The Lepidopterist

This room would rather be a closet.
White lights on a string garland
the shelf.  In one dusty

corner, a moth in repose --
dead legs bent point at the ceiling,
as if entreating some moth deity

to wreak vengeance.  Against
the cabbage rose-papered wall, sideways,
a relaxing chamber loosens

a Western Swallowtail.  Abel,
the collector, wheedles, plaintive,
his furred voice larval.

"Please don't talk about leaving!"
He's just booked passage
to humid, troubled Sri Lanka,

where he hopes to wander,
dazed, through a blizzard
of yellow-winged beauty

with his indulgent queen, his pinned monarch,
by his side:  a scene from a movie
documenting his pride, flaunting.

Man-Killer

Savannah_____teeth
bared_____yellow, dull.
Relentless sun.

Stand behind the man
with the gun.

Rumbling bass
__________mimicry
_____of Victoria Falls.

__________A missing face
among the soiled, sweat-drenched
rogues' gang at the beer hall.

Here, kitty, kitty.  Look
__________over here.

Coal-black skin juxtaposed
with red, gold and tan --

someone throws meat laced
with ketamine, folds
__________his hands --
__________a prayer?

The Rape of Myt-ser'eu

- inspired by The Soldier of Sidon, by Gene Wolfe

Kitten, quiet and still
balled up among sharp rocks.

Seven men
maybe eight.  Knife, throat, walk

to the cave.
Lucius, his mind like a sheep's:

each new day
the first one of his life.  Greet

him wordlessly,
river-wife.  He forgets so many nights,

your laughter,
the pleasant mockery shining in your eyes.

Torchlight trembles --
sky blackens.  A great panther eats stars.

Once unfaithful,
you've nevertheless loved him with your life.

Timberline

Stone, smooth.
__________Cool
mountain stream.

Sharp crack:
__________branch
snaps off, trails

pine sap --
__________small
rivulets,

slow gold.
__________Moss.
Scouring scent.

Clear air.
__________God
absolves us.

Sunrise
__________lifts
dark arms high.

Honky Tonk

Green neon
flicker hard_____nighttime
_____awash in starlight.

Cowboy bar
Closer_____indoors_____hard
women with dark roots

hope the men
beer guts_____farmer's tans
look twice_____grunt assent.

They cannot believe
they've become their mothers,
yearning

for a Patsy Cline song
not to manifest.
The next meal

comes courtesy of a citified
sister's plastic -- a sister
hated and loved.

Try harder next time.
Reincarnate on the rez
up the road.

Your fourth-grade teacher
spoke so highly of you.
Girl, I wish you'd heard.

San Francisco Doggerel

Winking_____gold_____red
blue__________electric
_____city
of one million eyes,
each turned inward.
Windows of a high-rise
betray not telescopes
but the closed curtains
of modest folk
who attend therapy
and ingest their pills
as prescribed by a shrink.

A toast if I may

to the twisted freaks
who in this town's heyday
raised binoculars
to spy across the way
a neighbor, likewise
unattired.  Masturbating
to the sight of each
other, uncaring
yet tender:
love__________magnified.
Lights_____render_____memory
_____relevant
as__________ghosts.

Hecate

- dedicated to Nova Mana

Ripples_____pond
hematite black.
_____Water pierced
swallows itself back.

White walls of San Quentin
from this angle
a butcher's apron, vestal,
_____anticipating blood.

Air dances in sun
mummifies our lungs.
_____"What about that one?"
_____"Which one, sweetie?
That one?  That's a cypress."
_____"Could I climb it
to heaven?"

_____Sky blue as an eye
steps down concrete
to meet a girl.
_____She waits for pain

_____promised by God.