Rivers are meant to be peaceful,
But I promise,
I'm no Virginia Woolf.

I'd love to share a moment,
But sharing was never
One of my best skills
When I was a little girl.

Like the sunrise
I want your first smile in the morning-
Your last thought before your eyes lie across the horizons of your skies;
I want your sunset.
I want your mind set
Fastened next to mine on the next jet departing to the next dimension.

the women of the past keep
phoning.
there was another yesterday
arrived from out of
state.
she wanted to see
me.
I told her
"no."

I don't want to see
them,
I won't see them.
it would be
awkward
gruesome and
useless.

I know some people who can
watch the same movie
more than
once.

not me.
once I know the
plot
once I know the
ending
whether it's happy or
unhappy or
just plain
dumb,
then

for me
that movie is
finished
forever
and that's why
I refuse
to let
any of my
old movies play
over and over again
for
years.

curled up in a corner
of a room you will find me
bent
but not broken and spent
but not spoken with spokes of the bicycle
wheel that broke off and
rolled through the liberation
gate staking
my face-plates,
now, folks,
I have warned you
I am horned and with virtue,
alone but not lonely
I'm a circus clown's pony with
plots of freak mutiny,
a ship-wrecked bronze bust of political impunity
I am star-gazing through blazes of thin paper, puny
little pinners pressed tightly by blazer pocket roomies.
I'm a goonie, a goblin and a masked, hooded robin robbing rich people's goblets of every droplet
and although I move slow I will not
ever stop it
so I sew
on the buttons after I do the popping while Millers mill about
doing holiday shopping
how sloppy
our rituals all empty and flopping
about in the wind like a limp rubber topping for
bottles of formulas filled up with tube-fed
federally-regulated hormonally-muted
undead
living piglets with noses as red as
our shred
of human dignity left after all that
we've spent.
I'm the leftovers left under every park bench.
I'm a snarling, glad monster with the truest intent
for every breath
to be free.
like my fangs and my
fur all curled up in a
corner of a room you'll find me.

Her birthday cards

All lined up on the mantle like

Happy paper people, waiting to give praise.

She placed her flowers just below

On the fireplace bricks like

A bouquet garden,

nurtured for ripe admiring.

It’s an impromptu display, in gentle notions reading:

“I am loved!”

Next to Grandpa’s old chair,

Where part of Grandma’s heart sleeps

At night.

What a beautiful home

She has kept

And keeps.

Memorabilia of a better time

When pride came from the simple things.

With a warm heart and keen eye,

Every adornment

In its proper home placed,

And atop the fireplace mantle

Is where you’ll find

The birthday cards.

Endings are always painful.
So, I always keep
a half-read book,
an incomplete poem,
an unfinished movie,
and a barely heard song
with me;
Just in case...