Sorting

Sometimes when I lay in bed like a pharaoh

gilded and blessed with the right spells
the alligator swims in the air
near the ceiling of my room.
I know it should be a crocodile,
but here in Florida, Sobek deputizes
the gator.

Sometimes he needs a breath

so he swims down
through the water above me
to breathe my air
I dont mind sharing.

He opens his jaws so wide

that he splits in half
across his smile, down the side,
right to the tip of his tail.

The man that steps from the knobby skin

is beautifulI cant describebut
some of you are nodding, you knowand
some of you are turning the page
for something more to your liking.

He has brought a salve

made from the occult beauty
extracted from things accorded ugly
by those who can discern such things.
He anoints my eyes and dresses again
and swims off through the ceiling.

Sometimes I try to tell you

about all these beautiful things
you've passed over.
Some of you dont believe me and
some of you already know.

This is why I cant tell the ugly

from the lovely. And trying
to be just and not place
a beautiful thing where it ought not be placed
in those series of chests I keep in my mind
to sort out whats what,
I use only one chest for it all.
A Glass of Water

When I drink cold water

and it passes through my mouth
and down my throat
swallow after swallow
stretching my pharynx,
I like to think
someone might watch
and call it graceful.

Though I know we drink differently,

I like to imagine my neck
long like a herons
or corded with power
like a beast of prey.
I try to drink with joy instead of need.

I imagine the rain quickening

the dry placestheir verdure
only lying in wait.

If when I open my mouth

wildflowers don't come out
or a flock of ibises from the watering hole,
maybe at least, something worth saying.
Being Flame

you know how when your arms catch on fire

like tattoo sleeves
fire ornamental carp
fire tribal lines
fire snakes
fire names and dates of the birth and death
of loved ones
fire spider webs on your elbows

and when you lift your hand from the table

and the shape of your palm and fingers
burn there for awhile in different colors
according to your whimsy
and you do the same to a coffee cup
and the wall where you lean
and when you hug someone there is that
handprint of fire over their heart
that surges with breath and intensifies with
heartbeat

then I smile at the holiness

its beauty and power
manifest in your flaming hands,
burning with ease

you teach me humility

when my arms burn
and I leave handprints
and I burn with beauty
and hoping for a smile from any of you
you act as if there is nothing there
you pass by and do not even glance
and I praise the gift of teachers
Invitation

What of the sight of the red dragonfly,

the orange earth, the yellow blossom
invaders in the land by the highway,
subdivision kingdom,
target, target, target.
I hang a red cord from my window.

I wish my face would show

the work of my soul
to reach beyond the tin life.
No shine anywhere.
(Can you call it life when
its flavor is all death?)

They see something in my face though

their light blue eyes (all colors are light blue)
say fear fear fear, and from one (bless her) pity.

When you see my face can you join me

in the invading beauty,
the red dragonfly even here?
When I was the Grasshopper Child

The small ones were abundant

clinging their fresh green after tiny leaps
to the fresh green of barley or winter wheat
or new shocks of cornthe fields crop
this year, or to the refugees
of another season, sprung up
where farmers field met yard.

They caught easily by me or by robins

who held them, legs kicking futilely
while the John the Baptist bird
kept a pensive pause and swallowed.

The middle sized ones were a harder catch

and so a better hunt for me.
I marveled at the mighty kick
of toothpick hydraulic legs.

Sometimes I was too forceful in my grasp

and a droplet of green-black ichor
bloomed at the mandibles.
I questioned if the mercy was
to release or to execute.

From time to time Id find one

impaled on hawthorn spine
or the sharp twist of barbed wire,
The cruel shrike, kin to me,
hunts for sport and impales
its quarry, abandoning it to hang
not even speared for food,
just for the joy of the kill.

The largest ones turn brown in august

and when they leap, their wings
open like clattering fans
the wheat is gold by now too
and the hopper, the cutter
that great soldier of God
having survived robin and shrike and boy
devours his just reward.