PETALS,

white, fallen

yet rising, on the walls 

of a red room.

*

Ginger strips

on 

the tongue.

*

Asking

for what is

wanted.

*

The clang of a cowbell

in an alley

somewhere.

*

Multiplication tables

in the very fingers

that work chop sticks.

*

An argo

of what is said

and not said.

*

Ancestral

need:

belonging.

*

If only

the waitress

would smile.

*

The dreaming

is what really feeds

the orphans.

CAVEATS WITH ZEROS

Balance sheets and coverage ratios.

Accretion schedules.

A prospectus.

These were the needed things.

To assess the risk.

To anticipate the anecdote

before the ending.

To know who the lender was,

the borrower be,

and when along the graph

they’d trade places.

What was needed

was more prudence

and fewer caveats with zeros.

And a promissory note

stating the venture

would not be a callable affair.

That the investment

would reach full maturity

and secure the return,

the reaping hoped for,

which had always been

part of the inspiration

to speculate, in the first place.

SIGNATURE

Where have you left

your fingerprints?

In clay, on canvas,

in clouds?

On raven’s black beak,

a lover’s flesh and hollows --

where wings once were?

What nets have you cast?

How wide a circle did they draw

when they landed?

In what water?

Under what sky, sunshine?

Under what grace?

“NO LOITERING”

Sky blue building

bathed in an a.m. russet

where a man is tacking up

an alabaster sign,

yellow hand drill hovering

above his head.

He is finessing

for dead center

and a level line.

In the meantime,

the bold-black letters

and their demand

are dismissed

with a growing disregard

by the rebel sun.