But what happens now?

I learned to skirt peril by sticking to the path
And not talking to strangers. I traded in the
Crushed cherry velvet cloak for burlap.

Grandmother died, but she was bound that way.
And I didn't die, despite the efforts of
Crashing teeth and stomach acid. I kicked and squirmed,
And did not die, but for what?

For a chance to die by something other than a predator?
My, what high hopes you have.

Let me tell you this: wolves are everywhere.
Behind the door of every cottage and
In all flowers there are wolves.

In the winsome smiles of chatty
Neighbors are rows of moving teeth,
The better to eat you with.

Moses

From my catechism class
I have inferred that the right way of doing things
Is to set what you most value
Adrift in a basket and hope that
It grows to several times its original consequence
And one day comes back to save you.

Bless the reeds, bless the river,
Bless the crocodiles.

And if it grows up
And doesn't thank you
Because it feels betrayed or abandoned
Instead of precious,
Or if it drowns
And never reaches the hands of sympathetic royalty,
Then you've done all you could.

Sing in the morning, sing to your daughters,
Sing for the crocodiles.

This Is Not A Poem

Ceci n'est pas un poème...

"The case was brought by two gay couples who said California’s Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote, discriminated against them by prohibiting same-sex marriage and relegating them to domestic partnerships. The judge easily dismissed the idea that discrimination is permissible if a majority of voters approve it; the referendum’s outcome was “irrelevant,” he said, quoting a 1943 case, because “fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote.” "

My whole body breathes a thank-you.

Erinaceous

I'm swelled; don't touch me yet.
Dark burrowy underground is quieter
Than this way you have of
Picking me up by my shoestrings
So I bristle. It's natural
Someone should not want to be
Turned so upside down as you seem to turn me every
Time you speak. But quiet isn't always good
And safe doesn't always serve me well,
So here we go again
With the speaking and the flipping
And the way you make my quills
Stick out every which-a-way when you call my
Name. Tingling starts in my squishy bits
And works its way towards my spinose ends, and the surprise
Is just more than I really know what to
Do with. So don't touch me yet, or I will ball up around
The flutters (to keep them safely encapsulated) and
Thank you kindly to remember that I do bite.

Utah, Astronomically

Saltine air makes crumbs of my shallow breaths.
The words don't drip anymore,
But with skeletal jerks
They unleash feral snarls from among my ribs
And the air wraps brittle scarves over my legs
Climbing past cat-o-nine-tails ridges on my belly
To snap my head skyward
Where stars like needle pricks
Bite pictures on the black velvet
And the summer night tells and tells how
This sky goes on forever
And there is shortage of neither stars nor moon balm.
I might get it wrong again,
But there will still be stars--stars and Diana--
To sing me moon songs
Even if my outsides turn to brown paper,
And the dried up gullies over my skin
Slish when I walk, telling the story
Of arroyos down my thighs,
Even then there will still be stars aplenty.

A Plan

I'm digging a hole
Digging a hole
Digging a hole to China

To bury these bones
Bury these bones
Bury these bones forever

And then

I'm building a raft
Building a raft
Building a raft with driftwood

To float out to sea
Float out to sea
Float out to sea forever

And then

I'm humming a tune
Humming a tune
Humming a tune to myself

Until I fall asleep
I fall asleep
I fall asleep to music

Or Maybe It Will Be Fine And I Will Be Embarrassed For Having Been So Fretful

Roots descend from my
Greenery
Splitting into dreadful katakana
Little white
Hairs pushing deeper
Into dank memories of mouse bones
And worms
And beads of loam

Up grows the shoot and
Into people's view
Sprout joyful unfurling dewy
Planes of green
Verdant stars or palms
But what you
Don't
See what you never see
Is the latticework
Beneath me

You will not
Hear the grunting of
Spindly fingers as
They hold and hold
So when the
Weather arrives I
Don't wash
Away like
Promises in the sand

My open
Hand to sky
Is only
Possible because I
Grew where I was planted
And shoved
My toes in
Daring to make a home
And letting the dirt seep
Up into me

And now I am expected to
Unearth
The roots that feed me
Divorce them from
The muddy
Barons of backwards
Politics and
Trade in sweet
Tea for Gila monsters
And alabaster flats

How will I
Grow in this
Arid place?
How can
I believe in the feathers
And miles of cloud patterns
With bald sand
Beneath my feet?

When I know I cannot
Stay
And the winds whip up
Salt all around
Me how will I keep
From blowing away
With them?
Will I be thrown into
The Pacific?

And whether or drowning or
Waving you won't be
Able to tell
Until
You see those spindly
White roots
Wrong side down
Pointed towards the
Baking sun
And sinking slowly
Into the sea foam