NEW POEMS



A Death In Madagascar

In Madagascar, the rosy periwinkle is dying

                                                    For years
                                                    the world limped in
                                                    for mace and cinnamon.
                                                    Conscripted sailors clawed
                                                    the shore like men
                                                    accustomed to drowning.

                                                    Heat was a walled room--
                                                    all the suffocating 
                                                    jungle climbed up and up
                                                    for air.

                                                    Rosy periwinkle sighed beneath
                                                    this tower; sought shade,
                                                    sought water--
                                                    men lay down in her arms; 
                                                    brides lay down with their men.

                                                    For a hundred years
                                                    their children cried in white rooms of death 
                                                    until these flushed petals
                                                    gave them second breath.

                                                    In Madagascar the rosy periwinkle is dying

                                                    Barehanded, 
                                                    men hack open
                                                    the sleeping bed of this flower
                                                    and leave a grave.


(This flower, used successfully in treating 90% of childhood leukemias is now on the verge of extinction.)

Helen of Troy


                                        
                                                            Tomorrow you'll stop drinking.
                                                            I believe you. Tomorrow
                                                            your memory will improve.
                                                            Thursday night is garbage night.
                                                            Remember?

                                                            Monday night you drive
                                                            the girls to dance class. And
                                                            you promised you'd help
                                                            with the dishes without
                                                            being asked.

                                                            I'm not Helen and our insurance
                                                            won't pay for the broken window---
                                                            but once I was beautiful
                                                            and you brought me gifts.

Fallen

                                                                 I am an apple
                                                                 hanging fat upon the sighing limb.
                                                                 Hard as a planet,
                                                                 with eyes enough
                                                                 to drink the sky,
                                                                 I only have to speak
                                                                 and the entire tree
                                                                 listens with all its pointed ears.
                                                                 But one slip
                                                                 and I am face-down,
                                                                 mumbling to myself,
                                                                 beauty gone,
                                                                 with only a worm's tongue.

Mermaid
 

                                                                I gather driftwood, 
                                                                old shoelaces,
                                                                my wedding dress for a  sail.
                                                                I take fresh water,
                                                                a compass with its needle quivering.
                                                                Wind pushes me into the sun
                                                                igniting the rim of the world
                                                                then burning out.
                                                                Stars don't help:
                                                                not even the big bear growling
                                                                his little lights.
                                                                Out here I'll grow a tail,
                                                                forget speech,
                                                                find you in a fishes' cove.
                                                                I'll drag you home,
                                                                a human boy,
                                                                lungless, water-sick,
                                                                grateful.

Pawn To Queen's Four

 

                                                            At least you have a holster and a gun.
                                                            I just have yards of muslin
                                                            and tired hands.
                                                            All day I hide in the corn
                                                            aching for the touch of silk.

                                                            In the splintery cabin
                                                            you eat with cold appreciation;
                                                            I take down the board,
                                                            the whittled horses

                                                            as the eye of the impartial moon
                                                            checks our moves
                                                            in buttery light.

                                                            The pieces speak for me.
                                                            They inch towards you
                                                            on the level plain
                                                            though it's hard to defend myself
                                                            night after night.

                                                            My pawns walk boldly
                                                            to their deaths and I know
                                                            tomorrow you'll walk behind the plow
                                                            again and stitch us irrevocably
                                                            to this long scar.






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