Heel

Heel

Desperate to not offend, nor go too far.

Desperate for another chance—for another weekend

at the park.  I tug against the leash to sniff

and mark.  It’s tight; it chokes.  You give

me line.  And if a rabbit passes, what may I do?

I sit.  The leash goes limp.  Some extra

on the ground beside me sleeps.  I listen

and barely watch your talk.  A neighbor.

I jut my muzzle a bit; catch a scent.

A doe or just her scat?  Some other

on the cell-phone, then your welcome smiling

to the postman.  I sit

pretty for you.  Unfold my brow.  Tilt

an ear toward squirrels cracking

nuts.  I stand and circle, sigh

into a slightly cooler spot.

The leash slack—wondering

while waiting what next from you?

What next command?  Or

will you brush my coat.  Scratch

behind my ears and under where your red

collar bites my neck.

Will you meet my eyes and breathe

my doggy breath—cooling your nose with mine?

Sometimes you set me free to race and chase the ball.

Work my hips and thighs,

my haunches launch, my hocks unsprung,

and with teeth bared, twisting, snatch my Frisbee from clean air.

Landing past the fence line buried hot,

my collar sparks.  I yelp; it is something I cannot help.

You coo and soothe.  But you humans, you don’t

have ears to hear the collar’s metal sing.

(signed),

Woman’s Best Friend

Against the White Sox in Their First World Series

Against the White Sox in Their First World Series

Kali barks Mine! at the lazy, lolling spilling cardinal maple leaf.

            Jack smiled; hands rested on his knees.

Kali moves to and fro—Ensberg at third under an infield fly.  It’s blustery!

Jack already made a lot of plays.

Kali barks and yells it’s a glorious Indian Summer day!

His Astros T-shirt stuck to his shoulders.

Kali backs over the driveway curb almost stumbles into the dugout. She hopes

and doesn’t hope the shortstop calls her off.

Jack giggled.

The oak and the hickory give their leaves to the wind.  Kali spins beneath.  Take them!  Master they’re falling!

            Jack’s right sock spotted but not like Schilling’s.

Kali holds her focus on the lowest.  Then leaps, her haunches twist and bend, and she snaps as wind shears the ground; the leaf falls harmlessly foul.

Kali doesn’t shake her head, slump her shoulders, no tail between her legs.  Already, They’re falling!  Master!  For all the marbles!  Without a word of remorse.

Those powers ascribed to Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Old Yeller—to Jack’s midnight blue Lab—are they false?  Craven?  Old wives’ tales?

Or does she go crazy too?  Her eyes flaming, her hair matted with blood. Small fangs protruding from purple lips; tongue lolling.

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.

Biting Orange

Biting Orange

I pushed a thumb into the rind.
Its bitter tear stung my eye.
I didn’t like the work an orange required.
The seeds, the sticky pulp, the pale flesh
under my nails like chalk.
Smelling limonene all day?

A dark veined sliver of ivory soap
slipped down the kitchen drain.
My skin’s oil failed an essential’s onslaught.
Strong reagents in mother’s classroom
or stranger brews beneath the sink
unveiled a cleaner smell,

shaving the weeks a human takes to shed its skin.
I want simpler fruit than she provided.

Periodic Evaluation

Periodic Evaluation

In a witness room crowded by
a TV trolley,

stained by other protected lips
a paper cup

sits desiccated
by fluorescent lights

on the faux-walnut table top.
No space for both of us.

White hair buzzing, her face flares
grey over me, demanding

that I have no place here.
So help you god. The maroon

smeared across the linoleum floor
must be coffee.

Amy Lemmon, poetry editor for ducts.org, accepted two (or 3) of my poems for the ducts summer 2010 edition.

http://www.ducts.org/content/two-poems-9/

His Big House

His Big House

Jack’s friends lit candles.

Libby read Kindness.

I shook all the hands—

sustained embraces.

When the last guest was gone

she re-arranged the back room

imposing her order

over yours or her mother’s.

The furnace works long

to melt winter’s breath

drawn through a window

some summer cracked open.

As long as I have

this big house,

you have a place to stay

if you need one.

“Then I would hope you will keep that big house

so I have a place to stay when I need one.”

A silver frame cradles

a photo of Jack

climbing his tall sister

in Chenonceau’s garden.

The cold glass blurs

but I can’t polish it clean.

The tarnished loop and whorl

trace ridges like my own.

Dust collects under Jack’s bed.

I swapped his for yours

so others feel his support

and imprint his firm mattress.

I stopped resetting the clock

when the power comes on.

A green beacon beats

from your dark bedroom.

You can heal faster here,

not on your own,

and sound depths of your heart

worn brittle, riddled by grief.

My guests, you and I,

we understand much

too late.  Please don’t you

think that it’s time?

“What may I bring to make me feel welcome?

Cook us his favorite

after school snack.

“I will pan fry Jiaozi or hard boil an egg.”

Make sticky rice as well—

I share his sweet tooth.