When I am not watered, you thirst as well

When I am hungry, your stomach rumbles the same

I know I am my own, but I cannot help but believe I am here for you

I will think to care for myself, but only so that I can care for you

I must find my meaning, my worth in what I can do for you

Because who am I, if not for others

Because who am I, if not for you

a poetess of some internet infamy and measure once said she thought my best prose was my correspondence with you

upon arrival they ring a brass gong
to honor the island dragon who will
protect them in their new life

Forest floor, veiled in leaves. Sunlight struggles through, dappled and dim. Below, a hidden network, silent and vast. Threads of fungus weave unseen, a secret language of the earth.

Mist breezes over Badin Pond.
On tiptoe at pier’s end I long
to join today’s wisps,
knowing each morning

new plumes ascend, as if
to their workday; their
labor a walk on water
a transformation of matter.

Wake at 4 a.m. to watch
teardrops dribble down hotel windowpanes,
blur, opaque lights of the city asleep.  

Buckets tumble steadily from the sky.
Now and then, a hair of lightning snickers.
Thunder rumbles a low,dark melody.  

Zeus is the boss of me.     

                  #  
Rain is forecast 90%
every day
all the time
until the moment
we step on the plane for home.  

There’s meaning in everything.
There must be meaning in this.      

I cut sixty days my senior year —
failed english, tanked math —

was given the choice of summer school
or ten licks with the paddle,

nickname The Enforcer –
the Excalibur of Central High.

Who gives the licks? I asked.
The vice principal smiled

and raised her diminutive hand.
I laughed. “I’ll take the licks then.”

How bad could it be, I thought
bending over to grab my ankles,

diploma within easy reach,
not knowing she came from

a prodigious tennis family.

The zookeeper claims the umbrella
cockatoo is as smart as a human toddler.
As it grows and begins to mimic speech,
it can actually learn to discern
the meanings of some words:

hello when someone arrives,
bye-bye when somebody leaves,
I love you when it’s feeling sweet.

But this level awareness only occurs  
if you refrain from doling out treats. 

Listen, he says, if you reward a bird
every time it utters a word 
it will only perform, babble nonsense, 
never know what it’s saying. 
It will only be sure about one thing:  
You love to hear it speak. 

With this in mind, can we all agree 
to stop feeding politicians?

Tough Veins Tanka

George supervises
the nurses at the rehab
tries to find a vein
for antibiotics, gives up,
rolls eyes, calls me unstickable

Critical Patient Tanka

my rehab roommate
unstable, often blacks out
George wants doc’s judgment
ambulance arrives at noon
most nurses sense trouble first

In-Charge Nurse Tanka

George explains treatments,
med charts, measures blood pressure,
strums ukulele on break
dark before reaching rehab
he drives 75 long miles