The Photo :

You, standing with your face uptilted slightly
into the light of the window at Chartres
that only shines at a certain time of day

or so your father proudly told me when he continued,
to ask me to send it back, because it made him think

that no one is ever lost, and for the longest time
he thought you were. We both did.
You werent lost, just uninncocent.

The Painting:

He mentioned the artist as he guided me on a tour
of the house- weirdly built of architecture , there were plenty of places
suitable for stealing kisses, but the artist- I was rather shocked to see
a master work like that outside someplace grand,
like the Louvre or even the Met ;

yet there it was hanging in a group with some family photos
none of which were you ,face bathed in that miraculous light
before the world came and stole the wonder.

The Light:

I used to talk to Claire til 3 am- precocious child!
We wrote largely and tried to draw in pen- paint, we even tried crayons
took a bus downtown to go buy them
forgetting utterly that people could be worried by a simple thing
like that- pre cell phone- how they scared themselves.

I came down the stairs, quietly, not wanting to wake any
and stopped, in this agony- I don’t know why it frightened me
but the moon was slanted across your face
and in your sleep the wonder was there, again,

and you weren’t lost. You were there.

It Involved Chocolate

Treat me like a bird;
I birth eggs, like possibilities
unfolding to the sun.
Lilies.

Hand dipped, I believe,
with real gold.
Some people used to think
eating gold lengthened your life.

The sun, rising
strikes through the heart
of the dark.
Equinox,
a time of equality.

Chocolate eggs with different fillings-
peanut butter, butter cream, rum and mint
icing names that either froze in the winters blast
or slid off in the spring sun.

Red Rover

I didnt want to make my arm
a barrier, to play at being anything
more than small bones, easily broken.

Not for me the cast or the midnight trip to the
operating room, not
the lights flashing on an ambulance.

We got up late in the early morning
hunting in our baskets for oranges or
orange jelly beans -so citrus craved

you would think we had scurvy or some
organic deficiency;
Unless you looked at all the strong white

teeth,
healthy bones, and clear eyes.
I was always the one chosen last,
no one ever thought I was anything but a little
kid, always slower and weaker but

I was always safe. I always knew where Home was
and got there by wit, not speed;
my brain making up for my physical shortcomings.

(Lyres acrostic poem)

Outside

There is a Scar Upon My Breast That Bleeds

At full moon.
The screaming cat is not silenced
by the flung boot
and the wind drags the clouds
through a cheese grater
to make the thin streaks that play tag
with dark and light.

The humidity weeps down the sides
of houses, plants and trees suck
in vain, there is too much-
too much, I say; I am a cowlick
on humanity’s head,
grown wrong.

I prefer the dark because the silence is wider,
the silence stretches. There is room
for me, there is room
to fly like clouds across the moon’s face,
there is room to simply be.

The scar opens, bleeds.
Rain sluices down as the moon
shows its darker face.
The rustle of night life
is damped, three times three.
Silence is wet.

They like to have rules for everything

No Firearms

repeated below en Espanol.

Why Am I here?

I brought both book and notebook, too afraid to use either- too deadly afraid
all their fear and worries are seeping into the roiling pit that was a stomach,

that won’t eat for another three days .

Disposition Hearing 230 pm Courtroom 4

Bastards, oh you bastards.

No Smoking Food or Drink

No popcorn at the circus, we must be serious here
its Kangaroo Court TV.

No Cell Phones or Recording Devices

Did I mention I brought my notebook?
Did I mention my fear?

You can stand at the back of a person, watching
and see the hair cut and the thinning of the crown of hair
and the way the suit doesnt quite fit because of 15 lbs lost
because the food is mostly no good

and wish that you could grab God and shake
Him until He can tell you Why

World Without End

A circle begins and ends in the same place
We start with a seed- a dust mote
a beginning that spawns a galaxy-everything
is twinned, there is no before without the after
no front without a a back
a wall , it has two sides.
Love is a Moebius thing,
its back is always its front
and it curves back upon itself
a circle- begins and ends in the same place

Poem For an Unwanted Child

The lips of the unborn infant
nurse in the dark of the womb.

Kisses are sustenance.
Words are empty, words are lies.

The infant dreams,
rolling in the amniotic ocean.

Hands can hold secrets;
hands can make fists.

The infant grows, becomes,
is born.

This child was never hers,
she rages.

No heart shaped poem,
no mother love.