Pearly Everlasting from Issue 93
Summer: visitors: the lake is not amused.
It edges its way around picking up
whatever it cares to keep of its liberties, then back
into its remotest
cove it sulks. It will try
to drown somebody one day. Me?
Just a lake’s luck—I shake out my aluminum
chair into its shallows & proceed to occupy.
Suzerain for the sunny hour! Of the three
chapters I read, none disappoints.
My feet prune. Love does
that too, crinkles the nervous system.
Giddy-up wind
can seize a lake by the nape by force, never yet
vice-versa. Lumpy gusts,
hustle off, leave me alone.
Nowadays children skip
a lake altogether, scatter off
fingering tiny devices. Only my own
child I miss; in truth just a little.
Whoever any one of us was, I dare
you to show up: bright,
early, the last time I’ll
get taken by surprise—
The lake lifts its look askance.
I’ve been grousing too much. Tomorrow
morning I wake up myself again & with a girlish
skinned knee, sticky-seeping.
Gray Cat Song from Issue 55
Gray cat, gray cat’s
got just one ear
left, & got another ear that’s
gone, gray cat’s got
not much to eat back in the precinct alley either;
Garbage, garbage can,
that gray cat can
turn over garbage for a
day & a half for maybe half a
crummy cheese sandwich:
Half a chance,
give it half a chance, maybe
once a lucky little run of
magic tricks will turn up a
fish truck wide open,
Fresh chickens, peace & love! Gray
cat it’s time I caught you at a
good catch, claws in stars &
Teeth in struggling stars; I’d
know you by the one
Good ear & one ear gone
for good, garbage friend;
I’d toss you half what
I’ve got now for half what you’d
have then.