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.