Transformation

I hang by my feet to sleep

leathery wrapped

shoulder-to-shoulder companioned

at dusk

our maelstrom unfurling

like swallows

conferring at one

patch of sand in the San Lorenzo River

whirl of ash skyward

rows of soldiers below

never-ending touch-&-gos

spangled mallards in 3-duck formation

scan for landing

every pass a tighter curl

lock on target, shallow glide

into splashes & skids

the water scarcely disturbed

next to Ray on the plane

a woman suffers a heart attack

(it wasn’t something he said)

Afaa’s class in Boston takes on Mother Courage

someone is always standing

at ground zero

detonated transform

body to mist

body heat to heated air

better to dissolve completely

than live grievously injured

bystanders spattered

in south Florida

early-twentieth-century hunters

looked forward to spring

for targeting rookeries — heron, ibis, egret —

killing the nesting pairs

for feathered hats, not hate

their families so poor they ate gull eggs

still, people ask

how can it happen here?

so placid with insular contemplation

innocence does not equate

to protection

the spring wind pummels new-leafed branches

borrows orange petals

iris & agapanthus blossom in their place

flowering maple is not maple

but Chinese lantern, Indian mallow

cousin to flannel flower

My Anger Will Ebb

After all

my friend, alone in her house

a half mile from the boat

aflame as if in a Greek tragedy

is alive & well

reunited today with daughters & spouse.

Far away & helpless

as she was close by & helpless

I waited, she waited, so many waited

sure he would be caught

sure she would survive unmarked —
we are all marked.

A boat in a Greek tragedy would be a trireme

three ranks of oars

one above the next above the next

a beak for a prow

better to ram, to pierce

the enemy boat.

The dogs, locked inside all day

burst out of doors in frenzied relief

like the children denied playgrounds

the workers denied work.

Meanwhile I walked up Soquel

jaywalked across Ocean

climbed the Broadway hill

to watch the hybrid rose — orange, yellow, & pink —

bloom careless & sprawling

above the chainlink fence.

Anger is sullen, is pouting

is dismay at the world refusing to cooperate

is armies of men with guns

is war, is death

is a 19-year-old killing his life

with killing — ablaze in a boat.

My grandchild studied my knee to find marks

where the ladybug might have bitten.

In the shop a woman
held a paper towel for the slug
to ooze up & onto —

carried it outdoors.

I didn’t want to come here today.

I wanted to stew in anger caused by too long fear.

Yet the sun shines, the bus runs.

I could sit @ the Scotts Valley Peet's

knowing we would read

we would write

fast words on slow paper

we strangers & not quite friends.

— 20 April 2013

On the Way to the Playground

I push, she rides the

stroller down Chestnut

nasturtium, I say

I need to take a picture of this rose

tires inflated

fabrics orange & black

lavender, jasmine, penta, calla

I need to touch, she says

fingers to yellow petals

palm to pinkest crowns

— 24 April 2013

Bags Don't Come Free

Saturday morning

I plan to ride my bike to Target
to buy front-closing bras

for post-surgical Esther 

but the fog is down —
the temperature's barely 50.

Instead, I bike to her house
where no one’s up. I unlatch
the chicken house ramp —
Say hello, chicks, to the new day —
park in the basement
& snag the key to the little car.

I drive the route I’d meant to bike
along river, ocean, harbor
via East Cliff, Murray, 7th, Brommer, 41st.

Target's not even open

then they are, but they don’t
stock front-closing bras.

I walk through the dark mall & outside
& into Kohl's to find bras.
No one’s here. Thousands of bras.
I haven’t bought a bra
in 45 years — a nursing bra
I tried once & tossed.

No clerks in sight so I scan

rack after rack — 1500 styles of bra. 

Only three close in the front

in 38B, so I buy them
from a checker who asks me
do you need a bag? No

though I think about how
I will look walking outside

then in, through the empty mall
back to Target & out to my car
holding a beige, a black
& a salmon pink bra.

The checker calls me back
& hands me a black cloth bag
marked Kohl’s — I thought
she says, we’d given
these all away. She doesn't know
I pass no one

while walking my Kohl's bag
back to Target to shop 

for placemats, napkins, & a spatula.

Do you need a bag? No 

thank you. Let my housewares

share space with Esther's bras.

— 27 April 2013

La Blanchisseuse

Though she knows

smoothing cloth

how to smooth a cloth

on a flat surface

how to scrub a stain

how to warm the irons

to iron, bite off thread

tie a knot, restitch

a raveled seam

how to cut from yardage

the idea of a sleeve

to fashion a shirt

for someone else

though washing
sewing, she’s looking off

beyond a world

of fingers on cloth

of lye, of steam

undermining

the weave of labor

the dour distraction

of indoors.

— 28 April 2013

Argentine Losses

most people don’t write

at a distance, they don’t exist

plants don’t write

my cat, never

— 1 May 2013

Wild

quirquincho

the screaming hairy armadillo

digs the hole I fill daily

next to the garden wall

wild, the young hare

beds among zucchini

shiny black eye

wild fountains of sand

los ocultos architect

underground mazes

wild, the giant snail oozes

across asphalt

pink-rimmed pallium

wild, the parrot flocks

patrol fruiting vineyards

the sky screams

wild foxes, bald with mange

one by one, dead

for the black vultures feeding

wild, the turquoise-spotted toad

buried overnight

in the sprinkler box

wild, the whistling heron

yellow plumes fan

along the riverbed

wild slaty-breasted wood rail

the plumbeous rail

deep in the pond lilies

wild, the vines

bearing cayote squash

scraped & boiled for jam

wild cactus, the prickly pear

long spines spear

my hat’s crown

wild, the verdolaga

common purslane

succulent scourge for the weeder

wild, the dung-feeding beetles

noon mists of grasshopper

palm-sized bats at dusk

wild pink-spotted hawkmoth

wings battering bathroom tile

under the cat’s paws

wild, the tyrant flycatcher

morning’s choral voice

benteveo

benteveo

— 4 May 2013

I Still Have the Floorplan

We look off

as newborns look

into other space

where a door opens

onto a room

& farther doors

to further rooms

of the infinite house

where others live

whether we know

them or not —

known space

we’re hoping to

resurrect from

first memory

every time we

reconnect to

our commonplace.

— 16 May 2013

The snail's

lucent

cracked shell

operculum-

pinioned

exsiccating

body mass.

Scratched

the crow

awaits

our passing.

— May 17 2013

Miss Vee

I know it’s unreasonable

especially for someone like me

who doesn’t cry easily or often

to tell you how often I cry now

how I might show up at your house

unable to say a word without crying

but if I try to explain

it comes out sounding

like something Elizabeth Bishop said better

in a poem that’s in a book I’ve lost

along with the rest of my books

all my journals & my mother’s journal

half my clothes plus everything else

Mike didn’t bring back in his luggage

when he returned from Argentina

things I don’t even ask about

like the chenille throw Susan gave me

the fossil rock Ben gave me

material things I cared for

yet those are the least of it

so far behind 

horses cropping alfalfa out windows

that leaked in every rain

onto the windowsills & down 

along the badly set & poorly caulked frames

wet that streaked the paint

of many colors — kiwi & mauve

jalapeño, sunset, goldfinch

erasure

so swift & violent

I scrubbed every trace from my computer & the web

every picture, every glimpse exists

only in my head now

how foxes walked

softly on small feet

how parrots tipped forward & back

on wires holding grapevines

how doves paraded beside the pond

balanced on rocks, dipped their beaks to drink

how toads floated on loose limbs

at the pond rim

how as a kitten

my cat fell in the pond

how she must have clawed her way

up from the water

how I saw her — legs bent, belly dragging

back to the house

where I lifted her, wrapped her in towels

a shivering frightened small cat

the same one who arched her back, fur high 

swagger-hopped out to take the fox

before I grabbed her

rushed her into the house where she would be safe

I miss her more than the mountains

burning red at dawn
more than the llama-wool rugs

beneath my bare feet

more than my red plush chair

— 20 May 2013