I walk this pain and joy
like a deity with you
for life it seems inhabits us
like a run on sentence
for no assumed reason.
17 years together
since the last calling
of the cicadas-
How had I’d managed no blood?
There was proof of fear in 1970: beneath our desks,
where kids stuck ABC gum, we held our knees, waiting for
the bomb. Ten years passed, and I grew to be
afraid of tanks coming down Lockwood Ridge Road,
and men with machine guns knocking on my door.
My car- MY wonderful car
is no lifeless desert,
no sterile ER
pressurized with
filtered atmosphere--
It is an island,
whose reefs and sholes
gather the flotsam
of the midwest's
tidal jetstream,
a faithful home to 39th St.'s
shaggy, hung-over moths
and tripped-out hippie spiders
I should be sleeping
Squirrel taps the fence
calls for more sunflower seeds
Dizzie Gillespie and Joan of Arc wing
through invisible curtains
...exhale on fall, puff and click
Break and bleed
Asphalt in the coffee cup