Thursday, February 23, 2017

Black Swan's Song


we some beautiful things in flight
not for escape, just to lift plumage high
make plumage flag
wave and whip loud in air
charge thunder to break
we not competing in ponds
we and our stomachs not renting water
we in deep existence
we resisting extinction

Sunday, February 12, 2017

The Woman at Central Park

I told her I stole the glasses from my mother
who she commended to have great taste
and then she said no one in her family lived to be 90.
It could be worse
I told her,
she was blessed
to see the lake from her window,
to live on 72nd street since the age of 17.
I wanted to ask what led her feet here,
if the woman sitting next to her,
entreated by a phone, the same one
who complained this 90 year-old nagged
in abundance was her daughter-in-law.
Instead she asked                     what do you do
for a living?
I told her I was a poet.
The lake doesn’t make me any younger,
your balance sways when you get older.
I agreed. She asked if I would return
the glasses. I told her I would.
You're a good child she said,

pulling her cart full of tangerines away.

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