She came from a tropical island,
Dark skin and darker hair.
In my head, she was Jeanne Duval,
And I was Baudelaire.

I wrote her poetry every day,
To less than rave reviews,
"It's really not my kinda ting",
Apologised my muse.

Suffice to say, it didn't last,
Though it lasted for a time.
And I burned that final sonnet,
That I couldn't get to rhyme.

Your heart is empty, did you not know?
There is no room for anything to grow
There is not land for flowers to bloom
No your heart is full of empty room.

Your head is the sea, does it ever call?
Ye waves are crashing twenty feet tall
There is no safety for a boat to glide
The waves are the thing that cause you to hide.

A poet could lie and make up his own
Or hers, whatever, and steal someone's home
They could capture ones heart but that I couldn't do
I could never capture the empty heart of you.

You downed that liquid courage like there was hope at the bottom of the bottle,
And each glass that lay strewn across the floor reminded me
That this house we tried to make our home was nothing more than a wooden box
Which would, at any moment, collapse and become a casket for two;
The final vessel and resting place of our love.

I filled with tears the remains of what gave you peace every day,
Hoping you would think you overlooked a carton and had some more indulgence to enjoy,
But you knew something was different about what was left after the first time through;
And you looked at me suspiciously from that day on,
Knowing full well that you had changed something in me, and I in you.

You spoke those words with the tongue of a snake, the sting of a scorpion;
Deep into the tissue that poison traversed and tainted -
A wound so deep that it bled out quick and left me feeling drained and dry
And hollow like the ground before death calls it home;
Reassuring in me that the ghosts that were haunting me were real.

I swam to shore alone that day, tired, sore and breathless,
But when I looked back across the horizon I couldn't tell where the sky met the Earth
For everything was a reflection of everything and everything was still;
Much like the heart inside this cage you rattled so hard it broke,
Tearing the bird from it's nest and hanging me out to dry.

"The problem is that if you put a green
pepper in with a tomato, it turns brown."
Why not try an onion?
I ask myself as the conversation passes me
on the stairwell
Roommates wake each other up now
juicing
You can't argue with juicer that their new
obsession will not make them live to 120
or experience life on a knife's edge
Maybe our brains aren't that large, after all

One of the beautiful animals
a vet in Haifa said to me
"I don't like cats!" says my Aunt at dinner
"The vet bills!" moans my mother
Cats haven't changed much since their inception
because they are already such a good design
They eat what is living at the time
as other species fade in and out
I love cats
Back at Thanksgiving it is loud and cold
and I am so tired so I get up and go downstairs for a nap
just like a cat

"The population is expected to level off at around nine billion," says my father
A nearly full plate of Thanksgiving feast food in front of him
but he has been asked to pontificate which is what he does best
and I hear a tremor in his voice like I have when I teach
I know he is in the throws of excitement about what he's saying
planning for his keynote in Brazil, and what plant scientists can do
to help save us from global warming and the lack of water since there isn't
even two liters of fresh water for every person on the planet for use every day at seven billion
I gesture as to what two liters looks like  and my mother snaps "I know what two liters is!"

It's cold in here, in this large Oakland short sale house that fits my cousin's family
and my Aunt downstairs, where I like it better because the children aren't there
Like two houses put together and there are no carpets just hard wood floors and
open windows that make it cold and it is anything but warm and fuzzy
My Aunt is angry with me that I shop at Walmart but that's what I can afford
Tomorrow she's holding a strike at a Walmart with her daughter which makes them superior to me
She's also mad because I don't like my "Union" which does nothing for me since I'm not tenured
"You have to organize" she condescends, like that is a reasonable thing with my one and two year stints at schools but she is the big Union Head for CSU so she should know
She was on TV with Jerry Brown after all, so what do I know
The kids are noisy since they all have their own phone and can play anything they
want at any time in addition to turning on the myriad of TVs and radios and stereos in the house
and the noise ricochets off he hard cold floors and walls that have pictures on them
of people from the family, but they don't look quite like they belong
and they hang there uncomfortably and self consciously
There is every skin tone except deep black at the table
My family--all that is left

Childhood: I loved going to my mother's family in Idaho
It was hot in summer or cozy warm inside in winter and
a wonder land outside for snow shoeing and skiing
It was quiet and they always had wall to wall carpet
I rolled from one end of the room to another in it the first time I felt it
It was warm and fuzzy.  
People listened and there were breaks from noise and chaos

Here, every conversation is disjointed like we are going
in and out of different time periods and different petty rivalries and
fierce competitions under it all and families are blending and being
torn apart and the latest one has formed from "OK Cupid" online
and my Aunt has to be right, the smart one, the good one, the one of the people
and it is so cold, so very cold, and the windows are opened to let in more
cold Oakland air as if there isn't enough of it and all the sounds of
kids and electronics are driving me slowly insane

What can plant scientists do to help nine billion people
without water?  Not a whole lot, except invent crops that
survive like camels, or can live underwater like fish
since everything will be either dry or deluged with water
and I wish there was carpeting, warm carpeting and less
noise and more harmony
and this is the family I have now
the old one is gone, like the glaciers that will melt all at last
and the rivers that will run dry forever.
And I think: what we need to do is invent a way to make water
Make enough water for everyone, maybe from recycled bags or used Nike shoes
and if we can do that, maybe the air in this house will warm
and it will become quieter and the hard wood floors will become soft and warm and fuzzy
and I will feel at home here, with my family

I once was found,
but then I was lost,
Silently blinded
By deep white frost.

My eyes lost focus.
My hands were cold
As I trudged past
The black dead mold.

The trees laid bare.
There was no fruit.
Suddenly, oh so suddenly,
I became quite astute.

There was nothing like it.
A howl, one of a kind,
Consciously placed me
In a mighty tight bind.

It ran away.
An owl screamed hoot...hoot!
All I found was dark blood
And an old man's boot.

Where zebra dance
Pale moondrops break the great divide.

Decadent shrubbery gives way
To the rhythmic pattern of hooves
And the ground is alive and fluid.

The air is thick with childhoods odor,
Maturity’s complexion held at bay
As thoughts pure and simple
Make fantastic again
What had become unremarkable.

In a hidden bit of forest
Only zebra could know
Pale mushrooms grow as artifacts
Of the seeds that we have sewn

Reminiscent paths of the things that might have been
With lacy tendrils weave intricate loops through the air
As striped bodies leap in holy communion
Writhing in glory to the nights ephemeral song.