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Paperback | 94 Pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | US$14.95

ISBN 9781933688039

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Night Job

I'm putting on the red dress, Ma,

and heading back onto the trucker's lane
to spread my legs (all hose pulled tight),
and bra that pushes me down toward heaven

to do my due

and give a few (the tired and poor)
a swim along this once pure shore

(my closest friend the crack boy on
his scarred four who sells the minutes
on the city's parking meters just off Fifth
at half the price).

Negotiate. I know my job, for everything's
negotiable and what remains is that small
moment in the hay

where I must always 
give my heart away.

Democracy

I windshield shimmer her
jaunt down Wilshire Blvd.
just west of Rodeo Drive,
her beauty all past benz
and maseratis

legs,

dear god, she wears
nothing
below her belt
(pudenda v
as clear as black)
her dancing joints,
no skirt, no pants,
I’m lost. A prostitute
on drugs?

And brown as Africa
this deep princess lost
just past our dawn
as business men retreat to work
and I drive east,
her limbs a puppet’s gift -

no

my mistake up close
a mini leather, lace and gold confederacy
are mocking my slave owner’s naked dreams
as she, amphetamine dressed, and graceful
stutters on past grinding gods
of glass and stone and stainless steel

her lantern dim held humbly high to bless me, god,
for I have liberty from what I feel.

Land of the Free

Can’t disney this away,
can’t prozac it back
into the warm sofa
of this once obedient chest.
The grand chandelier
that’s turning like a satellite
demanding utter allegiance
and the closer attention
that should have been paid
to grammar, to the names
and statistics of all
the ballplayers
has lost its grip
on the color pink
mistaking it
for the space between
the first and second
amendments.

True Love

I catch it again: the reflection of you

I note it driving behind them:

the sly glance out their rusty passenger window

to the three trees rooted temporarily in boxes.

Easily steal-able (I imagine) into their GMC bed,

drop down the rattling tailgate, late at night.

They talked excitedly

the two dirty fingernailed men, faded jeans,

turning hard at the next curve

in their greasy cocked caps

and a whiff of Top 40.

Everything around them

a potential rape and pillage (I imagine)

with their delicious baby mouths

of suck and porn

and muscled dark tan arms

with sleeves rolled up

and faded shirts (the kind

Ralph Lauren claims as his).

Oh, to be that kind of young again

when every oyster spreads its legs for you

and the nails you hit on two by fours

sing out your praise and you can sell

those god damned trees to a guy

your brother knows and drink till three

and roam the roads for other trees

and slide back down deep into that warm salt sea -

anything, anything! but this dull, cold

dig by the numbers

where you fertilize and plant and water

every clockwork day and careful

not to crush the leafy fingers

as they too slow sing their deep green

rootedness up.

_______________ 

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