HISTORICITY

Cast off 

        emotion         snagged

  beneath black ink

 

Kept to bed, pained by light

bright behind lined eyes

 

Paris, of transvestites,

London’s condemnation

 

We disembark 

a chorus line 

at tidewater

 

Greet the shores’ noisy birds

Crack shellfish open

 

   *

Money went down the Hudson

More was coming up

 

Bequeathed

to its unkempt progeny

a colonial rash of gravestones

memorialize intent

 

   *

If only the houses

could line up

closer together

 

Don’t walk across the grass

seeded distance 

between body and blood –

 

Measure instead yourself 

lurching forward

ERRANT

I was a twin at birth

Half mother, half father

 

each gave me a name

to take apart the world

 

I was a monk

went over the wall

 

and hit the streets.

Neither Adam nor Abba,

 

Wisdom nor Eve

called me back.

 

I was lost

In the grit of a wind.

 

I wrote for my mother

and cooked my father’s books.

 

   *

All the love coming my way 

Going to save me from the blues someday

SIDEWAYS

Nothing works 

As quickly as the mind

Hurries along thoughts

The electric goes out

Filleted and breaded

white fish scraps floating

in a blues soup - 

Poisoned eel blood

Her parents had wanted to meet me

They laid towels out

on the Queen's bed

in the attic

The surprise, an argument,

Our parting:

I always expected the body 

To end sideways

At the edge of the universe.

Once more, it's fall.

I stand in front of the window

On and off all day

Hoping to catch a glimpse

Of meaning.