sonnet at sixty-five

I leap [this late] like a startled  crow    

choosing verbs & vowels  augur    allow    

such loft & shimmer    my summer 

yews.  I [l]earn evening light  

[like a foreign tongue]   back-yard

vixen [voracious] violets.  I crave

a villa in Vilnius    vermillion

flip-flops & one last visit

with my mother  who smoked  

at dusk & prayed her vast wants.

my mirrored face [hers]   a map now   

or visa   opens [crack & caw] vistas   

this new     invalid country.

free-write

St. Mary’s girl at the metro bus stop   
pleated skirt    gray blazer    canvas bag silvered
with duct tape     MAYA in block letters
along the bag’s flap            
                      hugs a book and opens
her flip-top Marboro Lights            taps out
one smoke 
            stows the pack       
all of this
as I’m walking by    eye liner   glitter
lids            fishnet gloves   got a light?
she smiles at me            sorry I say
Congress Street humming     her book –
Plath’s Ariel      
I smile at that
and at her as I walk toward a different school
to teach English in a classroom with two tall windows
and green walls                        today’s lesson
the one about choosing action verbs            rather than
any form of the verb to be
                                    two boys play-scuffle
near the door and                        another boy cries
for his rabbits killed by a fox last night           
and a girl worries about the test because she always
freaks out on tests and she never really learned how to study
and what’s the point anyway                        and someone
stayed up all night playing
Assassin’s Creed IV                        someone’s surly
and mean because she’s so scared
and her parents think she’s not trying and of course she’s not
but if only
my students open
their backpacks                 their notebooks     open
their Huck Finns  their iphones  and planners            open
their mouths to say what they think            what
they don’t know                        haven’t read           
what they can’t understand           
                        each of them opens
and opening is not strong enough                        
though it’s clearly an action             a choice              
both literal and metaphorical
                        all of them exquisite            
in battered Nikes            
                        ipods and vampire
novels or Plath           
                         and I know this is it –
both action and being               
opening in them as they open
journals            and use soft
verbs            esp. the verb to be           
(as in this is who I am right now) 
like duct tape                       
like the singe of smoke                       
like the indelible letters
of a name           

                               

Gloves 
         For ZJ. International School of Prague, 2006

Too fine for work, too thin
for winter, the color of cinnamon
potpourri, rose petals,

these red gloves I've bought - simple self
indulgence. The tag inside reads: crafted
in China. And I imagine girls - their dark

heads bent over, stitching thumbs -like m's
when laid out flat - and a flock
of between-finger v's. Penmanship

in supple cowhide. Flat shapes, finger
to finger, cashmere shadows nested
in leather palms, they memorize

hands, sew in their sleep the scent
of raw leather, of dye, of fine
wool fluff. And I think of Zhihuong,

the Chinese girl in English 10, wearing
pink corduroys, pink sweater - awkward,
dyslexic, her voice bowing. She bends

over crooked letters, her nails startlingly
red. She writes: in my country
75 pupils in class. Teacher may not

like you. You sit side-by-side, almost
on top of. You try to learn
as much as you can. 

"GLOVES" WON THE 2007 PERIGEE POETRY CONTEST. IT APPEARS IN RADOST, MY RED (2016)