I think often
Of breastfeeding
The tip of my ****** tickling his skin-thin upper gum.
In my imagination
It is many minutes of calm
I cup his head
Which fits into a palm and a half
My body is full
With his quiet innocence.

I imagine trying to imagine
How much he doesn’t know
All the ***** things
This action may mean one day
How he doesn’t know
What a kitchen is
Or a mortgage or an income
His fears are not boring.
Mine are of finances and guilt
His involve teethed creatures and deaf silences.
He does not know what it means
For the time to be 3:15
Nor can he comprehend
The recentness of his existence.

I and the cat are nocturnal
He lives in intervals.
We associate babies
With a soft pink
I imagine
Looking into his eyes
Two wrinkly slits
Wondering how to
Confirm this.

You read the books that are made for men
And call yourself a feminist

As you recite paragraphs
Making gestures with your right hand

Sprays of self-righteous spit
Accompanied with your confident loud words.

Your knowing worm eyebrows
As the cherry on top.

I wonder if you would be ashamed
To know that Hemingway was an anti-Semite.

Or that Sartre thought there were two kinds of women.
Poor Simone was just like you
She went along for the ride.

We sit darkly among the shuffling of the pots
And the murmur of the television

Me and my cozy solitude
A redyellow booth all to ourselves

Grains of couscous have spilled
From the edges of my mouth

On to the plastic tray
Sprinkled with pepper and salt wrappers

I lean back and breathe
Between ambitious morsels.

I won’t sing right now
They’ve taken the joy out of it
I don’t remember the song with all the flats
And I linger much too long
On that half-note
I can feel the marble weight of the song
Inside my ribs
I cannot distinguish its shades.

I won’t sing right now
I want to go, even alone,
To find myself a little round
Wooden table
A cigarette and a cocktail
Which I’ve had before
A mix of:
Vermouth, peach liquor, and self-pity
I will drink it slowly
As it burns my inner-flesh

On my lover’s arm
There is a magic warm spot

Above the elbow, below the shoulder
That quiets the monsters.


Am I ever so lucky
To have a sun
To my heart’s content.

We were the obnoxious ones
Kissing nakedly one escalator after another
Even the harsh angel-chasing light
Turned Golden and Soothing
You could not get enough of me

You did not learn anything
How to care for
The most important person in the world
The most beautiful girl
And now I am as important to you
As the most daily stranger
Another Black Jacket
Among a twenty
But I promise I am not
I am still the girl with the fringe
Above almond-eyes
And you, the bright red-head
We were something, weren’t we
Something the object of envy
You’ve made that kiss mean nothing.

What a nice day we’re having
Fitting into this city
Like a puzzle piece
And its lip-sticked girls
Too warm to care or know
That I am drinking in the vision
Of their short short pockets
To my eyes’ content.


Light-pink and denim
They wander in variety
They don’t mind.



As I sit on the cool damp grass
Devouring the meal
Which the red-black girl
Made only for me
Full of tomatoes and beans and sun-love.