The face

staring at me

before bed

floats

above a body

I don’t recognize

hair parted

on the wrong side

like a quarter moon

in a phase

I’ve not seen before

I watch her step quietly
into a room where
the wounded and the
self-absorbed take
stock of their lives
feel the weight of pain
catalog their complaints
silently or not so
chase boredom with
months-old People magazines
or trace the veins on
the backs of their hands
as though solving a mystery.

She takes number sixty-four.
 

I have walked barefoot
through my life,
shirt torn where I hooked it
on a nail,
felt my spine rip, bones cracking
like jagged lightning piercing
a black sky,
 

Gate D17

The fat man is
annoyed
at his plane
being late
he could miss
is connection
he screams
at the agent
volume being
a great equalizer
his jowls shake
like the floppy ears
of a bloodhound
clearing its head.

The show begins with riveting might,
rosettes of fire blooming in succession,
thrilling the most jaded viewers with
streamers of red, yellow, orange, and white
A chorus of booms faster than a heartbeat
echoes in the quiet of our living rooms.
By millions we raise our flags to wave
as spring returns to Abu Ghraib.

I feed my voice
shards of glass
gray gutted tires
steel veins splayed
through split rubber
blades of grass
bent and broken
an ear torn from a doll

An army of blondes,
most taller than I,
dance in long rows,
their silky hair and
green dresses swaying
as though choreographed
to the whine and whisper
of songs whistling in
their ears.  
 

M'aimerez-vous à Paris?
au printemps
sur les promenades
où l'histoire tombe
comme une brume argentée
amoureux de glace avec
l'éclat du désir 

A pale wooden
horse stands in
a bay window
bereft of rockers
unshod hooves
forfeit of
dignity in a
retirement come
too soon.

A brittle wind blows like frost,
searing turgid limbs to scars,
and I agonize at the cost
of the empty space between stars.