All I want for Hanukkah is
for you to be happy.

All I want for Christmas is
for you to be loved.

All I want for Kwanzaa is
for you to be safe.

All I want for New Years is
for you to promise me
that you won't give up this year.

In the eye of the hurricane,
she dances by herself.

Sunlight bathes a bare branch, bright chestnut.
The tree’s trunk is in shadow,
The color of bronze.

On the face of a cliff
The wind blows relentlessly,
A furrow the wind’s full tally.

The sun’s light moves off,
The bare branch
Fades from all view.

in my coarse sorrow
and aching qualm
i think of febrile tomorrows
for
what am i
but a girl obsessed with winter’s poppies
in a torrid mid-July