Lady Godiva

People whispered that I was noble, crazy, brave
(or all of those things in combination)

And perhaps I was

I don't remember exactly why anymore
I clothed the horse but not myself
(Embroidered linen draped
over his shoulders and quarters)
But here is what I do know:

I was stung awake by the somehow prickle of horsehair
on my legs and the first sun on the whole of my back
I felt the shudder of my flesh as the horse tramped onward

I had not known what nakedness could offer me
until my lonely pageant laid bare the city
Absent its vendors and politicians
it was ghosty and holy and I was
holy too

I sweated into the nimbus of my uncovered hair
and breathed to the capacity of my lungs
and began to glow
(People say poor Tom was struck blind
or hypnotized that day. Either way,
now he peddles wreaths
he made for the Queen of Heaven)

And I have not stopped since that time
Sweating, fluorescing
and taking numinous breaths

In Which Danielle Does Not Pray

I sat with my grandfather.

He knew my name, probably. He gasped for air.

I sat, loving him and not knowing what to do.

I offered to read Sherlock Holmes aloud, to rub his feet,

Or to bring him water.

I tell you this because I want you to think well of me,

Even if I was not useful. He declined.

I watched my mother, stalwart and gentle,

Care for him consummately. She shaved his whiskers,

Held his cup for him to drink, tucked the blanket around his feet.

Those things I might have done, 

But dying is an ugly business, and she did not shy from the rest. 

She held his hand through the gurgling ripping coughing. She did not balk

At urine or vomit or blood. She saw his legs become spindles.

She smoothed his hair and looked at him with such tenderness,

As though his mouth were not crusted yellow and as though 

He had never been a hard man.

I sat in the room and watched her ministrations,

And I could not possibly have loved her more. 

When he dies, I will cry for love of her.

(Selah. Ainsi soit-il.)

Wailing Wall

Cry, then, little monster

Let all of it whale up to the surface

Burst through your mouth

And slap its tail against the water

The way it stings

From all those molecules, hydrogen bonds

Clinging together

So the palm of all this grief stings

For full minutes afterward

And that is as it should be
Though once it's out
You needn't hold to it longer
Do not reel it back
Or throw a spangled scarf over it

This opening you've made
Is the essence of courage
And the shame isn't yours

It's for some other belly
And some other whale

Love Song to Carmen Sandiego

Hey Carmen, where you going next?
I've got my suitcase packed, and I'm ready to leave with you
And there's nowhere in the world I wouldn't go
So don't leave me here so lonely in Cairo

I would meet you in Minsk and kiss you in Kiev
And hold your hand on the banks of the Thames
I'd fly from the Mojave all the way to Skopje
And never look back
And never look back

You have ten different passports, I know,
Hidden in the pockets of that beautiful red trench coat
But since you're on the lam
Let me run a while with you
Hey Carmen, where you going next?

Cause I've got soles by the purseful, and a handy Finnish phrasebook
And two pairs of dark sunglasses, and a box of fake mustaches
And no one will know our faces
No, no one will know our faces

Hey Carmen, where you going next?

Cardiovascular Issues Prevent Me From Flirting

Sweat of summer lingers at the nape of my neck
September ushers in cooler air, but not fast enough

She is charming and wounded as we walk uptown
And I am pretending not to be breathless

Which is stupid, I realize, and it's not like it helps
But I space out my laughter to coincide with my lungs' demands

Hoping that she will not notice my panting
Or the flush of my face, red as autumn leaves

Danger Looks Different

I keep the dog inside
Because the moment he sees those damn longhorn cattle
He's going to go rushing after them.

Bounding, barking, horripilating,
With all of the fierceness and glee of a hunter
He will hurl his nineteen-pound body

Through one of the damn gaps in the damn fence
And toward the heels of some hitherto
Undangerous cow.

I could say to him, "No! They are fifty
Times your size! They are equipped with enormous horns!
You will be kicked, stomped, or possibly gored!"

I have said these things before, and always
He looks at me for the briefest
Of moments, as if

To say, "Nothing is more dangerous
Than playing it safe."
Before turning and charging

Through the rightmost gap
And toward the thrill.

Haiku On the Wisdom of Sufjan

Where I go, he goes
Click of nails on the tile floor
He watches for treats

Liturgy

Call your mother

Tell her how okay everything is

Try not to apologize for being fat

Eat a cheeseburger in the car

Eat salad at home

Sing the praises of balsamic vinegar

The phone rings

Three times in your purse before you answer

Hello, I'm sorry, I love you

Peace be with you

A handful of cereal

And also with you

Body Shame, Enumeration

                     Here are the
                    iron gates and
                     the waves of
                     heat and the
                      parliament
                       of weeds

    Notenough toomuch notenough too
   much notenough toomuch notenough
         Too Much           Much Too
         Much Too           Too Much
        Too Much            Much Too
           Too                      Much

         crawl        like         worms

      up        my          skin    violence

    of            braille          writing    up

  all      the       things       I        do    not

      otherwise        say     Slash     and

  Give me                             the overflow
         a machete          to catch
                    and a bucket
                       PERMIS
                        SIOND
                         ENIE
                            D
G  r  i  n  d                    m e  t o  b i t s


t o  m a k e                   y o u r  b r e a d


F  e   F  i                       F   o    F u c k


I  t  c  h                        a  l  l   t  h  e

w  a  y  h                      o  m  e  i  f

t  h  e  r  e                    i  s  a  h  o  m

e  a  n  y                      m  o  r  e

H   o   r   s  e                 T r a n q u

i l i z e r s                      E   l   e  p

h  a  n  t                         G   u    n


 

This Is Not a Poem About a Dead Bird

Today I saw a dead bird
and it didn't make me want to write a poem.

That's how I knew everything was going to be okay.

I mean, not everything. Clearly the ice caps are still melting,
the planet is still warming. World hunger is
still an issue, and local hunger for that matter.

I am still a poet with great bohemian passion but very
few employable skills.
Perhaps what I really knew was that nothing
was going to be simply okay, but that
I, truly the only arbiter of what okay even means,
would be okay.

I am okay.

There was a dead bird, and I am okay.

Anna, As I Resign

I want to tell you how Anna does magic.
It isn't couth, I know, to reveal these things,
But I feel I must speak in my own defense.
The magic is that her hazel eyes do exactly
What they promise. True, there is smoke
And a whirl of black crinoline, which
Under normal circumstances would lead
One to believe some legerdemain has

Occurred. But it hasn't. These are the trappings
Of Anna's overflow, the lagniappe.
The magic is in her joyful elocution, in her
Determined hollandaise, in her Northeastern
Nonchalance. If you weren't paying attention,
You might not even know or mind
That you had been ensorcelled.
After spoons and spoons of enchantment,
I realized that Anna's magic is exactly
What it claims to be, and the only illusion is this:
That I could ever
Love her
Enough.

Haikus aren't cheating. This is a response poem.

Here is where I sit,
the friend you once kissed and the
hand you left wanting.

Amendment 1

Caroline, you have broken my heart.

But even though, cold

Woman, you have failed me, I am

Not through fighting for you. I 

May move away from your

Mountains, disillusioned and unseduced, but

I have not given up. You and

Your southern sisters will yet see

How my love is stronger than your

Fear. I have a patient people,

Caroline. A brave people, Caroline.

I have a people with enough

Pluck and moxie to amend your amendment.

I have a people who will keep.

To Merisier, A Declaration

I am elephantine
I am charging, drumless, toward nothing
No one stole anything from me


Old nemeses, you and I
I know you helped the third son
Because despite what you thought magic should look like
You were entranced from the moment you heard my drums
Because you couldn't get me out from under your skin
Call me pachysubdermal


And now as I careen 
I am a sight of arresting beauty:
Thousands of pounds moving all at once
Skin scored with deep, branching rivulets


I am unflinching, hurtling forward
And potent as memory


However strong you may be, Merisier,
When you have won the story,
I will break into a thousand tiny pieces
Spread all over the country
And the final word--the ceaseless echo of elephant footsteps--
Will not be yours, vodou man, but mine

Dépaysement

It's not as simple as roux and hurricanes. It's her brown skin and saunter, the way she electrifies straight hair. Louisiana drips down my back and wedges herself under my fingernails, under my tongue. Louisiana is damp and panting.

Beyond the flash of sequins and tease of feathers and the allure of misbehaving on Bourbon Street, Louisiana spits at local color. It's rust from her mouth into her Gulf, and how she is the deep groan of a pier settling into the murky spillway.

Louisiana does spill. She flops into the soup beans and ham I eat here. Fat and gorgeous and sweating, she rolls her eyes at the foolishness of Appalachia--where nobody knows enough to make groceries--and says a novena for your sister, the one whose husband ran off last August, the hottest damn month of the year.

Michael

I was not there for the phone call,
not that it matters, since he wouldn't have called me.
We weren't close.
But I still wish I had been there before
Michael's blood got lost.
(It wandered away from his body,
Slicking the tiles. Took a
Wrong turn at the wrist and couldn't get
Back to that left at Albuquerque.)
I don't know how to change anybody's mind,
But in between sweaty moments
I wish I had been there to try,
At the very least try, to keep
Michael from rendering
His own blood homeless, left to
Beg for change
On the bathroom tiles.

What Mardi Gras Did To My Psyche

I am not a baker.
I do not measure.

I admit,
I freely admit,
I cannot control everything.
I can only bring what I have to the pot, stir, and hope.

Once I baked a king cake.
Intoxicated with the success of baking, I drunk-dialed ten people.
It was pastry perfection.
I took pictures.
The process took more than five hours, covered my kitchen in flour and powdered sugar, and involved the agony of discovering that Kroger does not carry purple decorating sugar crystals year round.
Twenty-four hours later, the leftovers were stale.
My kitchen is still in recovery.

I am not a baker.
I do not measure.
I only bring what I have to the pot, stir, and hope.

Graduate School

Tomato plant writhes,

Grounded, with no wire cage it

Begs mercy of bugs

A Better Way Out

When the Prince proposed to Cinderella
Shivers skated up her back.
The glass was cold, her toes were cold,
And there was the prince at her feet.
He said, "Marry me."
She said, "I'm somebody different already."
He said, "You could be queen."
She said, "It was not until this night
I discovered I already am."
He said, "Marry me."
She said, "All of my life I have not had a spine.
I cried at the roots of my mother's tree, which grew
Tall and powerful. I cried and wished, and was heard.

So after midnight tonight I came back home and cut down the tree.

With the same blade I opened myself, sliced from one set

Of lips to the other. I shook out the sawdust, the cotton,
The batting, the rags, and every soft thing that ever said

Yes when I meant No. In the empty places, I set branches

From my mother's tree. Then I glued my skin back with sap,
And you can see where it has seeped through my dress."

He said, "Did it hurt?"

She said, "Yes."

He said, "How can you stand it?"

She said, "I am a woman."

He said, "Marry me?"

She said, "I'll consider it. I did enjoy the dancing.

But first, go home. Take these soft things with you. Open

Yourself, if you can, and shake out every hard thing that

Ever heard Yes when someone said No. In the empty

Places, set these leaves and berries and flower buds and tufty caterpillars.

Then you and I will both be filled with things that grow."

He said, "How will I stand it?"

She said, "I don't know. But if you try, I will go dancing

With you again."

He said he would, and so he did.

Together they melted down the glass slippers and

Blew the glass into a vase for all the green things

That sprout from their heartseams.

Three Non-Haikus To Exculpatory Rest

This morning I stayed
In bed, lolled for hours, and I
Did not feel guilty
Even though the clock
Chided me and the dog whined
At the door and the
Daylight commanded toil and
Productivity
I stayed laxly put
In the certain knowledge that
We all ebb and flow.

Home Haiku

My mother loves me.
I'm driving to New Orleans
To patch our levee.

This Memory Keeps Us Warm

When Appalachian December bit through all of my quilts,
we lay shivering and cursing at the broken space heater,
And you said,
Close your eyes and see us at Coffee Call.

At that hazy cranny in Baton Rouge,
there was nothing between us but a plate of beignets
and steam rising from piles of powdered sugar,

white and pristine as banks of snow.