YOUR HOUSE BY THE SEA
Your house has carpets
like hands, like the tongues of whales
licking me to nothing but a bone
that stands there nervous.
Your house has doors like pores
and I react to the scent
like a gopher clawing blindly
through the earth
to a carrot that is willing to die.
Your house is filled with shelves
and the music of insects fighting,
glass futures, memories packaged
and alphabetized to show your order
like the wisdom in the patterning
of a slim shark’s teeth.
Your house has a garden of alleys,
a fountain of stairways and
sliced apple windows you cannot
see out of.
Your house has the scent of being lost
in the night and the flavor of not caring.
But above all, your house, your chained thief,
your green berry, your child’s kiss
is my house.
TATTOOS
One day in ’75 or ’76,
two of the dullest years
we had ever known,
Larry and I were walking home
from football practice
and talking about tattoos.
I told him my dad
had a green cross on his bicep.
And around this green cross
were the words,
DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.
I thought this was great.
But then Larry told me
he knew a guy
who had a little, topless Tahitian woman
with chocolate brown skin,
an orange skirt,
(that swayed when the guy flexed)
big, black eyes
and long black hair.
We both knew
we weren’t going to top this.
So, we started talking about sins:
his sins, my sins.
But, really, sins are tattoos too.
OVERCOMING A HEART OF STONE
Overcoming a heart of stone,
the cherry swings like a child
on the gnarled branch of brown.
Not embarrassed or ashamed,
the plump, little red hearts of the earth
swing in the wind
free of their white blossom dresses.
And if a stranger comes by,
these bold and saucy cherries
will not hesitate to give a kiss
as sweet red and wet
as the sun’s reflection
plucked from a brook
and popped in your mouth.
Making standards to live by
(mouths red with the blood of cherries,
boys drunk on swollen cherry nipples)
these divine creatures
live in trees who can be clouds
when the blossoms are broken
on the blue, white sky.