smirks at me in the late afternoon,
knows my years have not diminished her.
As dinner hour approaches she anticipates lamb
simmered in rosemary and red wine,
new potatoes, complemented by the tenderness
of green beans.    

She’s always been a burden for me.
My father praised her: Look at how much
my youngest eats.  

She summons a stufffed chicken
to dance for my delight.
Prods me to grate garlic and ginger,
to chop broccoli and bok choy.
She’s taught me pleasure found
in the smells and texture of prepping food.  

Don’t forget, she reminds me, add sweet
Chinese sausage. She pleads
for plumb potstickers steamed for dipping
in soy sauce and vinegar,
red pepper flakes float just for her
in a small bowl. 

Smoke is blocking son.
Darkness has begun and won;
Choke is brother’s fun.

A small deer’s rush of bright vitality crossing a country road
A blur of fawn and white from the passenger window
We clipped it’s haunch end because she slowed
but did not stop
I imagine she was singularly thinking of the baby in the carseat 
anticipating a rear end or whiplash
Later she pulled fur from the grill and examined the unblemished black bumper
and marvelled at our good fortune
She died four months later almost to the day
And I marvel at the omens

Father may I take one step forward?
No, you may not!
Take two steps back.
Father may I take one step forward?
Yes, you may.
Father may I take one step forward?
No, take one step back!
Father may I stay right where I’m at?
Yes, that’s exactly where I want you.

My father
held
an unor-  

thodox
love
for Marys.

His
mother:
Mary.  

His
wife:
Mary.  

His
mistress:
Mary.  

Legend
says 
that St.  

Anne
gave birth
to  

three
Marys.
There were 

three
Marys
at

the
crucifixion.
There

were three
Marys
at  

the tomb.
Prom-
inent in

the
Gospels
are

three
Marys.
One

would
think
my name

would
be
Mary.

it
is
not.

I risk running aground
My black anchor 
pants pink
but she has no chain

I lost our map to the desert 
I will not go with the dog
for nights of silent stars
She could not share my memory 

I am a rogue planet
could harbor life 
for want a sun’s warmth

She and I dog paddle
I breathe five breaths
to count me present
push against the water’s depth

(synastry reeling red
as a tetchy obsession with tangling thread
and absolving knots beyond ponderous gullets
of aglets pecking at mother-tucked husks of a seedbed)—

Theogaloam,
            what sniggering lampposts speak and
            concede at dusk to the corkscrewing
            fireflies spryly trepanning a blistered chin,
            the simpering possum’s shin now
            aroar with serratia marcescens mistaken
            for tartly laboring legions of leprous
            ketchup—

theogaloam,
            sigh of a craftsman’s malcontent
            when prying the fly from the marmalade,
            bass strings whingeing angels crimp around
            moments of woefully treacly simplicity,
            cat’s allowing mere moths to live,
            and the prickling din of a city
            come Christmas Eve, the trash cans
            toppled, reprieved, and sweetly
            repurposed to furnish a log flume—

theoga loam,
              more than a quickening sense of a sticky agenda,
              crickets colluding with cryptic stars
              arranged to rekindle in clamorous tar,
              in macadam bid ambered and amply scalped,
              those prowling hordes of bloodhounds quietly
              cleaving with wheezing prows the calamitous
              static once sieved to seem maybe like
                                           this and that,
              the salt of the Caspian, clabbering milk fat
              woven to more than a souring cloud, a
              vision enshrouding some finicky cryptid
              gilt, prophetic, imperiled—

the oga loam,
               smiling miles from hell or home
               interred in a tarrying locust,
               wisteria’d thorns the dully stuttering
               gar teeth clung along teats of a marigold
               lamppost gargling ardent nymphs
               and summoning, but as mere recompense,
               these twisted soles of their sister stars
               to smudge among buttery dust and alacritous
               shadows those harrowing hymns of the famished
               dermestids licking the scythe aglint and
               steering but peaking weeds to bay
               as coyotes rasp at infecund escarpments,
               as shadows thrash and thrum at collapsing
               scowls, and, crassly as sycamores howl,
  
demurring to turn in their half-dead dances
Brahmin and dryads derived from a simpering
starling’s psalm,
                              or the owl’s epistles as
shrill and fulfilling as stammering lampposts
yawn—
               and long to dissemble a white-knuckled sunset.

At the end, struggling to breathe,
Mom announced I never thought I would die.
“Really?” I said.  “Do you know how much
time most people squander worrying
                            about their death?”  

Why on earth would anyone do that?
you said, fading. It takes a few minutes,
                                        that’s all.

Beloved, though it be selfish
I pray I die before you

I cannot fathom life 
without your smile
the curve of your hip
the scent of your hair
the feel of your soft cheek
the gentle touch of your hand

Let my last sight be your soulful eyes
let my last sensation be your soft hands on my face
let the last thing I hear be your sweet voice whispering

Let the last thing I say be I love you forever

I look up the spelling of tzatziki.
Microsoft Word suggests “tatami.”
I wonder why it knows the word
for a type of Japanese flooring
but not the Mediterranean
yogurt and cucumber dip.

I look up the spelling of minutiae.
Singular, minutia. But who would
ever handle one minutia?
No one I know. Minutiae is
pronounced muh—NOO—shee—ee.
Has anyone ever used the long
double “e” in conversation?

I write:
Militant minutiae march
across the stage.
It only takes a minute to
make their matters known.

I cross it out. My tummy hurts.
I think about puns involving
tzatziki and the feeling of “icky”.

My eyes flit over to my notes and
I glance at the first three lines:

-to swallow whole the sea

-impasse

-a glass of red wine in a theater of dreams

Oh, my love! My dream! There’s an
entire ocean raging inside me. But,
for too many reasons, we can’t
break free.