I’m putting on the red dress, Ma,
and heading back onto the trucker’s lane
to spread my legs (all hose pulled tight
and bra that pushes me toward heaven)
to do my due
and give a few (the tired and poor)
a swim along this once pure shore
(my closest pal the crack boy down on
his scarred fours who sells the minutes
on [...]

I wish you a happy birthday.
Birth you on this day here. For you dear.
Just you. You! I wish you so happy on this day.
On each day. On everyday.
Wishes for birth of an everyday kind,
every minute birth, second birth,
deep as contractions. An infant and cake kind.
And icing. And candles.
Every instant those eye flames more guttering
and gathering [...]

Go back to the Sphinx, please,
or to Babylon where it was
sorted out quite plainly
with the perfect
of the mummy, wrapped
museum linen still,
still preserved on
Eighty-Fifth and Fifth,
a glorious Rembrandt still,
still life still gleaming,
beautiful in leathery limbs
of Midas gold and granite pure
redeeming us from
all this horror.
Give me, please, the perfect
of the eye lid just before decay sets in,
or dazzling [...]

This sweet dimness
that invades me—
saddles me, rolls me
in cotton and files me away
with ancient morgue signatures
affixed to my clever white socks—
hopes
that no one will notice
how slipped away I’ve become,
comfortable (spending the rest of my days
as a detainee, squirreling tunnels
of escape under my arms),
but occasionally an inexplicable sun comes out
(no relation to me) revealing the blistering [...]

As Elvis Costello baptizes
the radiant morning,
blaring with the South Road sun
(my SUV windows up against the Yukon wind,
the oil of an Arabian child’s blood whistling
this empire’s chromed wheel’s glory forward)
I see her dancing.
Dancing!
A pining child with her pockets
full of daddy’s jelly beans.
Dancing
a ragamuffin’s dreams of flour
for a thousand loaves of bread.
A pine tree.
Dancing!
Jiggling every pine [...]

like a whale
giant and useful
beyond machines,
rising
and I almost see him
in the waves
out there
parallel to where I
usually beach myself
(a small blanket of
primary colors
sunglasses,
a book
I’m determined
to finish)
and then he’s gone
back into the fish highway
I might have seen
a flicker of
and I‘ll brush
the sand off both hands
awake from all this c
oppertone of sleep a
nd sigh my way
into the trembling [...]

The heart is a muscle,
its message methodical,
pushing and pulling,
a Viking at the oar
in full battle regalia.
It’s no mistake
it’s attached to love.

You are the royal we
to the left of Mohammed
and the right of queen bee.
The diamonds in the grass
makes an effort
to be a carpet for you
because like a cat
most of us rest in your lap.
Nothing important exists
outside you.
The UN would be smart
to be run by your diplomats.
Luxury items should be delivered to you
on a regular basis
because [...]

I note it driving behind them:
the sly glance out their rusty passenger window
to the three trees rooted temporarily in boxes.
Easily steal-able (I imagine) into their GMC bed,
drop down the rattling tailgate, late at night.
They talked excitedly
the two dirty fingernailed men, faded jeans,
turning hard at the next curve
in their greasy cocked caps
and a whiff of Top [...]

Why did you do it,
what advantage was there to it
for you wearing down like glass
this marching toy
of quivering, flowering
confusion of radishes
me?
This is the journey, Alice
or walk away to a sofa
to lie on pillows
and bury the roots
away.
Even dead, though,
marks will appear
on the forehead
and our progeny
will jiggle on strings
with clanging cans
for shoes.
I believe this was
to be [...]