Red stripes and
Meditations on a branch of lavender
Trapped under a plastic lid
When we were as wooden leaders
Done up in an antique theater
Dangling from a plus-sign stick
Tonight we have grown jaunty on the boardwalk
Sighing through our cotton candy whispers
Martyring the merry-go-round
Amongst these austere empty spaces
And the bleak slush-ridden pavements
You were first to see me when
Living as a lunatic
Wandering through these whipped-up mazes
In my saturnine stilettos
Would it be too great a risk to kiss
A nearly-blond near stranger?
Would that be my excuse to let you go?
Tire swing imagination
Adolescent anecdotes
Staying back from recess to perfect
Underneath the mountaintops
Where the lilacs banter with the breezes
I rather like this Tyrian allegiance
“Frost and sunlight,” I recited
Dancing underneath the sunlight
Before frost had come my way
Every sixteen minutes
At a loss for candy canes
And angels in the snow
Underneath the balustrade
Decked out in a purple dress
I am doling out my patience
Sunday morning coffee
Decked out in a low-cut dress
I dig my heel into the sidewalk cracks
In our first December
I memorized menorah prayers
Lying on the floor
What if we could measure peace
Reclining in a beach chair
Breathing in the salt-tinged atmosphere
There were petals in our garden
Roses that you helped me scatter
Just as you paraded your excuses
Poster child—
Communist turned saint
Comedian of terrors
You said I wouldn’t take it
Was not privy to the globular confections
Colors reigning alphabetic
Tubas, sirens, jugglers, divas, bimbos, mavens, liars—
A chasm of paralysis within a set of gridlocked streets
There were billboards commandeering cancer’s reign
Read MoreIn another era, someone never dared to eat a peach
Yet I am stirring swirls of forgotten chocolates in milk
Wondering whether it is wise to be perpetually late
The first thing I remember was a broken lens
Beyond our mellow chatter,
Beneath a garish hanging garden,