She sat Indian-style on the barcalounger 

clacking her castanets, singing, 

“what have you drawn me today?” 

He could only watch 

as she twisted and swiveled in the seat 

as if churning butter with her hips 

and he thought about when he had been 

seasick on the ferry

and wished for mountains. 

Now, he had all the heights he ever wanted 

just outside their home 

but could only watch 

his heart twist in a figure-eight pattern 

to the sound of castanets and laughter.

Everything compares to 

a walk in an imaginary meadow 

and though you’d think there’d be 

exceptions, you won’t find any. 

Skin and metal tear apart 

while bones and glass shatter 

making a nice harmony for the wind. 

Butterflies and exhaust fade. 

I have become permeable.

My body is in October. 

It’s autumn inside; 

things are drying up and wrinkling 

but there are vibrant, ripe parts 

waiting for frost. 

The mood is grim and salacious 

and funny all at once. 

It’s a time to watch little ones hoard 

while I let go tethers holding me to ground. 

There’s nothing new but 

there are endless ways 

to see colors of the world 

and rejoice in its patterns 

as it falls apart. I feel a kinship with fall.

The painting didn’t feature a horse’s ass 

but it was draped beside the angels 

like a coat shed in the desert heat 

and the only thing hanging in the air 

was a wrong kind of holiness with dingy 

wings and shrill instruments. 

Looking again, the ass may be a high heel 

and my bifocals have betrayed me 

in a most amusing way.

We’re not stone or tree 

but all the terrible things 

we do to each other 

remain part of us, 

rings of fire inside. 

Laughing at time, 

weeping over loss, 

we never hold either. 

We try to smother 

our history by pressing 

closely to others, 

leaving us a patchwork 

of etchings.