FASCINATION IN THE FLESH

Mama is standing
in the aisle

of a Boeing 737 
bouncing her baby 

on her hip. The little tike,
 a squirmer, not satisfied

with the jauntiness
his mother is offering,

reaches up and grabs it, 
her ear. And she lets him.

All the boy’s attention
goes to the flaccid flap,

to pawing the soft 
tissue, the ridges 

and curves
mushrooming

from the willing,
tilted head. The tiny

toy finger: a mouse’s
pink nose poking

at the walls
of its maze,

is happy to be lost 
in this labyrinth. 

I don’t know who
is more transfixed,

the little hipster
playing with the putty

of his mother's ear 
or me trying to fashion

a poem from a toddler's
buoyant, fleshy fetish.

WHITE BIRD

The cage door 

swung open 

A white bird

flew free

Her song

filled the sky

Her wings

traced the waves

A lighthouse

lit the way

A naiad swan

beneath her

like a spirit

in a mirror

PITCH PERFECT

One afternoon
in high school

four voices
came together

unexpectedly
around a simple

melody—an original
tune freshly made.

The harmony
the teens

happened upon
made them squeal

with amazement. It does
not matter that

more than forty years
have passed

since that day,
the song still lives

within me
as an incandescence,

as a joy that is
pitch perfect.

THE AUDIOLOGIST

My mind

is like a sound-

proof booth.

I am inside it.

A voice from elsewhere

in a whisper 

through headphones 

I don’t even know 

I’m wearing

tells me things 

I can hardly hear.

It is testing me 

to see

if I am getting 

its messages:

Who are you, really?

What are you here to do?

Do you know yet

of your own divinity?

Though I don’t know 

exactly how to answer

what I do know is

the signal's getting 

stronger by the day.

THE BROKEN GOURD

The universe wants it.

And we do too

but may not know it:

for the gourd

to fall from our hand

for it to drop accidentally

on the ground 

and break open

on our way back home 

from the well 

at the edge of the village.

In other words:

for our consciousness

to gush forth

finally liberated, 

for us to spontaneously open

to the revelation 

that there is a reservoir

so vast within us

that no simple jug 

could ever hold 

its cosmic contents.