2007

AS IT HAPPENS

Some mornings the science
Section has nothing to steal
But does that make me
A vivisectionist by default?
No way, Desiree.

Not that I'm trying to persuade you
Or ever could, the bomb squad's
Sirens tut-tutting as they doppler
The pre-dawn. Dawn.
I said pre-dawn, you dirty girl.

*

Deep in the ganache
The pressure's practically nucleic
And what stipples the questionnaire
Can't be reduced to incompetence
But rather is the inexorable product

Of Inexorable Products, Incorporated.
I don't doubt for a second either
The permanence of this lush vegetation
And that makes me what, exactly.
Exactly.

*

The pie is in the safe
And misery's blessing
The same comfy policeman
Who noted our presence
Among the ghosts of the piazza.

*

The photographer in love with his subject,
Oil stains on coverlets
Even descriptions of the land
Onion prose.
For whom all this showing off

When every day ends
In communion with the spirit
Of the marriage?
When the wife begins to vibrate
Put her ankle to your ear.

The thought in isolation
Stylish in its weather Rome
But carried to a tune,
It floats on the darkroom page --
Fit in your head and become an action.

*

The keys have ribbons
And phone cord wristbands,
Ordinary leaves
Pressed in a domesday boke
Don't think less of this afterlife.

*

I prefer wombat to capybara but oh
To be the scarf
Our syllabary spazzes over,
A dreamlife reciprocity
Cannons recognize...

They gather by the recycling
To take in the sounds
Of the love-off.
We play the piano taking turns,
Then crash chords our together,

Your peanut butter in my benadryl,
Like bacon for Frenchness,
A patio under the stereo
For the gathered souls
To revel in their timely guesses.

It will happen,
It is happening,
And as it happens
I enjoy nothing so much
As waiting for you to see it.


[This poem was funded in part by a grant from an anonymous donor.]