Moon Anthem

The bla bla moon

with his bold, arrogant face

stares at me with giddiness.

He can't shut up about the centuries,

the millions of years he watched

this universe unfold.

He's laughing as he talks about the Romans

who believed in many Gods.

He especially loved seeing the transition from

dinosaurs to feathered little chirpers.

He sees everything, he says, without ever getting jet lag.

There is no difference between the lynching of Blacks just a few years ago,

and the spider weaving her net, which will soon be covered with dew.

There is no difference between the Eastern parakeets going extinct one day in 1924,

and a small girl being raped by the landlord.

He says this with some authority…

There is no difference.

I don't know if I have seen enough beauty in all my lifetimes to second that.

Slice of India

The same year I came to America, 1997, I also visited India with my former boyfriend. He was interested in Sri Aurobindo, and he wanted me to check out Auroville, an intentional community in the South dedicated to Aurobindo’s principles to see if we might want to move there (I didn’t want to). India is the most amazing country I have ever been to. You can’t understand it with your mind. It’s a country where you have to surrender, otherwise you might be killed in a freak traffic accident.


I bend down and hand them
a bag of potato chips.
The bundle of bodies
begins to stir.
It unfolds as a woman,
a man, and two
serious children.
The woman speaks harshly to me.
A fresh scar
marks her belly,
as if a sword had sliced her.
The man looks tired,
the children are dirty.
They live on the sidewalk.
A blanket sprawls beneath them.
A steel pot and some cups are
the borders of their territory,
lined on the far end by
a ragged brown dog who surrenders
to four puppies sucking her dry.
Next to the curb a small rivulet runs slowly.
Street people squat within sight.

While I stand there,
inhaling the chaos,
of Pondicherry,
an elephant
with painted ornaments
on his gentle face
moves majestically past me
touching my crown with his trunk
in blessing.

Two Feathers

I was born with two feathers in my hand
to remind me of star songs,
of the true space between things,
to remind me of home.

I once talked to dandelions and ladybugs
in the green meadows of my childhood,
and made clouds disappear
with the sheer power of my will.
A weathered woman in Florida taught me,
while smoking golden cigarettes.

In autumn there was the rustle of leaves in my chest,
and the longing of birds pulled south by the sun.
I unearthed potatoes in the farmer’s fields and loved
their simple breakfast of bacon, bread, butter, and silence.

I drank milk still warm from a cow’s belly,
walked barefoot through steaming manure,
and wondered about the happiness of birds.

There is no time to watch clouds,
or follow the footsteps of a spider.
Letters are waiting to be opened,
clothes to be folded,
the child needs breakfast,
I hear the neighbors’ gossip through an open window,
weeds are waiting to be pulled,
the alarm goes off each morning
reminding me...

Single-Handed

I was a single mothers for many years and dreamed of being saved.


Looking at the sky
for signs of God,
I see the tree
outside my bedroom window
fulfill a destiny without complications.

Stubborn pride
keeps me afloat
when I listen
to my mother's gray-blue stories
about my father leaving her
with a swollen belly
and bruises around her neck;
about marrying the second man
when she wasn't pregnant after all;
about the aches of aging
and merciless regrets.

Where is the white horse,
where the prince
that I read about when I was young,
listening to my Snow White and the Dwarfs record
by my grandmother's sewing machine,
the one I hid under when Santa Claus came one year
prepared to flock me for my bad behavior.

They say each color has an emotion.
Childhood diseases do too:
Chickenpox is angry,
Measles is sad,
Mumps is lonely.

Lavender Date

My lavender date
in the door frame.

Light of September sun
behind him,
cutting him out like a cookie.


published: Big Pulp, March 2008

Rabbit

I hadn't seen him.
He just ran into me.
In the rear view mirror I see
half a rabbit
dragging his body to the grassy ditch.
His legs have already died.
It's only Tuesday
and I am walking
towards the twitching creature
hoping he is just in shock,
that everything is going to be all right.

Like when my stepfather
beat me with an unhinged door
and my mom told me later
everything would be fine.
Like when my best friend started licking
my cheeks in the middle of the night,
and we never talked about it.

The rabbit's eyes
are glowing and he
has to trust me.
I hold him and feel
his quivering.
Does he know
he is going to die?
And when he does,
his black jello eyes
go behind the curtain.

What world do I live in?
I am not accustomed to death
without TV.

My Uncle's Farm

I loved these vacations on the farm of my aunt and uncle, because my life there was so different than at home. Everything was matter of fact. They had a black watch dog that was always chained to the dog house, never played with, and fed our leftovers. In my world people took walks with their dogs and fed them dog food. I chose the poem to be in the voice of my younger self.


Some summers I spend on my uncle’s farm.
The house smells like potatoes,
cider cellar, fresh air,
and my dead great-grandmother.

I am nine years old and driving tractor is
almost like being grown up.
The scent of freshly cut grass fills my small body
and lives inside me.
Makes me want to be a cow and chew slowly,
with that crunching sound.

A skinned rabbit hangs on the fence,
his eyes seemed still alive
as if caught in surprise.
Dinners are soup, dumplings, homemade bread,
and meat on white table cloth.

My older cousin Helmut hides a magazine
under his mattress and shows it to me
one evening.

In the morning I go with uncle Willi
to the pigeon coop.
It is built on stilts above a small creek
like a tree house.
He has so many birds
and sometimes he makes them fly away
with a letter wired to their leg.
He climbs up the ladder and comes back
with a pigeon.
Her eyes are like little pieces of coal
and a string of purple feathers
lines her neck like a necklace.
Her body is the color of dolphin.

Uncle Willi's two fingers
wrap around the pigeon's neck
and with a twist and a quick jerk
he rips off her head.
He tosses it into the river.
While he walks towards the house
with her body,
I watch her face swim away.