Her Little Hands

When I'm lonely sometimes,
Or when I feel scared,
I think of the little girl in love.

Sitting at her little schooldesk
With her mind fluttering over
Her life's little images.

A hand upon her hand,
His whisper in her ear,
His hot breath like a puppy dog's
Makes her hands sweat and the black asphalt spin.

She hunkers over her little desk
Reliving over and over her playground wedding.
She writes again, her first name, his last name,
Living out her tiny, precious future.

"I do" she says, "I do-do!"
The children laugh, and her husband-to-be
Stiffens his wet collar and leans closer.
She sees the dirt on his soft cheeks.
She dreams of kittens and soft, white linens.

And meanwhile the clouds darken in the sky,
the playground empties, the paper wedding dies,
And the children are nowhere to be found.
I'm still looking for the children out there.

His last name after her first name,
over and over,
her little hands in love.

For When You Wake Up Screaming

Dreams! How oddly you clot in my soft mind.
Midnight gypsies travelling bed to bed
And spinning silk and singing soft soft songs.
Lay me down to sleep, if you pretty please
And tell me tales of men who once were boys
Who harbored their anchors in foreign ports
And cowered from wolves In swarthy forests.

Dreams! How you gleam
Like moonlight over water.

Well?

Well the sun came out today
and a young couple in love got married.
A family sat in the park
and blew bubbles across the sweet grass.

What I'm trying to say is
Sometimes happiness can seem so so sad.

and we may

When I think how little
I've seen the sun rise
I feel ashamed.

and we may remember

A gift is given every morning
when colors remember the
possibilities of color.

and we may remember

There is something ghostly
in watching a blue dawn melt
into spring flush into tomorrow.

and we may remember
why morning doves mourn

Wouldn't it ease your day
To start one day
watching the sun rise
Today?

A Night Out

What thoughts does she have
as she's carried off by
her clan, her head
drooping and and tears falling
silently onto the shattered pavement?

What thoughts does she have
as her hair falls out of fashion
And clots chaotically like a broken halo
Around her fallen forehead?

Does she fear the wolves
that gather on the hillside?
That gather round her bedroom door?

Slobbering, pawing the light beneath the door,
The wolves that wait for the moon to give up
And die in shame at the way the world is.

Whoever

I tell you what:
You take the words
you wanted to give to me
And give them to him. Or her.
Or whoever.

And I'll take my words
and put them right here
For me. Or you. Or
Him or her.
Whoever.

Funny how you turn

At night, sometimes,
I feel the world spinning.
A soft whir, a
slurred vertigo.

Funny how you turn
towards me softly
And whisper,
"The world is spinning!"