Cowell Beach Anatomy

I’m wetting my shins,
toiling through surge & tow,
recoiling from chill at my thighs.
My torso shudders & sinks
through ocean brown & cluttered
with plastic & feathers.
Kelp threads harness my hands.
Below me I wish for seabeds
of starfish & anemone.
Otters turn ebony heads
to witness the sea lions barking.
Close to the wharf
a breast imprudently slides
from a worn-out bikini.
She’s sleeping, a cloak
of flesh-seeking flies gleaning
her sun-buttered hide.
Walking myself dry
I’ve seagulls for mates,
no sand-crusted lifeguard-
in-training feet sprinting 
toward waves, no one hand 
straining for coach's brawn, 
the other backstroking hard
to earn one of ten batons.
One my way home
the sign — bacterial tests,
not to be touched, not to be ingested.
What brain do I swim by?

— 16 August 2013

Summer

I sing to moisture on the back deck —
mirroring, convex.
Since May I’ve been doublewide
where density is law.
The fabric of the deck chair
dimples
as moisture infiltrates
thread by thread.
How vacant it is, decrepitating
in morning scrim.
To me this trailer park
is daily abstention,
an intervention.

— after Akhmatova

— 18 August 2013

Out of My Skin

Itching —
my torso where
humongous hives had bloomed
after four doses of Aleve.
First I had thought it was the massage cream
but Googling listed rash & hives
as Aleve side effects.
Last night — awful
itching.

Sudden
frenzy convinced
me poison oak was back
conveyed by yesterday's T-shirt —
a blue one, stained, uncovered while packing.
I scrubbed with Zanfel, Mike scrubbed too —
get it off, get it off
me. All of a 
sudden.

— 4 August 2013

I Wake from a Dream of Real Estate

Down the river chickens are streaming —
large chickens with knobbly veins.
They have a trick of catching the current,
racing along. The man who owns the chickens
rides with them, the current so strong 
he’s injured — a herniated testicle —
sounds painful, but we don’t like him, so we’re glad.

In my dream, as always, I’m young.
I wake up an old lady, struggle to dress
because the bed’s too high, my balance bad —
I’d sit on the floor but that’s beneath me.

I’m not sure I’m in love any longer —
I don’t feel surges or urges.
Mostly I want things tidy & I want to be left alone,
to go whaling in Patagonia, birding in Ecuador,
to ride my bicycle down Center Street in Santa Cruz.

If I brought Tova to Esalen we’d go to the hot spring baths.
She’s three, old enough to find the nudity surprising —
her people wear clothes
though they haven’t always, her daddy for sure
spent his second summer naked
including a week on a public beach with his naked brother
& mother & her boyfriend.
Two men threatened us at one point, but Steve had a knife too.
A man, his wife & donkey stared —
Whose children are they?
Surely not yours. Your breasts are too small.

— 10 August 2013

Coming Home

I mistake my kitten for a demon
breathing sparks & trailing fire. He grew wilder
while I was gone. When I crouch low
outside the front screen door, he raises his paws
mewing like a child lost, now found.

Back when I was eighteen, stranded
without my car, the aged Pontiac I lived in
that summer between high school & college,
I saved my tips to buy a Ducati —
all I could afford. Freshmen couldn’t have cars
at this women’s school, but no one thought
to proscribe two-wheelers.

The bike shop’s amorous Italian helped me close
the deal, score black-market plates from a DMV creep
called Lester the Molester — yes
he made me nervous but did me no harm. I guessed
I knew how to ride. From Western Ave to Garden Street,
Shepard to Walker, I blew through traffic signals,
cropped every corner, careened
through a Shell station without pausing for gas,
braked at the curb in front of my dorm &
tipped the bike over, slid
my left foot into the rear spokes —
a poor choice to stop the wheel from spinning.

Nothing destroyed but nerve
yet I couldn’t walk. My friends found me a ride-share
home to my mother — estranged
I wouldn’t call. Arrived on her unlit porch
I rang the bell. I knew it was late
but college life became me —
skipping morning classes meant
I stayed up half the night. Last I’d heard
Mom was raising my teenage brother, they’d adopted
a Great Dane. The front door opened
to rabid barking in a blaze of light
my mother aiming a revolver at my heart,
crying out to see my face,
the crutch, lowering the gun
she said, I thought you were a burglar.
Lucky for you I didn’t fire.

— 12 August 2013

After Watching Another Video of the Tsunami

Half a city flooded on top of the other,
houses broken apart, whoever
was inside them gone, whether
or not anyone reported them missing
gone because the houses are downriver.
Like papier-mâché once was paper
once these were homes. Many who lived in these homes
don’t care, they’re dead. After Fukushima
who remembers how many died —
many more, we suspect, will die.
Why not watch, again & again
the wave when it arrived, how it damaged.
Just watching it, we’re still alive.

— 13 August 2013

Orare for Argentina

Why irrigate the desert

if no one walks the paths,
looks at flowers.
So many things we bought
there, took there,
what’s missing in our life —
the photo purchased in Carolina —
a sun-blacked heron,
an algae-green pond.

— 14 August 2013

Weather

When friends put sail to their catamaran
I’m mildly troubled but not worried.
If anyone knows how 

they do, still, chancing it 

on water, the heave & hum,

liable to storms

though short-hauling

they can know the weather.

Months now, spring

& all summer, they’ve made port

in Portland,

their Argentine house finished but untried.

Already it’s August, the month 

the great wind starts.

— 14 August 2013

After Akhmatova

The moon’s cool cream pocket has brimmed
& bottled the choir of evening crows.
It’s merely urban citizenry,
crepuscular filibuster.
Who made it my lamplighter
& why does it lampoon me?
Or is this a koan conjuring
vexing voodoo for me?

— 14 August 2013

Ship's Clock Bells

On the mantel a ship’s clock

bells each watch —a single chime

marks half past midnight

six chimes three. By six
the backyard young men

partying all night are gone —

no, they’re still at it though

the baby’s no longer screaming —

is it sick? or worse, alone?
The bullfrog, knowing I watch

from the window above its head

doesn’t answer calls from another
bullfrog deep in the reeds.
Nuthatch is waiting

for feeders I carried inside

the night before — rain be damned

I sandal up to hang them

— hummingbird wheels.
The washer spins, the dining
room table shakes, my tea trembles
at such fearful asymmetry.

Claw prints on deck boards

chattering & screaming —

how can raccoons afford
to mate in the night?
And what’s a kitten’s secret?

No, I can’t say secret

or heart or frozen ice or melt —
simply care for, welcome inside.

— 20 July 2013

Losing Argentina

when I disappeared

malbec swamped my throat

like Andean snow melt surging the acequia

how I chose passionfruit ice cream

wishing it were opuntia

how I pretended I never wanted a screen porch

& a cat door she’d lever bats through

moth wings in shower drains

cactus spines trepanning my hat brim

triple-thorn scar bursts

tattooing escape routes onto my arms

hue & cry of zorros every night

when i disappeared

an out-of-mind fissure wolfed

my household down to the nutcracker

i fled with Chinese zapatos & a shooting blind

the burrowing owls agreed with me

parrot flocks burned blue

I felt like a wasp hive in

the air conditioner after a swarm

I ate no more grass-fed bife

my wallet was plumbed for identification

I couldn’t bicycle

when I disappeared

the desert morphed into pan casero
went crumbling off to where llamas stampeded

acequia, irrigation ditch

opuntia, prickly pear cactus

zorros, foxes

zapatos, shoes

bife, beef

pan casero, homemade bread

— 31 July 2013

Suet

The gray squirrel

hangs from her back paws

from the two-sided feeder

furls her torso inward to raise

front paws & mouth, snares

a chunk, floats full length —

meal in paws — to eat it.

Now from front paws

she lolls, her tail a body length

below. I suppose she’ll eat

one whole slab if no one stops her —

not the blue jay watching

from the cast-iron swoop holding

the hummingbird feeder

not two doves pacing the deck

for loot she drops

not even two blue jays, a red
squirrel, more doves.

— 30 June 2013

Stanley & Adrienne

The street I live and write in

was not a left-wing poet.

I also think of Bernstein,

wild and metaphysic heart —

the risk-taking of one who

makes my poems and lives my life

heavy as the white-lipped boy

from my whole erotic self.

My mother never forgave

your life for the privilege.

My themes and the use I have

dream of a common language.

Images glimpses questions,

art with economic power

are mindful of your garden —

the poet-scholar-martyr.

Bowels of the hippodrome,

great crashing alexandrines,

comets trailing tender spume —

edge of meaning yet can mean.

My mother’s breast was thorny —

think the art of translation,

if anything, makes poetry

your turn. Grass of confusion

is something more powerful —

the cry of writhing nerve-ends,

impaired intellectual.

You are, in a word, avid.

[this poem of 7-syllable line, abab rhyming quatrains is a cento; each line is an unaltered excerpt from two books: Stanley Kunitz's Collected Poems & Adrienne Rich's Arts of the Possible: Essays & Conversations]

— 6 July 2013

Mrs. X

The woman pulls her wealth behind her
in a wheeled cart. If she’s my mother
it’s because between our last visit
& the day my family told me she died —
alone in her sleep — she escaped,
queened herself onto a plane
to San Francisco, a bus to Santa Cruz,
her white blouse tucked into frayed slacks,
permanent curls though she’s transient —
she’s taller now, seems thinner
but bustier, if foundered swells signify —
cratered-moon face, moth-wing hands,
bandaged flats.
                       When I look into her eyes
she looks away, she doesn’t keep a pet
or croon for bills in a hat, she hasn’t asked
but if I gave her my wallet, what would it buy?

— 9 September 2013

Poetry

poetry cooks my goose

chops me up, spits me out
stomps on my fingers
kicks me in the head

poetry saves me from the news
from women who lunch
from duplicate bridge, hairdos
celebrities, fashion

poetry authorizes me to ignore
polite conversation
to poke at roadkill, to talk
to children instead of adults

poetry explains my moods
my madcop technicolor dreams
my lack of tact, my failure
to tell the truth or make sense

poetry acknowledges
my hatred for patriarchy
my disdain for your opinion
your politics, your religion

poetry makes me a poor
risk for the guest list
of your dinner party

but a good pal for your cat

— 30 April 2013

It Hit Me on Vacation in Chile

Tipoffs —
llama lips rearing, teeth leering —

trailered the email crafted in Spanglish legalese

ginned by the Argentine caudillo punk

ready & able to kill me.

Reader, I bailed —

house, garden, gear, cat, husband Mike if need be —

flew like a budding leukocyte

to Esther’s aid, her latest breast cancer bleeped

but her future vague.

Grandmother now

I housekeep a toddler, sleep in a doublewide.

Andean weather frescoes a turned page.

Civil Space

I feel our borrowed car

contact the car

behind us

the slightest bump

a nearly zero-

impact collision

surprise, yes, shock

Mike believes

the other driver hit us

as Mike was shifting

into reverse

doesn’t believe

he backed into him

we all disembark

look at the cars

no damage

to either car

to any person

I’m sorry, Mike says

the other driver

raises his arms, raises

his voice at Mike

This is not good

We have a problem

the other driver

repeats himself

pushes himself

in Mike’s face

demands that Mike

repeat a string of words

the other invents

I’m sorry, it was

all my fault

Mike says it

the other slaps

Mike’s shoulder

we walk away

Anticipating Fennel

next to a second planting of St. John’s Wort

I sow arrowy chamomile & feathery yarrow,

strew borage to interpolate blue, Greek

oregano so prolific its prunings should crest

my gray plastic wheelbarrow, & sacrifice

bunkered persuasions of underground mint

for sage & thyme the afternoon desert winds

will sandblast springtime thru summer, isolate

prickly pear from artichoke, rhubarb heart

to rosemary's proven veins, lie lavender.

— 30 June 2013

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Mynah

1

Forty feet in the air,

the stob of a flowering ohiʽa

bows under a mynah.

2

Mynahs, their wings black-&-white

black-&-white, strobe the soccer fields

scanning for the epileptics’ team bus.

3

A flock of seven ducks shares one mind. 

Seven mynahs pretend fourteen.

4

Every region has its rowdy –

mockingbird, magpie, or mynah

playboy, bully, or lout – 

ornamental gardens with broken statuary

may be granted more than one.

5

Downtown, I watch them rise with alarm

settle with hops & swaggers. At home 

nothing larger than ladybugs fly

aside from cardinals & pigs.

6

Unseen, the jungle whistles 

with honeycreeper, scrubland 

fosters nene. Then settlers come 

with talking mynahs, chili fed 

to etch their naturally slit tongues 

for finer articulation.

7

O ill-paid inspector

How does my apple evade you?

Will you be relieving a widow of her potpourri

while mynahs swoop through the air space

to nab the core from my hand?

8

I’m selling my air gun, bought years ago

but never used, the barrel now rusty.

Rod will pay $40 to shoot the hundreds of 

bandoliered mynahs looting his money crops – 

mangosteen, rambutan, lychee.

9

When mynahs stand in a downpour

it doesn’t mean they can’t fly or don’t care

it means they don’t feel it.

10

The gutter along the ocean side of our house

amplifies the morning fusillade

stepped off by mynahs.

11

She hears outside the window

a sporadic tapping.

Tapping back in Morse code

she begs the mynah’s forgiveness

promises lacquered boxes, nacreous collar studs

yards & yards of gold braid.

12

Ringed by contenders, one mynah spatchcocks

another, dip & peck, dip & peck. Which

yellow eye blisters red?

13

Mynahs are not like ocultos

in Argentina. They do not startle up at night

from ground nests or shriek from the branches of trees.

Mynahs dissolve two hours after sunset 

& reassemble eleven minutes before dawn.

— 12 February 2013

Walking Out

Walking down this

steep trail, I drone to myself:

Kent, I need to rest.

Juan, necesito descansar.

Twenty times, one

hundred, breath harsh

against my ears. My trekking

poles swing too far, not far

enough. I stumble

over tumbled rocks

square-cornered boulders

slick & tilted slabs.

A man-made trail

maintained by falling water.

My foot bones ache.

— 10 January 2013

I ask myself

what items

I want
in my culture

created

newly and justly
to contain

my needs

the world

isn’t a text

to be deciphered

it's a new creation

a cloud
enters you

to begin in

— 15 January 2013

Today

on the bristlemallow

a splotch of pink

though bristlemallow flowers salmon mellow

petal-scattering rose

for the lake Veronica favors a balanced biome

tadpole hatches

lapwings & kiskadees to eat them

start with iris throws

drum of hammers on the half-tiled roof

whine of electric saw

drone of diesel-powered moto

cadence of castellano

— 16 January 2013

Speaking of Which

Speaking to an Argentine man

is equivalent to interviewing

the person who invented the box

works only inside the box

cannot hear the words of someone

outside the box no matter how

informedly, how articulately

how insistently she speaks.

— 17 January 2013

Polarities

hair / feathers

cunt / dick

animal / plant

ears / skin tags

money / stamps

male / mail

power / outage

mountain / plane

bird / brain

head / egg

rebel / yank

mercy / war

shit / pot

fog / lighthouse

box wine / chateaubriand

come alive / cop it

broke / flush

green / polluted

sword / trowel

sudoku / anal sex

socks / mittens

hoof / nail

sink / toilet

shit / chocolate

crab / stroke

galley / head

oar / wand

bean / brawn

sincere / camp

academic / savant

bread / art

— 17 January 2013

As Spring Turns to Summer

out Santa Cruz way, I keep wearing

this itchy black wool sweater

saggy, all over pilled, elbows thinning

crusty with egg at the left wrist

speckled white with feathers

& dust, tiny scraps of paper

cat & human hair.

Northern California seldom warms

to straight-up T-shirt weather.

Some Junes are very cold

like the June I bought this Armani

on a morning that felt like snow

this sweater that zips & cowls

even snaps beneath my neck

& replaces the itchy black wool turtleneck

knitted by some woman

during the war for a soldier

handed somehow down to me

to wear from freshman year

until my fifties — resewn over & over

at armpits, wrist, & neck.

I have nicer zip-ups from Old Navy

a thick white soapy cotton

a soft gray wool

for wearing when I’m out

but the itchy saggy black sweater is only

for home, for a cat to curl up on

preferably with me inside.

— 29 May 2013