So
Standing in the middle of a deserted
Walkway
I
Hear
No sound
Unusual in a big city
To hear
No sound
The urban crane lies quiet
As does
The crawling Caterpillars
Regeneration is the term
For communal execution
But change is dictated
So change must replace
Amen

This restless night I summoned history.

It comes to me as a sound:
two tones, and an image:
one lonely satellite-
cold and empty,
drifting,
my eyes see nothing but stars.

My weight in cells,
particles
metabolizing and collapsing,
carry on
through time and space,
until,
eventually-

I return again.

I remember itchy red eyes laying awake to daydream of you,
Waiting by the rotary phone .......
It rings ...
My heart's in my throat......
I lean on one elbow
super smug mug.
Avocado green plush rug.......
Jazzy radio deep voice
Like cool crushed velvet
I speak right into your ear .
Hellllllllo?
Uhhhm what....
No I don't want to take a survey  
.........
Dammmm it
Slam the phone ......
Then fold my hands under my head .......
Smile , cross my feet and stretch
And pick up where I left off.

Lost in love with you
On a hot august night  ...
I fantasize about ..
You fantasizing about menow I fantasize that I could go back to those days and catch a feeling or two.........

L-,

It's a lonely acid evening,
citric-salted, hung like a skin

on headlights that rise
& split into orange antlers.

A woman screams "Barry!"
into the alley, over and over,

until night climbs over her
with black, grinding knees.

Sweet Saturday carvings
are Sunday's rack and bone:

after your lobby debut
(your eyes fine as sea-thread)

you spun away, you are still spinning.
The heart's ever-after is knotted:

I thin you with gin, smear
that clever flash of teeth and lip

into the cold hollows of air
that clot the mid-month.

Listen: the alley woman
gave up on Barry.

Yours,
E-

I lick my wounds with
a sorbet sunset tongue
A slurp so icy thick and orange that it covers elephant horizons
My pain---a mirrored cloud skyscraper
it is king to
Grief
A planet where there are never enough parking spaces
If you find a place to rest
it will cost you an over- romanticized sensory memory
and then you will never be able to sleep again
I took up space
Decided I would sing among the meadows
Black filled my cracks and
my clothes started to wear me.
Everyone tries to hug me
They start their sentences with a dry, choking,  "at least."
I start to resent strangulation
Oxygen is my mother
She shows up and holds my hands tenderly,
rubbing her fingertips over my nail beds
I beg her to stay
to swaddle me and morph me into ten-year-old-me
She just murmurs, "me too."
"I want that too."

Could I be cotton?
Or the light that fills checkered New York cockroach apartments?
Could I be anything but a woman who is grieving over a black shelled conman?

Did someone scatter cornflakes
All over the ground?
Or some kind of cereal
With a crunchy sound?

When walking on the grass
There's a snap, crackle, and pop,
The dry summer's drought
Just doesn't seem to stop.

Lawns all around
Look about the same,
All turning brown
While waiting for the rain.

August 21, 1993