A Menthol Winter Passover/Hem and Haw

Two poems tonight. The first is an edit on an old piece of writing I stumbled upon and the next is something I just finished.

A Menthol Winter Passover [The typeset/formatting is different on this poem on the page, and Blogger doesn't like it, so it's all aligned wrong.]


My accordion body
shivers from bed to bathtub,
slipping into the water's ebbing topography,
reciting good graces to cold enamel, and under
the steaming water I am
grateful for every sleepy nerve
coaxed and flickering
to life
like a struck match.


Hem and Haw


From fog comes land, shape and shadow.
The croaking night births each morning ray,
some mother's little lambs full of romp,

the stratus pearling across the sky.
From rot so cross and scattered rise
dandelion clocks, small winged seeds of dream.

And the egret's plumage hides on the crook of her neck
waiting for its time to curl into a snowy bouquet.
All these ounces of joy are to be stuffed in the cracks

of the windowless schoolyard wall and left to sprout,
in between the slats of the soup kitchen floor to pillow and bloom.
There is no doubt one of us must sow them there.

And as for the moon, and its scoffing mouths all filled
with pull, rest your head head on my shoulder, darling,
watch as dawn crosses the windowsill.