Olive (Take 2)

I am wild gypsy fruit bitter as Koroneiki
small and difficult to cultivate
limestone roots too close to salt -
wounds too near to risk of drought.

On war-torn shores I scorch and shelter
delight to flourish rare to one
who harvests, rolls pits against
teeth thick with oil, pungent with sea.

I am no Odysseus, I did not crawl between
two shoots grown from single stalk.
I am no legend, no tree in Crete
two-thousand rings around a wooden heart.

My outstretched hand is not a leaf --
I was not made to settle doves.

Prairie as a Fishbowl

It is world of parabolic
horizon, hastily razored fields
left-over stubble of unshaven farmers
where stooks stand at dawn. On the day

he is buried, land vibrates
knowing hands that have loved it
are returning.
Stands of poplars shake

their leafy lanterns unfold
sound crisp as linen, a memory
of dresses sweeping wooden floors.
Nothing can compare

to the way prairie breathes in
breathes out, embraces season
with sudden death, painfully labors
spring to green; and so it goes.

As he is lowered, no sound
but that of lowering, until the train -
its language leaving us before it begins.

- For REC - 1921 - 2008

Windmills

Sometimes, windmills cycle in my head
chase off the cotton batten with a clear
sweet puff of

alone ringed in a fringe of grass
staring up at infinite blue, sans skeleton
planes chasing each others tails, sans left-
over food smells wafting from the windows
no dance of bugs twirling tornadoes over me.

Nobody's words jam my ears with feedback
no useless verbs nudging my pen towards
my open fingers.

And this time, the girl gets the boy
the dish runs away with the spoon -
if I lie here long enough a spotted cow surely
will jump clear over the moon made of cheese.

Right now, only me in a fringe of grass
listening to the sound of windmills.
I don't care who might be taking their last breath.
Tomorrow, I will.

Black Spiders

They crawl on your walls in autumn
across your diseased breast
cling to the surface seeking out heat
because sometimes life outside is cold

even now black spiders creep
along walls to find somewhere
warm to hang --
their legs so fragile.

Nothing that delicate
can last.

Fly me to the moon
he said
Your nipples are so beautiful --

Use the Word Darling

Write me a little poem
use the word darling
don't tell anyone it's for me
put it in a little envelope
squish it between the floorboards
where everyone can walk on it
oblivious -
while I carry you in secret.

Michael - The oldest Gibralter Ape

47

It took her forty-seven
years to find out
what she'd been missing
-- all of those forty-seven
years.