Chopping Herbs

 

I don’t know any prayers

so I make one up. I start

out slow. I say Hello God,

I like how I can whistle

a stem of parsley between

my teeth. I like how all

green things echo in the eye.

I wish you’d teach me

to chop correctly. I wish

you had. I watched a video.

Sometimes mundane tasks

feel violent. I am ready

for a new feeling. Maybe this

is my new life.

 

 

New Reality

 

In this one I learn to ride a bike

and am beautiful the way a woman

on a bike is beautiful. The wind

is tepid and the leak is fixed

and that one friend isn’t dead.

Even the old woman who waits

for the bus is right: I have the face

of a teacher. I’d abandoned that desire

the way a bird pushes a runt

from the nest. I should have

kissed her. In this one gold trees

poke holes in the sky. Buildings stop

burning. I write a book about the bird

which drops dead without a father,

then comes back to life. I can

lap the sea on my bike.

Even the shadows are warm.

 

 

Canyon

 

Desire cold as a tide pool of shivering

molluscs. Desire loud as a whip

cracked over a canyon. A canyon

leaves room for desire. Holy

and hot as the needle you pressed

to my thumb. Desire before and

desire after. Please says desire,

wearing her gold and her furs.

Another. Desire disappeared me.

Like a knuckle or a drum. My desire

is a needle on fire, a bloodhound

chasing a man with a gun.