Lullaby

 

 

If there is nothing

behind the music and music

behind the nothing and nothing

and so on,

 

then at least the baby’s breathing.

Like an agitated bratwurst

or an old man’s ear.

He needs no dream

 

because the memory of cell

division still counts off in his head.

If he’s nearly beside himself,

it’s because he’s not there yet.

 

If he screams we wipe him dry.

The nights are getting bigger.

Sometimes I wish I had a telescope

mounted on my rocking chair,

 

an open window

and some general sense

of Aldeberan’s whereabouts.

The three of us will never be big enough.

 

Having rearranged ourselves --

black egg, white semen --

we have seen that civilization,

if nothing else, is singing

 

to assure its young

that between our best efforts

and the universal eyelid, there’s a yellow

bellied red bird, a plum tree and a bear.                                                                                                                                                         

King Lear

 

 

1.

 

Lear was a man of the world.

Lear was a Lear Jet entering

a triangle worse than Bermuda,

a nude, outdated jet adrift

in an atonal symphony

of guts and ham sandwiches.

 

The world wants our insides back.

The planet only wants our skin.

 

 2.

 

When I was six my sister rubbed

a dandelion on my forehead.

I was yellow

which meant that I secretly loved girls.

The flower was smeared with dead skin cells

which meant I was falling apart.

My shoe was untied.

Every time I tried to say my abc’s

the l-m-n-o-p bunched up like a bully’s fist.

I gave my sister a punch on the arm

and the wild finches scattered.

Finch on the telephone line.

Finch in the tomcat’s mouth.

Soft finch adrift in the wind x ten.

Whispering finch in my head x the yellow-grey

of a summer storm.                                                                                                                                                                                              

Zorro’s Daughter

 

 

Still, the night disintegrates

lovely in its lesser attributes:

 

the wind, the lack of definition,

overfed raccoon and tactless moth

 

offering its body up to something

other than flame.

 

                   We ourselves

are famous for even less.

 

Though the best lives have all been lived,

 

we make the rent and have enough

 

left over for flat champagne in a paper cup.

 

She touches me

 

with her hand

 

and then the letter “z.”