I mean this to say: my sons will not put their hands on people
who have not asked for their hands—like in a community pool
when a girl is fourteen and had not seen this boy since 6th grade;
Bred in the wild wild tropicanas
outcropper from fecund alleys of hortigunculturists
Hit the road jackfruit and don’t call me
pumpkin he says spitting nectar on the Konkan
This was in the late morning, Sun.
You threw down the heat there too.
We took the cloud of blackbirds as a sign and got moving,
but Colleen didn’t like the quiet.
I slipped a dream or two between pages 102 and 103 of the handsome volume of poems on my bedside table. Like you would a leaf. The one collected from the pile under the Oak’s shadow.
The cold rain at 2 a.m. beats against America,
and by then you had already left.
A ghost, two clowns
will dance on the ceiling until
the sky turns grey-white.
A wizard, on the other hand, could cast spells with their wands.
Radu had two Magic Wands instead of one.
To double the power.
Radu and the wands were inseparable.
The body itself is the wound,
deep and deserving, skin/hair/breath
all edges of the scab. Muscle
tension/eye strain, pain beneath
the teeth, gentle reminders of the harbor itself.
One.
On the eve of your citizenship's trash day,
and especially if you’re an eager beaver,
wait until at least 7:30p to take your trash out
to the curb. (9 or 10p is kinder, and 11p is kinder yet,
Today I turned. Today I turned and saw
beyond the tapestry, beyond the glass,
beyond the lattice, the bee, the bright leaves.
I saw the rising smokes of Baghdad, New York,
Dresden, Portland, Jericho, and Thebes.