The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose—
But were always a rose.

God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth.

God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers digging into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.

The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels--
the tablet of the world--
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.

He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.

Oh, ponder, friend, the porcupine;
  Refresh your recollection,
And sit a moment, to define
  His means of self-protection.

How truly fortified is he!
  Where is the beast his double
In forethought of emergency
  And readiness for trouble?

Recall his figure, and his shade--
  How deftly planned and clearly
For slithering through the dappled glade
  Unseen, or pretty nearly.

Yet should an alien eye discern
  His presence in the woodland,
How little has he left to learn
  Of self-defense! My good land!

For he can run, as swift as sound,
  To where his goose may hang high--
Or ****** his head against the ground
  And tunnel half to Shanghai;

Or he can climb the dizziest bough--
  Unhesitant, mechanic--
And, resting, dash from off his brow
  The bitter beads of panic;

Or should pursuers press him hot,
  One scarcely needs to mention
His quick and cruel barbs, that got
  Shakespearean attention;

Or driven to his final ditch,
  To his extremest thicket,
He'll fight with claws and molars (which
  Is not considered cricket).

How amply armored, he, to fend
  The fear of chase that haunts him!
How well prepared our little friend!--
  And who the devil wants him?

WISHES left on your lips
The mark of their wings.
Regrets fly kites in your eyes.

I try to show her the universe without a telescope
I take one of her hands-
This bracelet opened up is the Milky Way galaxy; these spheres of lace
woven so intricately

And the knitting needles are the star beams
The fabric of space is seamless;
Look, inside your eye is a wayfaring nebula
Far from it's home constellation

Our heartbeats are woven from the dark spaces
Between the conjugated matter,
Frozen into time and dimensions

Love is the singularity;
Home is where the heart is beating,
And light is the substance that sings
The background song of creation
And how we are covered with it, inside and out-

Take a breath, and then see
That you are moving only light-
I stop and kiss her hand
And her eyes light up with understanding.

A face looks so carnivorous
From the nostrils down:
An open, ravenous trap,
Half full or half empty
Gleaming with ivory shears
And threatened sharpness
Of incisors clicking.

I fear it's raging hungers, this face;
It looks ghastly unkind
With tearing, strong molars,
An impertinent softness of tongue lurking
Concealing the violence till the last instant
While delicately testing
The perfect temperature of warm blood.

Who says humans
Don't eat their young;
Things sometimes happen in the dark,
Late of night, things you'd never catch in daylight-
Why do some never have children at all;
Perhaps they became too fond of newborn flesh,
Delicate as the palest veal-calf of the restaurant.

And it only looks human
When you add in some eyes.

I have been wanton and too bold, I fear,
To chafe o’ermuch the ******’s cheek or ear.
Beg for my pardon, Julia: he doth win
Grace with the gods who’s sorry for his sin.
That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come
And go with me to choose my burial room:
My fates are ended; when thy Herrick dies,
Clasp thou his book, then close thou up his eyes.