THE BONE CUP

the first cup was made of wood
the second, bone
we are made of bone
therefore, the first cup was made of bone
(and palm skin, muscle, hair, and nail)
a leaky cup with cracks between curving fingers 

i want someone to open a shop and call it
The Bone Cup, for we all need drink
and it would be better if we all drank
nearer to one another

i imagine a tall building with long rooms,
a blue door and a brass knob
with no lock or key, but a knocker,
bells and a WELCOME mat woven
in every language and fiber

every room is full of rounded tables
none touch except when placed into Pangaea parties,
but everyone sits and smells and breathes the same air,
shares the same sight and light and sound

in the middle of this place, by the stairs, 

a fountain pours rainstorms and river rapids and ocean tides,
while electric fans hang and spin a breeze
and orange lamps sing the songs of infant suns

pigeons, gulls and cardinals
rest on the green moss roof, while
stray cats and dogs and rats wait
for scraps on the cobblestone steps
and by the windows that drip
with condensation and conversation

shelves from sinking ceiling to creaky floor
hold stained cookbooks, novels, books of poetry,
religious doctrine, philosophy, and art history
with ledges and cabinets and pantries
crowded with clay pottery
and paper pictures of babies
and children, freckled old men 

and soft old women, 

pictures of mountains, sky, skin, 

sin, and piles of paper for writing, 

pots of herbs, flowers, and leafy houseplants,

washed out jugs, worn mugs, wooden spoons, 

and plates of chipped porcelain 

in mouth, thought is sorted and placed
into lines of words that form sentences
like armies of peaceful protesters across
narrow tables marked by brown circles
and white scratches and carved letters
to God and government and old girlfriends

in mind, idea is met and made into civil understanding
and the agreement of nonviolence and yet
every day, tears flood the shop until 
we are all in boats rescuing one another 
for only then do we start holding on to one another

saving one another

A LITTLE BROKEN

the winter sky 

sags and sways and swells

before unbuttoning its 

tweed-smoke belly 

to reveal boorish gray 

bristles and the wiry 

wrinkles of this

our circling history

once open

out flies and spins and falls

an exodus of small 

silent sequin angels

of water and vapor and dust 

sewn into delicate skirts 

of satin and silk and tulle

pulled into polyester 

tights, frothy sleeves 

and coarse wedding veils

in the morning 

boots/sand/soot/shovels

batter the white

while trucks with salt

(sucked from the sea)

scatter the white

piling and collecting

no longer left to meandering

crackling/splitting/melting 

all the girls into lingering puddles 

of silt and steam and ice

when they rise, they rise 

from slippery quarry stones

blooming meadows

wide maples

moss and mountains

from narrow roads

oak bark folds

gutters, pelt, and pine

from miles of sidewalk

public garden plots and 

abandoned coal mines

from oily alleyways

cold rivers and lonesome valleys

they rise and rise 

as they have since they first rose 

and filled the sky 

with white velvet pedals

i was born 

fragile/pink/wild/ugly

still I keep pretending

to be pretty

while the sun warms me

burns and blinds me

and the sky bathes me

of my insincerity

perhaps i am

as unique as the pressed 

tear of a cloud

while too a person 

(just another person)

in this incalculable scattering crowd 

fluid/solid/air/hair/white/muddy

painted and covered

plucked and brushed

still meeting my complexity 

with earnest curiosity

i want to be

brave and naked

settled and in flight

falling and melting

while stitching my wounds right 

and tight with a smart intention 

and a spontaneous vulnerability

and i want to remember 

that what we hide

is what others seek 

and what others seek

is to know 

that they are not alone

that yes, we are all 

a little broken

HONEY BEE

We listen

as it raps and

stumbles into the kitchen

lamps, lamps that look like

wide open tulips with round

metal petals and lit bulb centers.

The hive is outside, up on the roof

of the house beside the chalky brick

chimney. There is no hive inside this house,

no waxen globes strung from ceiling beams,

no stamens, no pollen, no pistils, no queens, no bees,
only houseplants and wall paint, three people, a dog,

fabricated fibers, leggy spiders, foreign fruit, paper flowers,
air, wood and the maps we draw daily with ink, skin,

hair, crumbs, crayons, sound

                                           and shadow.

So how long now before he becomes another

body bent beside the window glass,

dry and light as a brown leaf,
still and stuck as a stone,

empty of life and of
honey?

Happy Birthday Mom

I scribbled thanks to the universe in my notebook - a thanks
that your body and your house and your care were where 

I landed and continue to land.

I sit at your table and lie in your arms and I think, 

what a warm world this is, and what a world our world 

would be if every mother could be as generous in love 

as you. Wars would be resolved with pillow letter apologies. 

Everyone would be offered full mugs in the mornings and bottles 

and blankets in the evenings. There would be storytelling and laughing 

and long tangling discussions. It would be a safe, civil, friendly, trustworthy 

world because every person would know that at least they had their mother.

Thank you, Mom for your wild joy and your tenderness, your honesty, courage,
and vulnerability. Thank you for showing me what it is like to be human.

MEDICINE

Blue elderberry syrup 

slides from measuring cup
to warm mug. I turn up
the bottle of wildflower honey
and squeeze a glassy stream,
while pockets of peppermint tea
soak, sink, bleed and steam,
my spoon spinning a gold green.

I beg my daughter to sit and open
her mouth and take her medicine.
She puts them in
then takes them out: three little pills

on a flat piece of porcelain,
an archipelago in a cloudy spit puddle,

I dry them with a cotton cloth napkin.
Please sit and take this medicine.

Fevers, coughs, pediatric doctors,
far too many lamplit sleepless hours,
that I imagine hiding us at this house
beside the dirt, hills, and woods
clean and cluttered and close
with mugs, music, walks and paper books:
maps of paths, of people, places
stories on pasteurized paper pages.

FULL MOON AT 4 AM

Wide orb draped in
wool and water, 
I pause
to take a picture.
[A blot of dull black eternity
trapped in rectangle screen
lit by a faint bulb
that dangles miles
from this dog and me.]
See, fool, see!
Be swooned,
be still, be swallowed
by the open mouth of the moon.

THE SUN IN EARLY DECEMBER

The Sun in early December,

soon after breakfast, dangles

between the hills like a smooth

gold pendant pressed to the pink chest

of morning, as if she were the reflection

of herself and not the origination of reflection

and of light. A sight not of metal, nor moon, nor water,

but fire upon fire upon fire upon fire...

Oh what a sweet and simple revelation:

this realization that the origin of creation

lights my every day! Oh how I'd like to be

as beautiful, as useful, as meaningful

as the Sun in early December.