BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

Reina, a blind, dowager cat of 15,

who has learned to tell lies for more food

and has a paunch to prove her success,

ignores the catnip-stuffed mouse I bring her.

We can't tell her facts:

why it always rains outside each door

in the house at the same time, the dilemma

of eating tuna and the diminishing dolphin population,

or the effects of mercury poisoning.

Has it begun to manifest

its mad-hatterly ways in this idiot savant

well into second childhood?

Mornings, we find her upside down and drooling;

rubbing her whiskers and head ecstatically inside our shoes.

We make jokes about the narcotic effect of ripe shoes and laundry.

But when my new shoes are also

singled out for euphoric distinction,

I realize, slowly, how our conclusions are hampered

by our own anthropomorphic limitations.

It becomes clear, her need for scenting—

In cat terms, as we walk our daily rounds,

our shoes mark the outer boundaries of her territory.

Who'd have credited this blind old cat

with enough foresight to keep tabs on her realm—

She, who had us barking up the wrong tree all along?

10/15/1988  first draft june?
Berkeley

1995 CQ #22 California Quarterly
1991Poet Magazine, Fall issue
1990 Poetry USA
         Sparrow Grass
1989 Green Fuse
         A Night Full of Doves
         Outerbridge

IN MARY BIANCHI'S GARDEN

That young man who
thinking he knew something of cycles
blamed poor old Mary Bianchi
for depleting the soil
instead of his own failure
to understand its needs.
She, who raised two generations
from that same soil
including members of my family
improved the soil each year
with chickenshit
to nourish the chard
which in turn was used
to feed the chickens
who laid strong eggs
like our bones.
She knew about cycles and patterns.
When her first husband died
of mushroom poisoning
she married his brother
and continued her work
in the garden.

IN MARY BIANCHI'S GARDEN, II

That young man who

thinking he knew something of cycles

blamed poor Mary Bianchi

for depleting the soil

instead of his own failure

to understand its needs.

She, who raised two generations

from that same soil

including our family

improved the soil each year

with manure

to nourish the chard

which in turn was used

to feed the chickens

who laid strong eggs

like our bones.

She knew about cycles and patterns.

When her first husband died

of mushroom poisoning

she married his brother

& carried on in the garden.

6/87   (possibly 6/23)? 

1993 We Are Not Swans, with Cecelia Woloch

1991 Poet Magazine, Fall issue

1990 Tight

1989 Sculpture Gardens Review

        Green Fuse

        Gulf Stream

I wrote my first draft during my CAC AIL residency at Napa State Hospital.

This typed draft is from Napa V Poetry conference, Aug. or Sept.

HORSEFLESH

 HORSEFLESH
         —for John Oliver Simon

Sometimes as you sleep in my arms,
my hand strokes your face.
I imagine it to be nude of flesh
& bleached white by weather.
Then I can explore your eyes,
slide down the sweep of jawline,
walk through dark Bavarian forests
where horsetraders from Alsace
read the Torah by candle flame.
Somewhere near the browline,
the ancestors have marked you
in the wrinkled grey folds
where the past & future sleep.

Baja 1986

1994 H.M. Judah L. Magnus Museum, 8th Annual Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poetry on the Jewish Experience
1989 Creative Discourse
1986-88 Falling to Sea Level
1988 Poetry SF, 2nd Prize, National Poetry Association
         The Paper
1987 Marin Poetry Center

MERWIN'S INLET

MERWIN'S INLET
   I want to find the inlet
   where rocks rub thighs
   with the shore.

In the mango forest, small red flowers

the color of chickenblood

splatter against damp limed walls

& pulse against the shadowed green.

White veranda, gardenias, bleached shells

in black volcanic soil.

I check papayas for ripeness,

avoid stepping on the toad in the shower

& watch out for banana spiders.

As I dig the earth, my breath

says roshi roshi roshi.

Geckos chuckle in white-limed rooms

& swallow moths whole.

Last night I dreamed of lizards

eating the bark from trees.

Below the clearing, the sounds of the creek

are swallowed by the jungle.

Density & decay

the progression of desire.

Haiku, Maui 1985?
the experience was from 5/26/83; did I have another draft? I sometimes took poems that needed work to Napa for revision. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it was published enough times, so I put it to bed.

1991 Poet Magazine
1990 Poetry USA
1989 Chaminade Literary Review
1988 Women's Voices
1987 Electrum

EXODUS, EXILE AND DESIRE

EXODUS, EXILE AND DESIRE

Clouds cover the moon like a map of Africa

and the moon breaks through the continents.

Beneath the sweet, almost foetid odor of frangipani,

blue-tailed lizards mate,

thrusting ocher bibs of ruffled lace

and arch their backs to a silent calypso.

Distant thunder wraps itself in sheets of ghost lightning.

Arawak Indians once lined conch shells

along the eastern shores of these islands

to remind the sun of its feathered cloak.

We eat sweet white meat of the conch.

What's no longer needed is thrown back into the jungle.

The barracuda sleeps and the shark is hungry.

As we bathe in the sea,

bone-white lilies of our arms

blossom under the full moon.

Translucent fish slide between my thighs.

The fan turns slowly in an empty room.

5/85

1993 We Are Not Swans, with Cecelia Woloch
1991 Poet Magazine
1988 Chaminade Literary Review
         Women's Voices
1987 Blue Window