Another Love Poem
She seems a god to us, who stands on hilltops,
string tangled in her fingers, waiting for the wind
to snap the kite out of her hands. Scraps
from her kite making afternoon drift back to us—
snagged on wire, shredded in the bushes.
In the end, she coiled her broken string, walked
away from us. We mark the tracks her feet
left in the dust and try to follow her; her laughter
echoes back to us: I never thought to touch the sky
Pinocchio
He sells the watch Gepetto gave him
the day he quit the shop.
The surgeon shows him pictures;
he picks the one he wants:
The swelling will make it grow,
he says, laughing.
For a moment, Pinocchio thinks
of Gepetto
carving puppets by the fire, tries
to imagine what he’d say.
It’s the surgeon’s voice he hears,
asking if he’s ready.
Across town, an old man lies in a cold bed.
The last coals flicker and die.
Obligatory Cat Poem
She’s on my bed when I wake up,
exactly in the middle.
She’s made it clear that I can share—
but only as her pillow.
I go to work; the worthless lout
basks in the sun all day.
I come home, she’s off the couch:
Starving! Feed me! Hey!
I tell her what my boss has done,
and how he’s such a prick.
She blinks and yawns and waits to see
if I brought home catnip.
I make my dinner, she coughs up
a hairball for dessert.
I clean it up, she wanders off
and eats my plants, the twerp.
I take a book to bed to read;
she snuggles right up close.
She purrs, and sure, I forgive her—
until she licks my toes.
Dear Midas,
You said we could build a house of soup cans,
that the labels would turn into wallpaper.
We could sleep on newspaper stuffed in plastic,
like pioneers curled around each other
on corn-husk mattresses. You called the moon
our nightlight; we toasted each other
with wineglasses filled with rainwater.
I’d forgotten how humidity makes labels peel,
how plastic melts in too much heat.
How the moon burns out each month.
This morning, vacuuming, I found the box
of condoms: one missing, the rest expired.
Just a phase, you said. Stressed from work.
We’ll rediscover intimacy without sex—
words held up to my lips like caviar. I swallowed
them because you asked, but after all this time
it turns out they are nuggets I can’t digest.
Eve Escapes the Nursing Home
Adam finds her in the greenhouse again, touching
the stem of a tulip in this corner, the petals of a rose
in the next; her eyes take in peonies, gardenias,
carnations, lilies while her feet shuffle through
the rows, her fingers trail through just-watered dirt.
She tests the weight of each bloom in her hand, gauges
color, texture. She never smiles, never pulls a pot
from a table. He would have bought it for her,
brought it home and watered it on the days she can’t
remember how to hold a fork, bring a glass to her lips.
But her hands pick at stem and leaf, bud and thorn
unsatisfied while Adam trails behind, waiting for her
to turn and recognize him, for the inevitable question
in her eyes: Where is my garden?