My mother paints the Tokyo cherry trees.
She sketches the butterflies  of Siam.
Some day, she'll bring my children
Their very own Indian elephants.

She wants to put an Asian painting
On every wall of her house,
But her African sculptures
Take up too much space.

I have never left my home, but she
Has been to the nooks and crannies
Of the pharoah's tombs in Giza,
And to the silver church of Kizhi island.

She brings them back to me
In pictures and words.
She holds Russia in her voice
When she tells me of a woman in a shawl
Who didn't smile for a picture,
Or a young couple on a moped
Who held a live chicken in their arms.

I shall never have to leave the safety
Of a warm sunday blanket,
When her arms are there to hold me
And sweep me to Arabia.

We dance in the wetlands:
Hopping tree to tree in galoshes,
In snake boots.
We can hear the rattlers and
Crying crocodiles over the
Buzz buzz buzzing of our chainsaws,
But the bossman says stay down.
So we wait and watch, and when
A snake snaps to bite, we touch it
Just so: on the back of the head
With our buzzing tools. Then
We go right back to dancing
Tree to tree and rock to rock.
Step in the water and scaly babies
Will cry out for mother,
But bossman will say to stay
And shoot the mama if she snaps to bite.
We drive them from their homes,
Scaly devils, with our buzz buzzing saws
And our snake boots. We clear the land.
Where they shall go, we shall follow,
Always there is more to clear
More to cut and haul away
But we must be prepared for
Attack, always awake,
Always ready to shoot and touch
The back of their heads, just so,
With our insistent buzzing saws.

In the home fields, the children run
Shouting and leaping from a pile
Of fiery, spicy, single-file specks.
They wave chubby arms in
Gleeful fear and childish friendship
As worried mothers shuffle them away.

In faraway deserts, the children run
Towards familiar mounds, chanting
"Jaglavak, jaglavak, come and help!
The termite is eating our homes!
Little red brother, ride our thin shoulders,
Our fathers have sent us to fetch you."

Baggy pants hang from skinny hips
And jingling chains mince words
With chattering feet.

His sweat quests down, down,
To be nearer to those ankles,
Those toes, and those soles that
Stomp and slide and scrape
The soon-to-be-polished stage.

With heavy-swinging momentum, his breath
Flings itself towards the crowd:
An offering of more than
Sound; more than dancing feet.

They accept the gift and rise with shouts.
Weighted with praise, they return his breath
From fourteen hundred mouths.
He can only bend,
Perch his hands on quivering knees,
And drink in the euphoria of his first
Standing ovation.

One air-conditioned summer evening,
When the waking lamplights
Buzzed and sighed to life and
Yellowed the cooling stones
In the street beside our home,
You asked me a foolish question.
"Do we have a lasting relationship?"
No.
No, my love, we have nothing
Of the sort. No roses or chocolates
Or love-letters have ever outlasted
The final rasping, dusty cull that must
All mortal, fleeting things befall.
No whispered words, like golden
Birds on the morning wires can
Ever aspire to live beyond their
Breath. Each serenade fades with
Death. So shall our love,
When we go to worms, be gone.
But do not cry, my whispered love,
For though I cannot hold you past
The expiration of my arms,
You, too, will be the dullest dust:
Insensitive to my absent charms.

"Drip drip drip"
Like some kind of sick
Clock ticking the silence away:
The water in the sink.
The heater running on the brink
Reminds me to work
Harder. Tomorrow's another day.
"Drip drip drip"
Reminding me of your wet lips
That I can't kiss.
Like a butterfly that flies away
When it gets colder
And the sweet-smelling flowers fade.
I feel older,
But tomorrow's another day.
"Drip drip drip"
Gotta call the guy to fix it,
Slipping beyond repair.
Too many playful moments as a child,
The light's fading from my hair.
Lying on a mattress with
Springs digging in my back.
American water torture
"Drip drip drip"
I gotta pick up the slack tomorrow

Do you have everything you need?
Pillows, comforters, cuddly cotton puppy?
Good! Would you like a story? No,
I suppose not, haha. You know
Every one of them already; the twists and turns,
The lessons in the endings are things
You strove to teach me, after all.

Well. It has been a long day, and while our
Time waking has been fun, even the brightest
Sun has its evening horizon to
Tuck around its ears. Let me handle
The grown-up worries in the dark.
Goodnight, sleep well. I love you.
Tomorrow is a big day for us.

But if, my cherished darling, Helios
Is sluggish and sleepy from a night
Of ambrosia and untroubled lightning-
Lit skies, have no fear. I will still be
Here to greet you when you rise,
Here to warm you pancakes and
Wrap you in fluffy cotton smiles.

And some sneaky day - just when
I think that we (like Shakespeare and Shelley
On a library shelf) are near but still
Quite far away (separated by a book or two) -
You will greet me at a long night's end;
You will be unchanged, and though my
Looks will fade, my friend, you will
Recognize me (soft and warm, ah) and we
Will share pancakes and
Smiles in a slow morning.