Barefoot
I go barefoot when I’m with you
When you’re away
I go to the closet
and consider my shoes
Let Her Dress Herself
She wears a moon on her vest
and a cockroach on her lapel
She’s into everything
She’s a hotel for traveling extremes
Her mother noticed early and
let her dress herself
Serious Work Play
I mixed some chocolate in your clay
while you were away
unhappy
I was just trying to make your serious work
play
Sparrow
In December just before work I see a sparrow is the color of a tree and say,
“What am I the color of?”
“Anything I’d like!”
And storm off laughing at how simple I am
Pine Cones
Some pine cones scattered on the sidewalk
didn’t spring up as I approached
I really thought they were sparrows
snow bank
a snow bank drifted past my window this evening
i had read about this sort of thing in the movies
and seen it in books
but here?
there it went
right down Hamline Avenue
doing the strangest things
it picked up a mother
daughter and a mail truck
unbelievable
right to the end
A Good Mammal
A good mammal doesn’t play games
with the afterlife, a good mammal
says nothing
Walnuts and worms
A good mammal lets them all fall
thump on the ground
and mingle
Free Tibet
On a corner in Minneapolis there are two signs
across the street from each other
“Free Tibet” and “Free Firewood”
I like the idea that firewood should be freed, and not burned – but
liberated – take this wood home, please, but do not burn it!
The Rat’s Life
I am a rat that approves of the cat’s sedentary life
following sunbeams around on cool autumn days
Oh, to loll sleepily in my oozing pelt,
a hideous dirtball eager for petting
But the sun is the perfect distance from the earth
for the cat’s life we rats envision
One day purring under caresses
Work and Play
Work and Play were separated at birth, blindfolded
and driven in two black limousines with smoked glass windows
to the opposite ends of the earth
Where they were told by hard unscrupulous men
with a strategic plan that they were orphans
whom their mothers had abandoned
But the earth is round, and “opposite ends” means
they live in the same town, on the same street,
surely even in the same bedroom.
Their mother sees them walk past each other every day,
one coming, one going. She weeps, moans, and prays
that one day they will meet.