WANDA (a typewriter portrait)
Writing about you is
don’t say that – a little
intimidating, knowing your own
poems. The World is a matchmaker,
anyone, but specifically someone, would want
to meet your poems. And your eyes
notice what his ears have seen, finally
introduced, after all the readings, parties, screenings,
after all those dates in the calendar
marked orange—and so it happens that
a complement emerges from the crowd,
you forgot the punch line again, anyway,
who cares about punch lines when
there are so many great details, like dimples,
like birds, and things, all things going, gone
you’ve got the mitt to catch them before they roll
off the line,
the tongue which finds itself
tied to a park, keep it—what you’ve found,
then lose it, finally, to take on
you read—and the reel spins
out the door.
MARISOL (a typewriter portrait)
Marisol, dear,
you look great even with
this ailment that nibbles you
like regretful bunnies
I hope it goes away
you’ve got to shake it so that
we can break the beaches
your old self is wandering
the wet sand, and you look
back with a grin, which wrinkles
your nose, and did you
know that ever since
we met, I’ve thought of you
as Cardamom, well, at least part
of the time
You could be an astronaut
for all I know and fly with
the scaly birds of Andromeda
to far away paintings.
The clock ticks from 8 on
and makes like ants in your
small hand
full of tiny jewels
from the street of summer,
idle, idle, white sun,
you are full of little jewels, which
you kindly mistake for losses, holes,
blank suns, idle, idle suns
let me see what you can, and maybe
then I can make a portrait of
your inner chair.
The Same After
Noon
as before
it’s no time now
like it was the middle
of anything you could say
interrupted by punctuality, round figures
curled to a comma,
combed to cup and saucer,
line rolled to period
thumb to margin, time to parentheses
more where that yes came from, yes
or: she said she said by the seashore
hey, I’m not done yet
we have yet to perfect
the chiasmus of bodies
but I have to go
don’t you wish we could hear
the church bells ringing in the yard?
but we do! on the hour!