3 Poems

Kelp wrapped

floating

in silvery glare

waiting

unable to sleep

you think it would be easy

           waiting

to sleep or at least

to nap

           here

rocked by waves

lulled by heat shimmer

Torpor of cracking clams

           on a rock

torpor of ducking under waves

           and bobbing up again

torpor of watching the ignoramuses

           and reprobates

           and straight girls

ogling

           us from the shore

Torpor of

not saying

willing myself mute

           keeps me awake

           most nights

the blonde glare

           of your freckled skin

underneath my eyelids

untouchable

the white glare

           of your jewelry

           its glittery illusion

shimmering on the horizon line

           just out of reach

Fifteen years of turning

           not saying

swathed in kelp

           bobbing on the waves

           waiting

fifteen years

           of rarely seeing you, but

           when I do

you say

you remember how we met

           you say

you think I’m smart

           Do I respond?

           When do I sleep again?

How can I turn away again?

fifteen years

           turning away

           from telling you:

I remember too:

           I remember the first time

           I saw you

How I lost my bearings

how I stopped sleeping

           and began turning

By night

Cooper stalks the corridors of power

flicking her tail while

just outside the windows

cardinals confab

   skunks slink

deer lick loriapi before dawn

This conspiracy of rule

makes her yearn

   for wild

By day

Cooper climbs screens

naps in the sun

   her senses awake

to any and all conspiracies

leveraged against her kingdom:

  uninvited guests

   armored trucks

   invading armies of ants

   the ambitious field mouse in exile

seeking asylum

She allows the mouse to investigate

watching until he grows complacent

then bats him across a battlefield of cut wool

toys with him

   until she’s satisfied

he’s learned the hard lesson

of her sovereignty

She slits his jugular then,

with one clean swipe of claw

returns to her sunny nap

leaving the bloody carcass

   for lesser beings.

The crows here

           congregate on the wide lawn

           at the big, cupolaed house

           across the street.

Like your crows,

           they are always laughing.

In June, a praying mantis

           like yours, at the front porch

           mine perched on the broom handle

Almost every night

I visit the red cliff house, like yours,

           climb its ladder

           sit, look out

then travel further up the canyon

           where a woman sits with crows.

In your story-song poems

you talk, walk, breathe, fly

                      backwards

I only fly forwards

           and only in dreams

           fly over the ocean

           or teach my sister

Sometimes, when I

           pull into the driveway

           a trickster rabbit is waiting

           pulling weeds from the

           loriapi

She doesn’t tell stories

           like your trickster rabbits

           but teaches me

                      vigilance, stillness,

                      to be the gourmand of micro-greens.

My medicine bundle

           contains white claw sheaths

           tufts of black and white fur

           turquoise beads and quartz stones

           but I am afraid to heal

           I have not been mentored

Of all the skinned-kneed brown girls

            it is my face who appears

                       in the mirror

           stung by bees

                      of regret