steady-handed magician from behind

heavily drapes a fine mist that chimes

with many star pieces. I

am well,

come the murmurs under umber masts

of sheets, of eyelids. Deep crevasse

of ocean deep welcomes a wandering

mind.

mild is the weather in the Mediterranean

notes the wet whale, rotund pillow

he smells of the salt sea, hung with crustaceans.

he asks how I fare tonight, ever faithful.

I, on unsteady, undulating knees,

reply, I

am Well.

and from behind, sweet sleep creeps.

Black habits don my dour fellows

As my peas practice greens and yellows.

Wrinkled and smooth, they germinate.

In pairs, they trade their looks, their traits.

Father poses riddles to humble me:

What monk knows of birds and bumblebees?

Ah, but if I might hypothesize

On brown that sits inside his eyes

Though a true Father, he is not

My blood is thick with his dark broth.

How does spring grass win prominence

Over resolute mud with its old dominance?

Although I, recessed, in selfish blasphemy

Will never bring forth vengeful progeny

Can one day hope that green will triumph

As like minds breed ideas out of silence.

For now, I am the Independent Sort.

Segregation is its own comfort.

In the abbey they test the cross.

Out in the garden, I cross to test.

Remember the conversations you imagined

between Scylla and Charybdis: the

rock and | the hardplace,

or so you imagined that you remembered those conversations to

pivot around stones turned over

andoverandover – chafed smooth

&featureless as a rock

and a hard place:

Scylla and Charybdis.

I like fall in New York

with the impatient people all in black

and the leaves in a hurri

cane stain of color –

vermillions of gold bound to a spectrum

with yelping ripe reds and

sweet calling yellows strung together with

shouts of chartreuse –

like competing neon signs blink ing and

changing at a personal pace,

claiming the city’s diversity for their own

The nude branches thrash harsh

against that color-sapped sky

Lurid and lewd

like veins crawling on the scalps

of old gentlemen

There’s not much to be said

about a red wheelbarrow. blaring

red object

viewed through a neutral noose:

2% carbon, iron alloy composed, steel wrought casket forged from hearth-heated blisters annealed, recovered, recrystallized, fine grains remade (2,507 °F smelting temperature): molten rain. handles, onyx polyisoprene distilled from latex of the colloid carved out of a coil-barked tree growing thick and defiant in Cameroon. I

gripped those handles like my hands would seep sap looked

into the tray of that soiled alloy prayed that

the red from the glow of hemoglobin was 3-4 grams of iron made steel twisted in

side my center.

that dip in the wheelbarrow like crooked discs in a

spine. The weight of the wheelbarrow floating

in my skull the skull that cupped eyes

glazed with rain,

regret, release, coldcalm dissolution

I wept that brick ache laid burden by my hands

the hands

that grasped the slipslick rubber handles of the red wheel

barrow.

So much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow.

and that’s how I remember it, officer

everything

Part I: Papa (Iambic Pentameter/14 Lines/Turn)

Long hours spent trawling through insurance claims

won’t win me scraps that fall from your full plate

Your tenderness you keep inside closed fists

like savings stowed away for future days.

I never did request another bowl,

ashamed of what we could never afford.

And yet, my teeth grow steadily harder

from gnawing bones that you have picked with me.

It neither becomes simpler, nor condoned

at my age, onerously forty-eight,

for beasts so large and old to mourn over

a bowl of spilled porridge, long grown too cold.

Part II: Mama (Turn/14 Lines)

It neither becomes simpler, nor condoned

at our age, stitched so tightly into matrimony, to over

look appearances. Imagine, with threadpoint eyes,

that stolid seat, once adorned altar on which to recline,

fraying to irresolute softness while my bum becomes

arthritically hard from sitting on empty funds.

Imagine, still, the shaming surprise upon

realization -- that your seat makes for poor sight

even to unwary vagabonds whose freedom has pried

open the unseen unseamliness of your imprisoned life.

And the thought of them seated, impressed

in worn cushions, swallowed and sunk, mired

in the self-pity of middling creatures who’ve erred

only in being too soft.

Part III: Baby (Experimental)

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, climb the stairs.

Gold ghosts make no stirring steps

up winking walkways to my bed.

In a haze, she lifts my knees:

a ghost who guides souls aggrieved

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers.

Papa, help me lie still while

my mind blunts tones to more gentle

mentions of stray strangers who

find comfort in our humble home.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn off the light.

No night can black these golden curls

unfurling abundant against my ribs so

taxidermic stuffing can ride down to my toes

worn iridescence: somebody’s fur coat.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say goodnight.

Goldilocks, Goldilocks won’t you try me on for size?

I’m sure, of all the pelts, that mine is just right.