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Breakfast by the roadside, my vehicle shimmers like an opal. I'm hunched over a map, savoring the odor of burnt catfish. My carriage is a frisky nightflower on wheels. At this rest station I am careful not to cause injury to the heather, though organisms smaller than arithmetic routinely vaporize upon my approach. So even…

1 We stood so the day slanted Through our dime-store magnifying glass. Girls laughed & swayed, caught On the wild edge of our scent. A scorpion of sunlight crawled Each boy's arm, as we took turns Daring each other to flinch. Not Knowing what a girl's smile did, An oath stitched us to God. 2…

NYC, December 1990 He nose col's he ass but he don' know an' he ain' got no elbow t' practice tellin' things apart. Brass monkey-balls fallin' off— it so friggin' col’. I ain' got no snow-head: I c'n see whole town's in a hurry git t' where it's warm 'n' coffee 'n' hot things to…

A single shout and you were not the one I thought you were. Cowed by stoplights, horrored by the barking muses. I would never get over those boss-beaten days. Mile long arms. A city dense as a broom closet with a baby in a basket. The Judas in the eyes of passersby. One spot of…

Mama Elsie's ninety now. She calls you whippersnapper. When you two laugh, her rheumatism Slips out the window like the burglar She hears nightly. Three husbands & an only son dead, she says I'll always be a daddy's girl. Sometimes I can't get Papa's face Outta my head. But this boy, my great- Great-grandson, he's…

We beat our silver pans to chase the horse back to the woods. Our good white horse— we never fed her, or praised her, or rode her, white as the round moon, this old—ancient— one. Why, mother moon, do we chase her away?      Because, foolish, no oats in the bin, no oats in the bin,…

1. My country material— once aerial as a name—has dropped its soul where ruminating camels cave like children, eyes uppermost. And under their hooves in the sand dolls and scrolls burn and a poem calls to its poet who doesn't respond. Sand melts into glass pocked with the turquoise bubbles water looks like. These are…

The invisible man inside me is crying. He has lightning in his head. His hands fool tentatively with my breasts and all of his legs are dry. The invisible man—I have him surrounded. He is crying blood with his bones in the soup. He is a walking air meal. There is meat in his hair…

the laurel bronzed the brittle reins the chariot frozen in air wir sind dabei—we were here who never were anywhere 28 years and now light as a girl on a horse riding the petrified spine of the city goodbye goddess goodbye Victory Berlin, Brandenburger Tor, December 1989