The Omnipresent Taxicab

(for JoAnna)

Human interaction is hard to undertake
When you are looking out the taxicab window

Onto lower Manhattan a-twinkle with rain

(When your heart is full
Of tender things which cannot be said

For fear perhaps of dislodging
The beads of new water

Bathing concrete and leaf and flesh all alike

Until the quality of being wet
Is just another miraculous commonality);

These are your thoughts
Riding in the omnipresent taxicab

Over the Williamsburg bridge;
And these are your feelings

Dying certain, miniature deaths
As they reach your face because,

Try as you might, you can scarcely undertake
To comment on the perfect, fragile map

Of a million shining lights with the instrument
Of your human mouth.

The Lake

I used to hang
My heart’s desire
From the sharp points
Of the stars I saw there,
Watched them twist and twitch
Until morning put them out

While you hungered for even higher levels,
Desired departure to some
Plane I could not pretend to understand.

So, I missed my mark.
Here I am in the same place
Now hamstrung by
Those little kicking feet.

I do not long,
Like you,
For lack of longing.
My desire dilates
Only to renew itself,
My dreams are
Deeply colored.

I wring my body
For the salt
Of sweat and tears
And consider it
My sacred work,

And I do not hesitate
To taste the poison
I make here
Between these two
Hungry breasts.

Reminder to Myself

oh how
could I have sighted
the first continent
of my love
and said boldly,
“this is the whole earth”?


truly, all I know
of any coast
is the worn ring
of a shell
resting its slight weight;


all I know of the voyage
is rapt surrender
to the blind muscle
of water that holds me
aloft once again.