Sixty Some

Carol Peters is sixty some. In 2008, her chapbook, Muddy Prints, Water Shine, was released as #57 in the New Women’s Voices Series from Finishing Line Press. Visit her blog. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA.

A Canto for Mae West

I knew there was a fox in the female heart

sheerly shameless in its heat

as time would reveal.

At first there was an all-pervading smell of

fish.

Blowflies — plump glittery hovering specks of green —

grazed any woman with that smell.

I edged closer

having wondered (since birth) at my aroma and

wanting to graduate to this.

The man —

patriarch husband or king — who had been our containment

was cleanly clocked by the package of Mae West

whose chutzpah engendered us (we measure time

in moonflowers)

who — nun or hussy — planted her body bosom and thigh

rampant, because it would flagrantly be soundtracked and screened.

I knew that the draped could be duped, and this

self, unveiling, could shatter women’s shackles.

I knew

that Mae West’s bravado turned men craven.

Thus was a fox in my heart — a female heart —

and I would contrive shameless

until I was pure through.

About me would be a smell of fish

and a future where females fly.

A Child Wonders Why My Auntie Fell in the Sea at Hilo

Because we are haole, greeters at St. Joseph’s

lei us and embrace us. Aunt Mary

misses the font but grounds a knee, queues

for communion, can’t hear but mimes the song.

Because an acolyte glides toward the altar

bearing a wooden cross, my face betrays me.

Aunt Mary doesn’t see. The eye cannot

say to the hand I have no need of you.

I sit as they rise to chant, humble to pray.

I wait for benediction, wash of the sea.

Because Mary wants her trousers rolled

she wades in the shallows, stumbles, cries out

and falls in front of a child, then fails to rise.

I pull her up. She gasps and says I pushed her.

All You Children and This a Mad House

The girl who won’t stop wailing

squeezes past the man

who’s hauling up the stairs

the boy who won’t walk.

His head bounces — thwock

of a melon but louder —

his face purples, his shirt rucks

to the neck, his spine bruises

balusters his hands flail for.

The girl howls till it’s noise

the mother puts a stop to.

Along the Hull

Under silken lids

his eyes are swollen.

He’s kissing the women

but he misses her.

She is tapping

along the hull

now that he is leaving.

She starts to hear music

above her inner music —

imitates a line.

She can hear her song

while watching others

failing to fathom.

Argyll Tour

Glasgow

Treed infants

mushroom-studded springs

a fenced colt named “Biter”

diesel-smoked canals

seagull froth, tallow broth

trays of drying dates, barge chatter

rust-weakened chains

— but of you, nothing —

tuna bobbing in waves

sleep

long-playing mice

ribald laughter

— until you appear —

dearest, I’m your slave

hobble me.

— Eugenio Montale

Aubade

I wake to a dream bird

melodious mocker

and guilt. I’m late.

Kingfishers

bound by orange ribbons

chitter and chee from posts

shimmer like boasts

above the glare

dive to snare

fillets of shine.

One of me dresses

the other forgets

to rise.

In this vernal season

. . . it were an injury

and sullennesse against nature

not to go out

The tide is high

a rowboat

(borrowed and splintered)

slides from a spongy bank

is buoyed by drift

rocked by swell. It can welcome

my weight

unslip its oars . . .

Aunt Naked

My aunt enters the room naked, waving

a lit cigarette. “Who wants hot dogs

who wants hamburgers, and how many?”

My cousin flips her comic book page

but doesn’t look. I can’t stop

looking. I have never seen breasts

full like pockets, nipples crinkled and red.

Below her belly a black vee aims

between thighs as creased and rumpled

as sheets before bed-making. My aunt

takes our orders, breathes a ring of smoke

and tilts away in jewel-toed slippers

her puckery bottom jiggling like pudding.

She’s off to ask our brothers.

A Whale’s Pace

Because the whales are slow to reach the prison yard

pitiful syllables echo off guard towers.

Because the whales are slow to circumnavigate

nightingales start jamming.

Because the whales are slow tonight

the market's closing, it will cost you nothing to witness the breach.

Becoming Donald Trump

Christmas brings the boy

a video game.

Destroying foe by foe

he gains the sanctum.

Inside the senior home

he finds TVs

and a view of Donald Trump

in black tie —

the man owns every

video game

and gorgeous women —

might he loan one?

Gramps pours coffee.

Granny’s breathing

airs a smell, a whisper

“Why am I here?”

The boy pays no mind

to failing kin.

He will be returned

to the foster home.

Bobbing Along

Sometimes when I feel

older than the hills

thinner than the rails

they tore out the year

after Grandma died

I cook up a stew

by throwing in everything

but the kitchen sink

including that red robin

the cat dragged in

fresh from the garden

a taste of spring.

While eating my fill

I sing my heart out.

Briefly Met

I was the egghead

never-going-to-be-asked-for-a-date

at a public high school

where he was the frequently-suspended.

Weaving through crowds toward second period

I’d catch sight of him and flinch

as he powered along, thrift-shop briefcase swinging

his expression grim or bemused.

I knew he would swerve

to wind up and slam that briefcase into my shins

my elbows, the backs of my knees, leave bruises

that made me clutch myself, glare at the freak —

my brother — trying to comprehend

his only sense of tender.

Bubble and Pop

At dawn the old man’s up and at midnight, down-

wind of the tarp

flapping, a sail

swollen with winter’s lunge and bruising. Gallons of sap

filling the pot

start to simmer —

sugary bubble and pop — the fire to tend, the sudden

burps abandoning

kettle for ground

melted gaps in dirty drifts, the rims congealing.

Forest duff

smarts his eyes

as an owl hoots by. Too old to keep a job that pays

he wouldn’t suit one

a house and a wife

harvest of a life — bubble and pop — his next stop

a swirl of Saturn’s

rainbow dust

far from the tug of Vermont, its cold wind and hungry fire.

Dip the ladle

test the drops —

not thick, not ichor yet. An hour and mapling season will end

like summer ends

the late tomatoes

seeded and canned — flames to warm the long winter.

He conjures heaven

how close it is.

Circulatory

The ice storm spins

a holly berry

a chrysalis.

Digesting the jewel

a stellar jay

sails the slough.

Swelling and growing

gems recrystalize

to understory.

Fuel for my axe.

Coffee Picking

Under this sky of gray cloud

Mary's not wearing sunscreen

only the “Big Dog” sweatshirt

muddy brown pants

rubber boots with green soles.

She and Mike are picking coffee

berries from beaded branches

and the dogs, tired from leaping

lie watching from wet grass.

What does a dog think

of people stripping bitter beans

from tall bushes?

Mary's not wearing a hat

under this sky shifting

from gray to blue, the light from soft

to golden. Around Mike’s neck

a dirty string suspends a bowl

half-full of berries.

Mary drops hers

straight into the bucket.

When she needs a rest

she'll tell Mike she's dizzy

but only because she forgot

and turned her head too quickly.

See? She’s fine now

to continue. Mike knows

how to listen. Don't we need

a simple reason for why we're not

the way we want to be —

why we're creased instead of smooth

why our back is bent

not straight, why we stumble

and don't remember?

Beyond the dogs, the farm,

the sea, familiar, shimmers.

Dreams of Potatoes

In dreams, potatoes dig their way up to the soil's surface

open their eyes.

Rain finds them silt-steeped.

Faded flowers go by.

In potato dreams butter and salt do not figure.

Skins blush in the naked air.

The finest potato is eaten by the twelve-wired bird of paradise

bulges like a jewel in her throat.

A child fits the small potatoes into egg cartons.

Their green dismantles light.

White potato, sweet potato, three potato, four.

Root for darkness. Wake.

Full-Blown

Slope-shouldered eyes

pocked cloud

a mile-long

slant of lip

fissures

Aeolus —

your moon face.

Hawaii 9/11

You had gone

saying, There’s nothing

we can do.

I feared dying

and when the hillside shook

I started to run.

Had we been forewarn’d . . .

by dire example . . .

by what befell?

Down the hundred steps

was icy water

where spiders in webs

belayed between

the knobbled stones

awaited prey.

I catwalked upstream

lay sore and sweating

in a rock’s hard hollow

(shroud for body

socket for skull)

imagined you not returning.

If Blue

If blue were something to eat blue would

taste new then vanish

refresh like water

but not water something keener

would coat like lotion

melt from lips and tongue

renew in the throat

would shimmer along the esophagus

fill the belly for hours ease through

would light each organ flush clear

every impurity all wounds

traverse bowels on feet furred

like butterflies like bees

the remnants would fog

the body's mirror release

a glow pinwheel down then up

would be rinsed blue.

I Hear Mary in the Carport

crying out

when Mia tries to knock her down.

I warn her —

if she pats Mia

I’ll lock the dog up.

She looks at me as if I’m crazy —

how can she pat the good dog

and not the bad dog?

I say which would you prefer —

the dog locked up

or a broken hip?

Mary says

that's a really difficult question.

In the Greenhouse

The lemon’s roots

are awash with moles.

A spatter of drops

bead the sickle’s steel.

Apple and quince blaze

cochineal. The pony

shies at the comb —

my dream erodes.

Dazed and buoyant

I’m soaked with you

exhaling your form

absorbing your face.

God’s scant measure

showers few —

putti with harps and

drums rumble and blaze

at me — at lemons — at you.

— Eugenio Montale

In the Park at Caserta

Against a green stage on a glass pond

where the cruel swan preens and arches

bubbles break — one bubble, ten —

a fire from below — ten fires.

A sun staggers skyward

over Norfolk pines, their verdigris crowns

and crooked nubs unravel like jungle vines

stony arms that sculpt anyone —

strangers — unseat, unsex.

Knuckles bloodied, the Mothers probe the deep.

— Eugenio Montale

Investment

By turning away

she’s not rejecting him.

It’s familiar, cumulative, but temporary

yet in its summarily remote

calculation fond.

The bed

shudders.

Panic shimmers.

The preferred option is

to wait

and see.

She compounds disfavor by

forecasting a next

time.

She asks to be held

even as she declines to

capitulate.

It is that castle keep

that interest, that exposure, those

hours per week, that inequality

that transience, that misalignment.

All things missing or withheld

bring returns.

It Is Time to Explain Myself

I am a free companion

let us stand up

crescent child that carries its full mother in its belly

stand by the curb prolific

udder of my heart

cushion me soft

life is a suck and a sell

what is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is me

no sweeter fat

walks with the tender and growing night

agonies are one of my changes

gibberish of the dry limbs

miracle enough to stagger

I am not contained between my hat and my boots

whirling is elemental

I will do nothing for a long time but listen

turn and live awhile with the animals

they who piddle and patter

stucco'd with quadrupeds

I have instant conductors all over me

moth and the fisheggs

a hummer and a buzzer

fish-smack pack

he most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher

— after Walt Whitman

I Visit My Father’s Ward

To him fall the damaged children

wished for or not

offspring born with brains

too small or miswired

unable to speak or speaking too much

catatonic or never still, even sleeping

children kept for a time as infants

until too much drooling

bodies that don’t grow or don’t walk

or arch, like the boy my father calls Cricket

a tight-strung bow in a crib

where he sings his song.

Bound by straps to chairs

gripping walkers and canes

parked in wheelchairs — canvas, leather, and steel

squirming or limp on bedding

hung in swings

and wild with longing, every child

will wave, warble, bark, clap, rock and pound the floor

cry “Me” and “Doctah” and “Wa-wa-wa”

until my father caresses and says their names.

When he gentles Cricket with his palm

long slow swaths down chest and belly

the song rises.

I stand in the doorway

afraid of all these strangers.

Lightning

(bloom and boom)

I ran up

the driveway

my body

ahead

of my feet

when the strike

filled the sky

with silver

Lowcountry Chat

Who said “Check out the hips on

that tree”? Hip-hippy-trunkulating-

up-to-a-crotch where the flare out

startles. Who said “That tree's lost

its fool head”? Knuckle-cracking fingers

spring-leafing to green and yellow lace,

all hips and torso and arms but no face.

“Lucky you live in the swamp, Tree. In a lawn

Tree, you'd be chain-sawed and wood-mauled.”

What Tree says is “I'm counting on roots

wider than my upside is tall.” Whoever said

“Love of money is the root of all evil” knows zip

about roots. Mud, locally known as Pluff

feels them grow their way through spartina.

Mandoo Soup at Onekahakaha Park

I taste the kimchi, the pork

pinched inside a dumpling

slurp the cloudy broth.

I chopstick ribbons

of curdled egg, chew slivers

of bamboo and zucchini.

I’m swallowing seaweed

when a trade wind wheels

the soup container’s plastic lid

downslope toward the beach

— a top’s fandango —

but I’m lava-benched, beguiled

by plover squealings, mynah sass

turquoise breakers, humpback froth

not ready to chase my trash.

Mockingbird

A Bird stood on my sill today —

One I have seen before —

And sang its Anthem — gay and bold —

I could not charge my ear

To voice the key — nor tune my throat

To play its Melody —

Nor cavalierly, tilt my tail —

Mimic its Equipoise —

But later — in the Tub — afloat —

I lather bubbled sheen

That reconditions me — now Bird —

Here comes — my joyful Noise

Morning After

The pinwheel

sling of Kali's arms

lures the child to the lawn.

Water needles

the costume she wears

to scare herself.

Squatting over punched steel

she dams the flow.

Trickles grow

to hammers.

Not a mark shows

she's been stung.

Not until her ears ring

her limbs freeze

will she end it.

Muir’s Sailing

Seeking a route to California

Muir sailed from Havana to New York

on a tar-and-oakum fruiter.

The hold was loaded with oranges, the deck

filled up level with the rails.

They walked on boards over gold.

The captain, five crew and the passenger

dined as one on salt mackerel and plum duff

and oranges.

Near the south coast of Carolina

head winds drenched the ship: of course

the load of oranges suffered.

The captain’s Newfoundland

jumped from a dozing sleep to capture flying fish

fluttering in oranges.

In calm sea and calm sky a dolphin

pursued the flock, dashed into the midst

and feasted on fallout.

Holding a rope on the bowsprit

Muir almost forgot

that walking on seas was forbidden.

He marveled at breaking waves of phosphorescent light.

O, to walk by night

with every star pictured in its bosom.

My Next Otter play

My mother sat, her one eye blind

watching the river rushing for the dam

her monster —

its balustrades of winter ice. She tallied

red mergansers, said her otter drifted

belly up

gobbling a fish, edging nearer the brink

then preened its paws and swam upriver.

This December

my otter’s head appears in the marsh

trolling for prey. Times I sat on the sill

near her hoping

to see the sable curl, the rounded snout

the duck’s rout. But my next otter’s head

wasn’t sleek —

no — matted, its jaws around a silver fish

heaving, alive. It dove at my approach

my kind.

Night Swim at Folly

On the bridge to Folly Beach —

midspan — a wooden cross

a limp flag, fresh blooms

a bottle in a brown bag.

That’s one reason he passed —

drinking and driving too fast —

but also the fight, their last

because he was to die soon.

A burring sound of tires

on grates before the car

veered into the concrete rail

exploded through.

Moored in pluff mud boil

a man underwater

in pitch dark, where

his fate was to die soon.

His friends steal flowers

from local parks — reds

and forget-me-not blues.

They wish he’d kissed his lover

and nixed that final beer.

They imagine he said

I’m screwed, but then

tried not to die so soon

by flailing at the door —

or had he floored it and steered

for the taste of black water,

wanted to die, soon?

No Souls

The vulture lands, his long wings fan the air

above a flattened mate.

Her head — leprous, bare

and red — twists to touch him, bill-on-bill.

How can this necrous pair connect

while clinging to a spar between two poles?

And how can songless birds

sway to a rapturous rhythm but have

no souls?

Perhaps

an egg quickens. Spent

the pair opens their serrated spans

to heaven, miming angels. Hours lapse

as fever slakes and vigor streams

to wingtips now resembling hands.

Odysseus Adopts His Ancient Aunt

Hold on, Penelope says, as again Odysseus rises

to leave her behind in the great rooted bed. Get wise.

I’m wed to your seagoing lust but not to your aged aunt.

She’s your family, so take her. He’s aghast.

How to sail so obscenely burdened? But his aunt is eager:

I can adjust to any situation. Hand me an oar

a tiller, a spear. Can’t you suit me up in armor?

Give me a chore: net mender, mast climber

flail finder. She’s lame, practically deaf and blind

gap-toothed, purple-skinned, losing her mind.

To keep her from harm, Odysseus locks the hag in the hold

but fails to warn his crew of ill-fortune about to unfold:

beetles infest the barley, drinking water spoils

sheep and goats bloat on oats and the honey spills

riggings fray as tempers boil. Aeolus harries

the ship with winds that shift from doldrums to furies.

It’s all their captain’s fault for bringing aboard a dame

for tupping. She's my aunt, he claims. She's ancient!

But crewmen whisper she's a white-armed maid. Minutes

before the mutiny, Odysseus opens the hatch, issues

the crone a helmet and greaves, a blade to field the blows.

The crew falls back amazed as the old lady shows

what she's made of: her challenged spine taller by inches

her clouded eyes colder than memories, she lunges

at the shamed and humbled foe. Untouched by counter sting

she tumbles down, bloodied she is dying.

Old Woman Wears Falling Apart Underpants

old woman wears falling apart underpants

not willing to buy new for nothing flappy butt in floppy sack

eats food found deep in hard-to-reach cupboards

apricots she peels apart and soaks in warm water from the tap

tongues and sucks their sweetness spits leather skeletons onto cracked plates

better — believe me — than assisted living saucily monitored decline

one hears of old persons wandering off the scare of a parent gone missing

ancients torn apart by wild dogs better — believe me — than managed care

unbalanced diet made worse by finding huckleberries along the back fence

eating them all half-ripe before the thieving birds find them plus the peaches

the neighbor drops by along with two perfectly ripe Better Boys

oh those young boys for a few hours the underpants sag around the ankles

while she reads her way through decades-old New Yorkers in the upstairs loo

she keeps them all better — believe me — than paying for new

after a while the stories feel like a part of her she only needs reminding

for a week she swears off fresh fruit

works her way through the canned goods tuna baked beans capers

before Lucy takes her to the store the shopping cart fills with strong flavors

olives bacon three pounds of carrots raw Lucy won’t let her pay

for as long as the loaf lasts she’ll feast on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches

all the nutrition a body needs between two slices of wholewheat bread

then back to the dried fruit food that tastes and keeps

old woman prefers to put off sleep better to reread the old stories

than watch TV the same kind of people live and laugh and love and fall sick

and die without sponsors or hired minders she resists the idea

that anyone should try to help her better — believe me — to hang solo

that’s why it comes as such a surprise to all of us who know her

when her body sickens the rest falters too she sags easily into our hands

it’s the strange wolf that frightens her her spirit that crumples first

Passing for Love

Because he asks me, I visit —

a small apartment after a long ride.

My father's minding a toddler, blue-eyed.

A winter sun streams through bare windows.

He’s disheveled, seems older

— says he's sober.

I can't find a place to settle

refuse a cup of coffee. He wants to talk

but I can’t speak.

The child, laughing, pushes a boat

along the couch. My father raises his hand

and lets her sail all over him.

Penance

When guilt comes to you as Custer

bearing his slaughtered troops, his brothers

one by one from circle to circle of hell

you must share his burden, reach across

for the scalped head of one, the hacked torso

of a second, the left boot, shattered foot

rotting, of a third. Custer will tell you how

the time spent in a circle depends on whether

perversity or blasphemy or greed

dogged the soldier before he took an arrow

to his heart. Whether you have denied a beggar

or mocked a god or molested a she-goat

devils will run you down, stay and torture you

because you are alive, a superior target

for flaying, searing, drowning in gore.

What have you done, you cry, that you

are so consumed by another man’s failing?

O my brother. O fallen man.

Prince Charming

Your mother

— Queen of Pearls —

prefers orchids

to the axles

she oils to prevent

your rusted

caravan

from screaming

witless profanities

at Planet Earth.

Provincetown Crossing

Ropes unfurl from cleats, the grumbling screws

rotate the ferry’s hull, propel the bow

to cleave the harbor. Epauletted in blue

the pilot steers the bell to blinker route

toward open sea. Passengers may queue

for fizzy drinks and salty snacks.

Sunday crosswords offer subtle clues

to bundled lovers. Restless travelers tack

from lee to starboard, back from bow to stern.

They’ve wired their heads, implanted buds in ears

each glance surveys the ocean’s tumble and turn

their torsos swivel and slide to rhythms heard.

The crew is dozing: idle hands and mind.

An autopilot drives the ferry blind.

Rosetta Stone

A liquid blacktop nozzle

transcribes the county road —

winter heaves

vehicular crashes.

The artist loops

and glob-stops

mimes and surges.

The zigzagged text

resists a supervisor

but the code

will harden.

Salt Marsh Dawning

Our window noticed, broke open like news.

There was no news, only night, paling.

Beads slingshot up from pines to blueing

double down to glassy bands of steel.

The steel grows crimson bolts between grasses

mohawked in green, brown, and golden.

Previewed by rays, the crown ascends minutely.

Drawn, the blue capitulates and is morning.

Bare day blinds, insists the steel. Our eyes

drift from the sight on a light-strewn breeze

reconfigure the patchwork to gulls

skimming water, contrails stitching sky.

Scars

removed back of ear

took one chunk from neck one chunk from arm

used them to reconstruct the ear

The cancer excised

after months of crusting and weeping.

A woman with breast cancer once bound

her excrescence in cloths

under her dress

until the breast grew to an awful size

or burst.

My brother’s ear festered for months

under his HMO.

cut on neck is stretched so pesky

and ear’s sore

In Milton’s day the king ordered

the ears of Puritans cut off

their faces branded with marks of Judas.

Will the new ear feel cricks?

The urge to lift heavy objects?

I’m considering a beer

A proto-ear fumbles for an opener.

Scotch

what we no longer drink

aside from thimblefuls

on special occasions

what we do with yearnings

for things forsworn

cheese and Coca-Cola

what Campbell’s calls a broth

made from beef

and onion, carrots and barley

what fills the tape dispenser

mends the tear

sets the spitcurl

what we draw in the sand

a matrix of lines, girls

queueing to hop over

what flavors the stew

an orange bonnet

Latins call a habanero

what we spray on upholstery

to guard against spills

food fights, accidental sex

what a knife makes

an opening

to enter or leave by

Second Burial

I hoe vees.

I seed kale.

I miss her fingerbones.

She thumbed holes

out-of-kilter lines

made harlequin maps.

No remains —

tufts, nails and teeth —

all ebbed to meal.

I loiter at the fruiting rows.

I skirt abandoned beds.

Seeing Kilauea

Steam geysers from vents.

We stop the car to peer

through chain-link fence

(butts and coins —

tourist-tossed)

at gaps in lava, places

where rocks are shifting.

Mary asks if it’s fog

or smoke. The air is thin —

she begins to cough.

Red blooms of ‘ohi‘a.

I steer past grays

and blues, sheer caldera

sulfur-white frost.

Pu‘u, I say —

cone where lava spouts.

Pahoehoe — slabs of lava

smooth and black

or bulging, pleated

spiral mounds.

A‘a — the other lava

acres of reddish scree.

Eruptions that cover, burn

and smother. Nearly home

we pass men working —

fencing a field.

Mary says, Look, farmers.

They’ve built a fire.

It’s fog, I say

washing out Mauna Kea.

Seen Driving from Chapel Hill to Charleston

I would not live on Pope Road or in Clinton town

would not work at Cafe Risque

would not take my vacation at a Holiday Inn

or send my children to the Falcon Children's home

but I would stop to neck at mile 69

travel to New York on a Lionel train.

I say yes to the free hot breakfast and coffee 24-hours a day

no to marrying a soldier trained at Fort Bragg.

I'd rather not be tickled pink South of the Border.

24-hour gas sounds painful.

Shade

The canopy’s

half-light

wraps our love

in silence.

In heathers

and pines

our fervors

decline.

Drop your eyes

hold yourself

let go of

desire.

Breeze, come

sweetly

grass, sway

at our feet.

We’ll wait

for evening

the nightingale

and singing.

— Paul-Marie Verlaine

Sol, Sol

Sun, sun, hot and gold.

The orc with ivories

slow-rides the breakers.

Spray, gassy and whetted

lures him past the swell.

Surge howlers skim by

on balearic backbones

with cockle-cream ribbons

and high-tossed domes.

Fly Barracuda, Aphyraena.

The orc skates the tube.

Steam trumpets power

tappets for the knell

pearling round oysters

and marbled copper bells.

Fly Anemone, Dauphina.

The orc beams the curl.

The fathoms glimpse

high noon. Gilled in amber

a fish plum sieves drift

and balm from the drench.

Fly Manatee, Sirenia.

The orc with ivories

bites the drums

barrel rolls a double curl

in spray’s green dice —

snake eyes.

Speciation

happens slowly, Darwin says

when climate or tectonic shifts or viral pandemics

alter the space, kill off what can’t

and favor what can survive. Phebe brightens.

Like the modern urban squirrel, she says

unlike the squirrels of my childhood —

dying under the wheels of cars.

Watch the squirrels now — they pause at curbs.

Don’t they seem to listen? Look

Phebe says, that’s speciation

in less than geological time. No,

says Darwin, those squirrels haven’t evolved.

It’s only that the deaf ones died.

Spring Yields

The heads of day-old titmice are black holes, then white lines

etched on bodies sleeping. All but three

fade from the webcam.

The woodpecker mining ants from the pine doesn’t see the squirrel

falling to earth, the red blood at its mouth

the end of its breathing.

One by one the rat snake feasts on bluebirds dragged from a box

nailed to a fence pole. Lumps in its throat

stagger its grounding.

The dutiful gleaners — yellow-jackets and emerald blow-flies

maggots freshly hatched — loot the sweet

remains of the season.

Storm Warning

It blows hard, listen, watch out for tornados!

The marsh tide's at flood, hours later riding high.

Wait — rain batters the window

birds in their nests, tilting from side to side.

Has the danger passed? Clouds dip and collide.

Oh! the bluebird house, torn from its post!

It blows hard, listen, watch out for tornados!

Has the commotion eased? Grackles still won't fly.

Wait — below the grasses, roots showing

reefs of oysters, a gull laughs and dives.

Aren't birds a sign that worrisome times are over?

It blows hard, listen, watch out for tornados!

String Along

her gowned sense

a masquerade

his fools’s singlet

looped with flags

a dreamer she nags

for a queen’s castle

till his staff batters

and the rafters boom

she plies the broom

a judy’s fortune

grab your buttons

punch and run

The Earrings

In the lamp-blacked glass, not a shadow

of flight remains. (Of your trace, nothing.)

The golden hoops — fragile gleams

the sponge has sent packing.

I looked for your rocks, your corals

the strength that steals you.

I flee a goddess without shape.

When I say what I want, you burn me.

Outside a chitinous racket

bizarre rites canceling our existence.

Regaining the stage

the night’s gentle medusas.

Your signal will flare from the deep.

At your lobes, hands without blood or bone

will fasten the corals.

— Eugenio Montale

The First Rabbit

When Lou’s hand broke

the rabbit’s neck

we studied our hands for lack

of calluses. Mike swung a buck

by the legs, said

good-bye before he raised

his mallet. His first swing failed

the next one dazed.

I cleavered head from torso

watched the muscles contort

the blood flow.

I peeled the coat

lopped the feet

gutted and rinsed the meat.

Later, we soaped away the sweet

reek of recent

death — deposits

of flesh and fat, our profit

of memory and sorrow — our habit

since that first rabbit.

The Great Blue Heron

My wakeup clock is the great blue heron

a strangled squawk from the great blue heron.

Flushed from a jack pine, the noise careens

to the nearest dock, it’s the great blue heron.

Sunshine fires the pale breast, cerulean

shoulders and hocks on the great blue heron.

Most of a morning goes to flare and preen

and air the sockets of the great blue heron.

Ascending, the lengthening wings and body open

gravity's lock for the great blue heron.

Though ibises travel overhead in dozens

it’s one to a flock with the great blue heron.

As moon swallows the marsh, fish are marooned

in shallows chock-full, O great blue heron.

Extended toes patently Groucho Marxian

ID the walk of the great blue heron.

The head cocks, the bill's a lethal weapon

for prey outstalked by the great blue heron.

When dusk falls, a shadow grays spartina

home to its hammock flies the great blue heron.

The Ibis and the Polychaete

Feeding at low tide an ibis inhaled

a polychaete — a leggy worm seen dabbing

an inconclusive calligraphic trail

in mud exposed by marshtide’s ebb.

Yanked from its hiding place, the parapodial

snack extended like a rubber band

then snapped and pooled like mercury spilled

from curving bill to estuary ground.

Carcass-fed, how white the worm, how blind

how lame — with all those legs no wheels!

The immanent bill chased segments through the slime

swallowing, loop by loop, the slippery meal

then stilted on, bending now and again to dredge

another hapless squirmer from the sludge.

The Man Who Plays Piano at Nordstrom

parks his sedan on the shoulder and stands with his back

to the woods. He’s burly, middle-aged, still wearing

his tuxedo — frayed suspenders dangle, the bow tie’s loose.

His forearm’s draped with folded plastic garbage bags.

Still, he’s complaining — lips pinched, cheeks in a sag —

to a comely woman in crepe silk, pearled cardigan

and pleated slacks. She bends, sympathetic to his tirade

willing to enter the woods or drive farther, find a motel —

whatever he wants — but nothing, nothing suits him.

The Shapes of Flowers

Browsing flats, pushing a cart for company

I fondle stems and conjure the shapes of flowers —

triangle, circle, square, or spiral botanies —

without a care for sympathetic colors.

So borders clash! Our likes and dislikes change —

bright red exposes blue throughout the mauve

pale pink promotes the red inside the orange

ivory gossips to white, tattles at taupe.

Comrades, my garden romps in natural hues

the clumps and rows resemble social schemes —

here a yellow elbows aside chartreuse

there a cinnamon strongarms cream.

With shields held high — helmet, spear and torch

chalice, flag and trumpet storm my porch.

The Worms Mend

Beneath rain-soaked leaves

moss blankets the steps and risers.

I peel the green, uncover worms

of palest pink. Unused to light

and air, they Möbius-strip, unfurl.

I flip the broken pieces away

shuttle the broom back and forth

to bare the stones for drying.

At two a.m., Mike’s coughing starts

subsides to barely wheezing. Awake

I raise the cotton sheet to catch

a breeze, escape my dreaming.

The night sweat eases. I curve to

the swell of his cold hip, donate

warmth to his sleeplessness, caress

his shoulder. Sorry, he says.

Don’t worry, I say. I know

the worms mend and moss regrows.

Tropical Garden

Wasn’t Emily plain and lonely

— most days —

didn't she love her bees

as I love

the fern frond

— green with a yellow fade —

and blue flowers

on a yellow-berried bush.

Rock pile

orchid, croton, ixora

— flesh and colors —

crowd and console me.

Wasn’t Eve

— roses bushing round her —

lonely for the snake?

Tucked behind an Ear like an Ear of Corn

an interdisciplinary dolphin

yodels in a thermos

the adult doldrum’s just a phylum

frosted in granulated sugar

the ice by the islet’s speakered with reeds

an Archimedean pinkie

gets inside our earaches

a pugilistic insistence on quiet

or Russian

I should burgeon

during thunderstorms

a little stream

lipreading through the moving leaves

the smell of fresh scratches

music flows out from the center to the edge

fungible singers of the fainter ochers

even sound gets wet in rain

— after Ange Mlinko

Urban Owl

Was it a vole, a convoy of mice

a dropped glove decoyed the owl

down from a tree into light?

Its body a mammal’s

barring the wings flung wide, the face

a heart, obsidian eyes

swiveling left and right at grass

smelling of earth, the faded human rag aside

nothing moving proving nothing

to eat, its prey

safe in snug holes or combing dumpsters

out of sight, the city quiet

midnight’s patient hungry owl

captures air and flies.

Waking

Dawn doesn’t come soon enough

to put a stop to dreaming.

Compared to action, what’s so sweet about

shagging z’s? Think greyhound — the gate

the anticipatory chomp

at the rabbit’s

loin and the superstitious touts.

In night’s fade, my feet itch

dreaming is pre-history. As for yawns

necessary, yes, but come one sound

they too are vaulting from the bed.

No fire, no hail, no siren call

but pumped and yearning, ready to gaze

rapt at the eyes of a sinking moon.

One clap

one lightning strike, one hypothetical

tune plays, and there it is — the raw

heartthrob of the new day, that tingle

in the ribs anticipating

the piccolo’s whistle and wild hoarse

drone of the oboe, probing

the journey it was sculpted for.

The opening chord.

Listen, the day

wakes when it wakes. There’s no delaying

the rollout. Rollup the carpet.

Hear the fibers furl, and outside — see?

night exits tapping tambourines, grace notes

in oyster, a flesh-colored band.

Water Burning

Come plunge your hands in this cone

of brush — invasive guava, agave

over-grown, hau deflowered

strangling ulu‘i. Pluck from the meshes

branches and fronds, hazard them deep

beyond ash into ready coals.

How the thickety heap disguises

(grassy creep) its yen to burn.

How, flame as catalyst, devil's

sharpshooters fire the night alizarin.

What If I Buy You Lunch

Oh no, she said, paying for a woman

is not what you want to do, She felt how he pulled

away, tried not to. And why

must he say this to her? Who else

can know? She wants to say she suffers

loneliness. Hers is like his.

Would she buy love? How can she comfort

what does it mean to be a friend

these days? He’s told her about his wife, his daughter

she knows, or she thinks she knows, he loves them.

Yet here they sit, two people at a conference

spending the hours between here and there, one meeting

and the next, nowhere

and he’s lonely, might buy a whore.

She’s his friend from work. What are they saying?

What Mike Saw

The tightly coiled spring

of the rat’s tail — nine inches

tapering to a bent tip, furred

except where death burned it

legs ending in pink feet —

dainty, like monkey hands

convex soles with curling toes

the first and fifth sprung

like opposing thumbs

from heel to toe the foot as long

as the leg, a bead of urine

leaked from a gray tuft —

brown eyes and a pink nose

whiskers in four rows

and light-filled ears like breeze-filled

sails — an old man’s lobes.

Where We Are

is where our digits press screens and keys to cabling

banding the bulge of the earth

am I a member of your tribe because

both of us work for self?

try not

to be as you might

breeding, location, education, lifestyle no longer

welding state to state

wherein you may not have bathed for a month

I am merely two days into not bathing

compost of billions

tell me of your dirt

mine spots a gray cotton T-shirt (small hole in the left armpit)

non-binding

over

checkered cotton shorts

material failures

at the folded edges

the float of the sight of things

age is less noticeable in pixels

O let us take our hand . . .

Whidbey Island Spoils

1

A crab has cracked, belly from back

its shell missing a wedge

lifted by wrack.

2

Some child’s forgotten her Kermit

sifter clotted with sand

taken her bucket.

3

All gauze and ommateum, flies

guzzle at a Douglas fir’s

tumultuous capsize.

4

A Golden Crackling sparkler grazes

a Pepsi-Cola can, a

flowerpot crazes.

5

Kelp macrames sticks and stones

pigeon guillemots scour

a salmon’s bones.

Willem de Kooning, Untitled, 1988

Though not an ear

the space edged with blue

quickens a membrane listening.

An ear doesn’t close its eye.

Whites and tomato flashes

enter unimpeded.

Threads of volume

nursed from the jigsaw knob

of the world tuning.

Through M-shaped folds

a cauliflower ear

trades suitable phrases.

The white ground

reminds us of not hearing.

Notes

“A Canto for Mae West” began as a Jon Anderson poem.

In “All of You Children and This a Mad House” haole is Hawaiian for “foreigner” and commonly refers to white people who visit or relocate to Hawaii.

The quotation in “A Child Wonders Why My Auntie Fell in the Sea at Hilo” originally appears in 1 Corinthians 12:21 (King James Version).

“Argyll Tour,” “In the Greenhouse,” “In the Park at Caserta,” and “The Earrings” are translations of poems by Eugenio Montale.

Quotations in “Aubade,” “Hawaii 9/11,” and “Tropical Garden” originally appear in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

“A Whale’s Pace” is an aural “translation” of a poem by Wislawa Szymborska.

“Bubble and Pop” and “What If I Buy You Lunch” began as Jorie Graham poems.

“Circulatory,” “If Blue,” “Lowcountry Chat,” and “Whidbey Island Spoils” were inspired by a weekly photo/poem exchange carried on with artist/author Pierr Morgan.

“Investment” began as a Lyn Hejinian poem.

Every line of “It Is Time to Explain Myself” originally appears in the 1856 edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

“Lightning” began as a William Carlos Williams poem.

“Lowcountry Chat” began as a Lori Anderson poem.

“Mockingbird” began as an Emily Dickinson poem.

Some phrases in “Muir’s Sailing” originally appear in John Muir’s A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf.

“No Souls” began as a William Butler Yeats poem.

“Salt Marsh Dawning” began as a David Micah Greenberg poem.

Quotations in “Scars” appeared in an IM (instant messaging exchange) with my brother.

“Shade” is a translation of a poem by Paul-Marie Verlaine.

“Sol, Sol” began as a Federico García Lorca poem.

“Storm Warning” began as a Tristan Corbière poem.

“The Ibis and the Polychaete” began as a Richard Wilbur translation of a poem by Charles Baudelaire.

“The Man Who Plays Piano at Nordstrom” was inspired by Anthony S. Abbott’s book The Man Who.

“The Shapes of Flowers” began as a John Keats poem.

Every line of “Tucked Behind an Ear Like an Ear of Corn” originally appears in Ange Mlinko’s book Starred Wire.

“Waking” began as an Alice Friman poem.

“Water Burning” began as a Sherod Santos translation of a poem by Mnasalcas.

Quotations in “Where We Are” originally appear in the 1860 edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to friends who read these poems at various stages and to generous editors of journals and anthologies in which they were published: Always on Friday, Cairn, Connotation Press, Ecotone, International Poetry Review, Letters to the World, Main Street Rag, Pebble Lake Review, Pembroke Magazine, RealPoetik, Reconfigurations, South Carolina Review, The Asheville Poetry Review, The Lyric, The Other Voices International Project, The Pedestal Magazine, The Sound of Poets Cooking, and Waccamaw.

Special thanks to Suzanne Stryk for the jacket art; to my close writing community: Caroline Conway, Chris Mastin, Dave Manning, Linda Annas Ferguson, Linda Lee Harper, Linde Kanahele, Pat Riviere-Seel, Phebe Davidson, and Pierr Morgan; and to the Long Table Poets, the North Carolina Poetry Society, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina.

Extra special thanks to Beverly Jackson and Susan Laughter Meyers, who have nurtured me from the start, and to my teachers Carl Phillips, Doug Powell, Marie Ponsot, Mark Wunderlich, Maxine Kumin, Nick Flynn, Richard Garcia, Terri Brown-Davidson, and most of all, Heather McHugh, who showed me what was possible.