NUMBER
182
I
keep score of
sacrifice
one to you
put
out burning houses.
I'm
only five
in
fact, no one alive ever has.
never
met you -
like
crowns.
my
old man.
art
teacher asked for a transfer
parents
hide anything sharp.
cover
of my sister's book.
stared
down a cat with my evil eye,
the
day I showed it to her.
the
most feared hellion of them all.
the
trembling, the screams,
when
I grow up I want to be a fireman
dybbuk,
daeva
you
have and more.
night's
emperor.
wearing
these ashen faces -
my
throne is any alley-way.
NUMBER
136
Providence
accepts what God,
north,
the interminable loop,
roads
turn sharp, divine Providence
coming
down. Pedestrians push themselves up,
continue.
On Providence river concourse Providence,
Water
fire! Out to Reservoir Avenue.
Construction
begins Saturday.
Business
to West Exchange Street to,
to
work, weeds rise up. Nearly
access
straighten. I thought 1 learned
the
art of failure. Is this the place?
Been
the ache, the agony,
And
bend a.m. in at this voted succumbed.
At
a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included geese.
Of
course he knows February is the way
she
started chasing me. My last
BREAST
FEEDING
baby's
shape changes -
an
instrument
of
bodies of life
but
who's to say
by
its many roles
that
it's not
candlelight
in endless dark
cherry-topped,
done
feasting -
I
heard them call it sin
in
various stages,
hummed
like a microphone
outside
the glazed window
for
a brief encounter
with
poor relations,
sick
cattle with withering steps -
sometimes,
with those I know,
I
think there's not some planning
that
goes into them -
they
are quartz peaks
they
follow no set path
they've
been a tree house
when
a need to feel arises -
like
a sheik in the Arabian desert
your
breasts travel across sand -
it's
feeding time
and
you're perplexed
by
your own goodness.
