Gambler

Nickel gleam
his single eye
opens.  How rightly

he flicks a switch.
He doesn't try.
Animal timing:

a pure sweep,
smooth, of his rough
arm.  A tightness

in the groin.
Several coins
ago he could have severed

ties and walked off,
unashamed.  But the same
bells ring him sleepless

those nights
he's not there.
Why do they run away,

all those days,
April through May?
Hours spent under lights blinking

through smoke,
the haze, the somnambulent line
for the buffet.

Mental Patient

Rose gold fire illuminated
the nimbus of strands --
radiating corkscrew --
haloed toilet brush
with gesticulating hands.
Hilarious tramp,
eyes glacier blue.
Wild.  Damp
spots where the mildew
can't be scrubbed,
where spiders talk to you.
They divulge scraps of truth
their liars' webs have trapped.
Fuck the minotaur who occupies
your leather and tin steamer trunk.
The Virgin Mary's face
melts from the wall.
To this party all
are invited.  Even me
with my threadbare dignity --
even I am allowed to call.
Do pardon me, how rude:
I crane my neck
to scry a sign
in your furrowed brow.
I spoke with the cow
upstairs.  What a hoot.
She adores your laconic lines.

Tower of Silence

Level with the palm leaves,
green circle around us.
Birds pick our bones clean.
Sun-bleached, leaning
against each other,
rib to hip, beneath a wheeling sky.
Only the sound of water as it drips
onto lime -- the echo marks holy time.
The road back to the village
is red, dusty and dry.

Jones at Market

Gasoline and, inexplicably, cut grass waft in
on the mid-July breeze...

"Y'all got some grapes up in here?" asks
a brother on the make for some shake.

He's tall, big-boned and dark-skinned,
bearing a sheen of sweat under this sun,

which promises to bake us all to a crisp.
Footfall on light gray pavement and the sound

of an ambulance siren winds around
his much-abused inner ear.

Where once there was fear, now
there is hope.  A crease smooths from his brow.

How to Pray

Fervently I desire to be
some other's fixed
star, a true north
a fellow animal can't lose.

May I be
Ariadne's thread
wound through twists
and turns.  Ahead,

See a stone
corner.  Black streaks --
old water leaks --
mark it.  Dust

Is the only friend
expected.  Find me
just one more step
beyond.  The light

I seek to shine
will seem like the sun
glowing through alabaster.  White
is my quiet cloth.

Suburbia

Molten tears Pluto cried
at Orpheus's sad tale

fed the black stream
which runs down a hill

children sometimes climb
after school, knee-high

in dark green grass.
Their mothers call and call

them back to fatherless homes
filled with metal, with glass.

Starlight falls through roofs.
Dinners are silent, short.

The window sills bear
stones and twigs found while out

walking along that black
trickle.  It springs from a place

older than human love.
A face marks it.  None know its name.

The Interview Room

Do these white walls close in?

How many angels on the head of a pin?

When doctors pieced you back together again

Like biddies sewing a quilt so thin

Did you question then the army who killed

You night and day, broke against you, waves on a rock?

Who would have thought a myriad kalpas was so long?

A band of lost men played you for a song,

Helped you disintegrate until you were gone.