Assignation

John and I used this poem, among other props, to discuss my guilt. He says I am constantly surveying the landscape, the walls around me, the trees for mistakes I can make.

I say I'm looking for opportunities for guilt.

He says that sounds like something the old Woody Allen would say. John says stuff like that.

We are in the middle of a long debate about me the poet (the writer) and me. Why & when & what happens when I put on the writer's hat. "Assignation" is a good poem, he says, but it is clearly illustrates, too, that the problem isn't "love," or "poem," it is my focus on the word problem.

Assignation

The assignment this week
was to write a love poem.
     “I want to undress you with my words.”
I struggled, you see.
Maybe the word “poem” was the problem.

I want to meet your lips at my door.
I want to lead you inside
and leave us open to birds and the sun.
I want to pull you close
feel your hips against mine.
I want to slip my hand under your top
trace your shoulder blade with my thumb.
Maybe I’d pause, then, if I could,
and lift my face from our kiss.
But still I would stay close,
breathe your breath,
rest my forehead on yours and ask
     if you’d like a glass of wine
     if you’d like me read you from Howe, Gilbert, from Bishop
     if you’d like to lay down on the rug and let me undress you.
I watch your eyes watch mine asking me
     who is this guy?
     what does he want?
     why is he so quiet when we talk,
     when we make love?
I unclasp your bra and slip your shirt over your head.
I kiss your neck, kiss the strap off your shoulder.
You let your bra fall.
Maybe the word “love” is the problem.
I drop to my knees.
Maybe the problem is me.

Sheep lay with Wolves

Sheep lay with Wolves

Who hasn’t tried making cheese

from pig’s milk or butter

from goat’s milk

as a shepherd barks

from a second story window 

down at passing bikes and cars?

I count them.

When brown tucks in, steps to the curb

and glances at the second story,

he thinks like every dog

this dog barks for him.

She wipes her gently lowing

gently rising belly clean.

Hipster Joint

Hipster Joint

The Blue Plate Special lacks appeal.

Her night time cleaves like marbled muscle.

A toque folds whites in pecan batter.

It blisters, pops on stainless steel.

The ipod numbs the diner hustle.

She jams a slip on the order wheel.

A holiday of girls—their laughs peal.

Shunted childhood.  Shrugging chatter.

Out back she strikes, ignites the beast.

Her cool lips disturb my labile lust. 

Our feet find something desert creased—

black cherried butt, charred muffin crust.

Ring-a-ding.  Dawn released.

Ding-a-ling.  Her tables bussed.

Without Urging

Without Urging
- after Jack Gilbert’s Music is the Memory of What Never Happened

Your best move this weekend was slipping your red
T-shirt over your head on the balcony
without my urging letting your whiteness
glimmer and drink in the bright autumn sun.
I was reading out loud from the poems you brought
and you rested your head on my pajama lap
eating rye toast and sliced apples with coffee.
I let the page edge cut into your breast
as my finger tapped out his rhythm over
and over again.  I grew bored, left you to study
and went in to salt the broth simmering.
From the kitchen sink window I checked
the perspective of young boys across the way.
Your knees propping up the economics text
blocked their view.  We had nothing to fear.
A little young yes for them to remember
the music they were missing, yet old enough
to begin to make out the first notes and like Jack
look for an instrument near by to play.