Luck

Call it luck, sure, if you want it to be
luck, like a round penny in your shoe;
can't walk far on it, but it gives you
something to count on; something to

think of, like when he said -- It seems more like a curse to me
but call it luck, sure, if you want it to be--

that's LUCK, my friend, like scraping your hand
and growing new skin; guess what? Everything mends
and you can curse the ground for slipping under you
or call it LUCK and count that penny in your shoe.

Kicking up leaves from the bottom of the pond
always makes for muddy water; unsettled
depths and worlds unseen floating across
the surface. We pulled up a boot, an old shoe
split at the sole, that perhaps
walked down this road
many years ago, but was since lost, and bearing
no place of its own, ended up floating
down to the bottom alone.

Ship turned towards sky...

Let all my ships go, let them sail away.
Loosen the bolts, empty the cove,
the docks are at midnight, the ocean a sheen
of new water, soft-frothing, silk-green

beneath moonlight; here comes that old tide
lifting wooden planks, ropes, our sails flung wide
to the wind in a greeting, brief-fleeting, and hushed
as an ocean at midnight; its waters thick-brined

and swirling, with dreams we've charted, now known.
Its tempests familiar, rough waters like home, 
and our damaged sails now dragging behind
we are hopeful, ship turned towards sky.

The heart, slipped through....

Hold it tightly in, grasp the roughness, inhale
to keep poised and aligned, no one needs to know

what slipped through the ribs, unrestrained: your heart,
airtight, packed up, tumbling now and all for what, over brown bread,
over safety nets, over shared chores and shared beds

and something shared that never should've been: your hands,
knitted fast to a blanket, knuckle-white and gripped to last, but

worn things are better worn through; new things are better made
to undo what's been lost: the heart, slipped through
the ribs, unrestrained, and now sewing it anew,

with patches and stitches and rolls of yarn;
needles and safety pins and scraps of fabric, used.

Heart, you are the redeemer, deemed in half
of what can be gained of love, for love
cannot make known its make, nor have
its honest value weighed.

A Dream of Kuwait

There is a boat on top of the bookcase, wooden
with a flag that reads Kuwait, reads
not of deserts, but something of sailing.

Habibi, I never went, but was told through others
of orb-like towers, built for water, and the streets
grown so hot, you feel a great weight hovering over you, pushing
like two hands folding the earth.

Binti, you would call, little one, and we would lie close,
and you pointed over waters and waters as though to find
that far away coast, where we could watch
the great eye close, and a final surge
of solar perplexity and vague mystery
as green light broke the waves.

This is how I love you: a green burst
among the waves, and every night
when the great eye closes, and again when it awakes.
We are as heavy as an endless summer, and as thick
as stars spread in the wilderness, where I looked
at sand for hours seeing only your face.

Pieces from Fall 2009

Just wanted to talk to you today.

Just wanted to say your name

to someone.

________________________

I am seconds away

from pure color,

from autumn browns

and dark stone,

from flying up to the

brilliant tree cities,

into the sunlight-spilling

gold ridged sky.

Thought you could skip me

across water, did ya?

thought I would sink

like a rock.

_______________

A realization

I have

Breaking through

some inner layer,

didn't think anything

could run this deep.

I think I might just be

invincible.