There are ways and then there are ways--
yours put foreign powers on DefCon 5
out of pure jealousy.

Night shift at the factory is enough to melt skulls,
reverse the flow of hearts, turn bones to industrial byproduct
out of sheer boredom.
I loved you wearing jeans and safety goggles,
better than gown and pearls any day.

We took a picnic lunch to the city park,
and set our eyes to floating on the gray waters of the
flammable, compromised river that cuts through it.
"This is fun," we lied,
and fed bread to a one-eyed pigeon
who kept missing with his first peck.

The customs agents had stopped me the time before;
they searched my emphysemic, cookie-cutter *******
right down to the wheel wells.
Holding up my rubber boots, one of them asked,
"Do you work at the plant?"
Well, what do you think, *******? What do you think?
So you got even with them for me the next time--
you, fluent in Russian, Romanian and doubletalk
pretended not to understand the agent's fractured schoolroom parlance,
and mumbled until he let you through just to be rid of you.

How crazy that you should be Catholic--
I've never seen a craftier shoplifter.
Each time the grid went down, I kissed you for your pilfered candles,
your flashlight, your ****** little radio that kept us informed
as I buried my face in your sweetness like an irradiant.

There are ways and then there are ways,
and yours are the finest ever to grace my ******* box apartment
that I had to be on a waiting list for years, to get.
Everything is always in short supply--
once, you backed me through a rope of yellow hazard tape
and right into a defective forklift
with a kiss, on work time.
My shoe soles picked up God knows what from the filthy floor,
but my heart was happy
as the assembly lines rattled behind us.

There is plenty everywhere that can poison a person,
or sow cancer seeds that will explode later on.
We gave that year of our lives to the production of jugs of kitchen cleanser,
since banned.
Everyone who worked there had red hands and brittle nails,
despite the gloves, despite the icons some of us prayed to.
Oh well.
I was happy,
and even though you left just as it all seemed so good,
that year was pure, flawless, redeeming even,
like love can be sometimes,
and as your ways definitely were, and still are,
in some other woman's bed
in another town,
where you mumble into her ear in Romanian
and she holds you closer
for all the good such motions ever do.

the cicadas slur their final words
of summer

from one side of the lake
to the other

a sedge of herons
is perfect

just above the water
all along

the green of the mountains
autumn

is already pecking its reds
and yellows

drift to any distance
and you will dance

through delight
and damage

i have been           loneliness
i have been           holiness

and i now know
the difference

My lost friend
is dreaming now of moon-silvered streets
and the lawns in tones of blue and green
like peacocks in repose
Is your lover, my lost friend
one of those?

My lost friend
has disguised herself in the ivy vines
twining around the garden stones
where the gray cats sleep
Is your lover, my lost friend
one of these?

My lost friend
wraps her heart in fox fur red and black
and waits in the dawn for the light to come back
across the lawns in morning mist
Is your lover, my lost friend
coming back to you like this?

On a morning like this, lethargic and indifferent,
It is so easy to make me rich,
When the pain is moving slowly and smoothly, and
I hold on to you, like a monkey,
                                                         ­            Sob on me,
Make me the richest woman in the world,
Richer than Hetty Green,
Greedier than Hetty Green,

Can you see, my dear, how fast it is raining?
And the forest, a trickster, is washing its leaves,
Pretending that it cares while it is cheating with the rapper.

No one tells them that after the colors explode,
They will invade their hearts, like big Colonizers,
Will put names on them, and play cards,
Drink whiskey, laugh, and feed the earth, so after
They can ride their horses as a symbol of freedom and kindness,
Making donations and digging water wells,

On a morning like this, I believe,
Our story is like that of the gold seekers,
It is so easy to make me rich,
Make me the richest woman in the whole world,
Richer than Hetty Green,
Greedier than Hetty Green,

Dig me, baby, it is in my eyes,
Whisper in my ear, while the cold raindrops are touching my face,
They are hiding in my hair, on a morning like this,
Be my tears, lethargic and indifferent,
Ask the leaves, on a morning like this,
I hope they do not lose their mind,
                                                And will remember me in the spring

The conspicuous Christians
fill four booths and keep the waitress hopping.

12 adults
5 young children needing high chairs in the aisle
17 orders, all different
5 special requests
2 plates sent back
1 spilled coffee
separate checks, please.

after an hour, they leave
dishes, napkins, crayons, sticky syrup spots,
straws, spoons, forks,
and
1 tract
with
2 crisp 1 dollar bills tucked neatly inside.

Teacher says that every time a bell rings
she is awakened in the night and lies there
remembering the bay at San Sebastian.

The stars in the sky there are local,
drifting up from modest houses in Loiola.
They are as close as cats on a sill
and are able to both warm and wound.

Teacher says that when her heart beats,
she cannot sleep, recalling the day of drums--
the Tamborrada, and the clouds that gathered
in search of their pilfered thunder.

During the Aste Nagusia, or Big Week.
La Concha Bay is home to stilt walkers wearing
huge papier mâché heads. The calm waters
are like mothers who knew these giants as babies.

Teacher says that there was a man there,
or a woman, or an enchantment she cannot describe.
Perhaps all three, a trinity born of sangria, celebration,
and one bell beneath the drumbeat, a ringing bird.

On these recent nights, far from the Basque country,
she is startled by her doppelganger lying awake beside her.
The lesson she cannot teach is that neither knew of the other,
though the invitation was always there, a tongue in the bell,

Like an arrow in the flesh of a saint or an invitation
to La Concha Bay, and the days to be lived beyond it.