Another Renga-Like Sequence

That one hummingbird
came at last to the cannas
before the first frost.

Oh, I see that twilight too
extends us rosy fingers.

Unused all these years,
college German spoken first
to an Afghan girl.

Feeling foreign everywhere,
why do I long to travel?

Turnpike overpass.
Treetop beyond the gray rail.
Left eye of the hawk.

What horrors for the handyman
behind his own toilet.

Beneath the table
the pastor's daughter and I
crawled through burning sand.

Rehobeth Beach: Twin towers,
unmarked, doors filled with concrete.

Called back at wood's edge.
Beyond, the sand spit between
calm bay, open lake.

I thought it was I that was
the cursor before the past.

Try to innervate
the scripture stylus: blaspheme?
worship? simply fail?

What stung me then, picking beans,
hands hidden among warm leaves?

A life so careful that each
scar has kept its story straight.

Soft, the Louisville Slugger
tapped three street signs into line.

How pleasantly long,
chatting with the old woman
at the wrong white house.

What temper leaves it unplayed
the piano does not tell.

Singular pleasure,
this book: five years on the shelf,
a blank checkout card.

My Khmer that amused Nareth
confounds her granddaughter Ray.

Should you say, "Aren't you
Frank's mom?" before or after
disimpacting her?

Who waved in the windshield glare
and drove on without stopping?

I lock up the store.
A passing drunk, punching me
weakly, staggers on.

The group-home boy ran until
he dropped naked on our lawn.

That night I said it
you had fallen in the snow
outside the playhouse.

A cute little number calls
lust right of the decimal.

Having written that
I see Nat's math problem as
Zeno's Paradox.

More urgency to leave makes
more checks of locks and burners.

Coming home in July
from nine years in Virginia,
our garden as green...

Not long after, they finished
the good road through the mountains.

Already three ducks
swimming in the borrow pit
by the half-built bridge.

And so it is this small space
that is left for all the rest.

Having Read JAPANESE DEATH POEMS

Written beforehand,
fearing that I would be too sick
at that time...this time.

Cedar Bog, Central Ohio, 1995

The downward slope is slight
from the parched field to this cool
and beautiful hell.

The Spring Song of Lady Night

The spring woods
hold flowers of great beauty.
The spring birds
cause thoughts of great grief.
The spring breeze has also great feeling,
blowing open
my gauzy silk skirt.
--Anon., 300-600 C.E.

How few the moments
that my gaze has lit upon
the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days
that I have passed without fruit.
--Fujiwara no Okikase

Ada Banyak Warung

Apple slices
in coarse sea salt.
Sardines
in bitter chocolate.
An avocado shake.
What savor would these have
taken at a food stall
of bamboo
and blue plastic tarp
at the corner
of Jalan Kaliurang
and Jalan Yacaranda?

Another Renga-Like Poem

Dark Sandusky Bay,
Cold across the curving bridge.
Air conditioned car.

Sweet smell of cherries.
Pissing on the pink tablet
in the urinal.

Sweating, cutting grass.
Moldy turd beneath the hedge.
Old dog dead since March.

To stare or glass no
bird calls in the meadow tree.
Deer bark at wood's edge.

Peek up from my book.
A blur through reading glasses,
long hair and long legs.

Clarence, Sylvester.
Like our grandfathers' names, mine
senesces with me.

At a time like this,
there are no words to express
how I feel about.

Though God still the wheel,
still the car turns about it,
this engine of change.

Bone-deep pressure sore.
Waved away again, two flies
land on his penis.

Return to the marsh
or not: the crane won't be still
on the gravel path.

From across the stream,
wind extends a willow thread
to brush a shoulder.

Ruby lay with me
and beneath my fevered hand
nosed her silky head.

Isolation room,
fourth floor: ladybug enters
on my yellow gown.

Sunrise false cadence
makes of fireflies at twilight.
Play on, then, play on.



I don't much like some of the stanzas, but I find linked verse very hard to revise. Recalling that I work as a nurse might be an aid to understanding at some points.