Sierra Nevada

Elevation seven thousand
incestuous aspens thick
as women standing near
a door -- woven together at
the feet.  Their meeting


is subterranean.  Speak
black bird who sits
among their green hair
brute against blue
firmament.  Shooting


West from Nevada, wind
scours the granite waste
and meets the Ocean's breath.
Shot rock to nude pines.
White flowers bloom, shocking.

Drive

Overarching cirrus clouds:

batting yanked from a quilt,

stretched over Arizona and dyed

red.  A speck, now, against them:

a soaring vulture fled dusk

for cover among the buttes:

fluted column stumps

dumped off Olympus, left

to erode.  Lines melt

into black, bold shadow.  A cold

titanic mouth, mute, swallows stars

over the horizon.  Farewell, bye,

lurid purple sunset met an hour prior...

Hello, frozen highway...The great

Forget.  A child sleeps:

back seat of a speeding car.

Cruise

"Panoramic," was what she said

about the coastline from on deck --

tepidly, as though three Manhattans and

the oblivious buffet line went

through her thoughts with equal weight.

There was a moment, though, yes

in conversation with the slim mate

of the doctor, over dessert, less

than filler, really, but during which

she casually touched on ancient Ur,

something about water and defenses.  Mitch,

the doctor, looked at her as though he were

you and she herself, both 19 -- the only one you wanted to sleep with

from that off-campus party years ago.  Then, she wore rabbit fur,

brushed aside her bangs using her left

index finger:  girlish, alluring, deft.

Quilted Jacket

Early May
pale green shoots
dug up from
coffee-black dirt
Mama-san's
secret hoard
bounty bound
for boiling
water:  soup
sipped hot
window not
closed -- puddled
rain drop, drop
dirty sill
drizzle glow
sunlight gray
silent stop.

Angel

A child, age four
points at a man
he doesn't know,

Asks his mom,
"Is there more?
He's so bright."

And it's true
no shadow shows
behind, though the sun

Shines in front
from the West.
Best hurry in

To pray.  He'll hear
from so far away.
What does he think

As all our dreams
mutter by in a stream
from which none dare drink?

A tree, a pine,
millennia past once stood
where now a streetlight

Collects pushers, men
hawking pills.
It is so still.  Blood will

Congeal and the air
halt, sacrificial spot:
altar on which he stands.

The man's time
is now theirs.  A crease
quits his brow,

Renders it clear
and smooth as the day
the news said he was born.

Dancing With Menchita

Varnished pine floor pitted and gouged.
Heel lifts, flaunting abrasions, white
scratches on light brown.  Almost new.
Twist the ankle, turn.  Broad square
hand clasps a blue sequined back.
They are comically mismatched, her head
level with his chest.  A one man band:
tune for a tango.  Furrowed brow --
no self-conscious stage smile --
absent audience, concentration plays
across his face.  His gaze fixates on
his black patent toes; hers are clad
in midnight satin.  The pair grow
across the room, tree trunk and orchid.  Zoom
around on a lazy susan.  Together they
suggest something edible -- ruffled confection of sweat
and steps taught with kindness, patience and grace.

The Mathematician's Lover

Flitting little shadow, dark, then light.
A candle gutters against the draft

From the window by the desk
Closed against the night --

A grown-up night, uninhabited by
The witches and sprites you as a child

Thought carried on out of sight.
The desk is wide and white;

It offers up a straightened, neat
Stack of papers on which to write

Notations, formulas you
Conceived.  By a gibbous moon,

As mute as a monk hunkered over his
vellum, you inscribe this theorem, then

Call your colleagues who throng
That chalk-dusty room on campus.  Stark

And new:  a herd of equations in black
Ink, remembered and rescued from the brink of sleep.