caparison

caparison \ kuh-PAR-uh-suhn \, verb;
To dress richly; deck.


I didn't know it was supposed
To rain today. First the air dims.
Then clouds appear. It happens
That way. I watch the people
On the streets in trenchcoats.
Me, in cotton. A pink dress
That will turn red, first, in
Blossoms, one or two, then an
Orchard. Where I punched you
Out of a cardboard box. You
Stood for a moment, then fell.
I watched you, float down the river
Without shoes, without a boat.
You didn't even yell. Maybe
I will see you at the rainbow
Where it ends. I'll be the one
With my feet stuck in the ground.

cumshaw

cumshaw\ KUHM-shaw \ , noun;

A present; gratuity; tip.

Cumshaw, rickshaw, buzz saw,
Clapped jaw, hem and haw.
"Aw, aw" does the bird call.

apotropaic

apotropaic \ap-uh-truh-PEY-ik\, adjective:
Intended to ward off evil.

Didn't really think the night
Hid so many monsters or that light
Could ward off evil but still
I ran up the stairs from the pool
In the basement without bottom
And I flicked on all the switches
In each room I passed through.
Even now, sitting alone in the car
With no headlights, no locks on,
I fumble with the ignition and imagine

A cold wind coming in before the hord

Hits, ripping and tearing at my skin.

Listen. Did you hear the crickets

And the bullfrogs go silent?

pleach

pleach \ pleech \, verb;
1. To interweave branches or vines for a hedge or arbor.
2. To braid (hair).


The afternoon you tried to tame my curly hair,
It was sunny, a Saturday. You sat me down
In the kitchen, on a wooden stool, between
Your blue-jeaned legs. You took a comb, then,
A round brush, pulled at my roots, my head arched
Back, my chin pointed up. You asked me to please
Sit still, so I gripped the seat, bit my lips together
As your un-tender fingers and the beaded bristles
Tore through my hair with each stroke. Half an hour,
An hour, again and again you tried, but my hair
Would not weave, would not work into the french
Braid you scraped for so diligently, my scalp ached.

agley

agley\ uh-GLEE \  , adjective;Off the right line; awry; wrong.

A family of clothes aligned on the line

From smallest to biggest article, pinned

Dresses billow like jellyfish, no spines,

While pant legs bend at the knees, kicked in

By the wind, which is brittle, sour-smelling
Like rain. The air, pregnant, like a woman

Heavy with child, the drying clothes hang

Between hips, old wooden poles that bow in

Tempered by fifty years' weight of this.

The old woman feels the rain in her own bones

Sits at the window, massaging her wrists,

She will go, take down the clothes, alone

As always, as is constant, as is right,

Cry the clothes, flapping on the line like kites.

ephebe

ephebe\ ih-FEEB \ , noun; A young man. 

How is a young man like a girl? He isn't 
Awkward like she is awkward, softly turning.
He is hard, wiry, stiff. Perhaps he is 
The stem and she, the petal, one yearning 

For the other, but also, sometimes, stems 
Want to curl 'round each other and petals 
Prefer to fall and lay with their hems 
Overlapping. Soft with soft; metal with metal. 

Can you tell them this is wrong? Or if 
The girl is hard like wood and the boy 
Succulent as a fall pear, would you sift 
Them? Or force them, as if they were toys?


His soft skin thin? Hers like a rock? 
Pear juice is blood on a chopping block.

To O'Hara

Sitting near a Grand Central

Station stairway on the floor I stare 

At all the passing people dressed

In hurry Rushing from this place

To that place of worry while those

Next to me snap pictures trying

To catch process in static

A souvenir of the city's constancy

Always people moving, a weave

A right, a left, all a tapestry A picture

Of the stars mapped over time It all blurs

One person, one long trajectory

Sitting still I feel still as a boulder

In a river I will corrode, erode over time

I would But my legs prevent this My job

My life I am a wife to it Married, joined,

A shadow. Only against this wall

Do we rest together and it is poetry

Just an idea I have And then it is there 

Coincidence, who believes in it?

I think about you and you are there I don't

Think about you and there you are 

Answering a question I had only 

Just thought of An answer you had

Only just found As you weaved

Through the hurried crowd.