My Real Name

Ozzy was the boy next door
Izzie was my great great aunt
Zazu was our chow chow dog
And Ferris Paris was the cat

My cousin's name was Esmeralda
Once we lived on Rhinestone Lane
I called my Latin teacher Gilda
Father's boat was named Verlaine

At night I dream of other me's
Of Jasmine, Lilith, Xanalou
But morning come I'm back inside
Just Sue

Sunset in a Cup

I say to you, sweet girl, away
Now leave my home, this silken web.
Go play among the blossomed fields,
the fleeting clouds, the river's edge.
Engage the creatures of your kind
so tangled in their shouts and tears.
Then fall, and learn what cannot be
and leave the sunset, dear,
to me.

Until Snow

Home was Florida, Texas, and California.
White was sand, sunrise, and stucco walls.
Cold was wind, shadows, and waves.
Mountains were dunes, mesas, and hills.
Trees were palms, yuccas, and eucalyptus.
Pathways were shorelines, river beds, and cliffs.
Thrills were swamps, campouts, and sail boats.
Dreams were warm rain, the open road, and bird cries.

I lived in summer and warmth
Until Alaska and 
Snow

BC (Before Children)

Dim memories surface, then sink back down, like jewels in quicksand.
There they go, those memories...
But wait!
Sports car leaps out of the mud, blue and gleaming. It grows large, sprouts wings and soars across the Golden Gate and into the clouds.
Music fills the air. Oh, oh, Moody Blues, Aretha Franklin, Hot Tuna, Boz Skaggs. Waylon Jennings pulls up the commune on a magic carpet.
What's that smell? Marijuana, the ocean, plumeria, lasagne.
Motorcycle surfaces in roaring splendor, shouts sex and possibility.
Sunday sighs and drifts, nothing and no one to tend, just sleep.

The jewels settle down, dot the surface, and sink back.

Deep Pond

Tell me where the goldfish are
and why the lillies hold their skirts
and what is willow curtaining
and whether dragons fly to earth

Tell me when my dreams are
safe and which far breeze
is dead and gone

Then I will twitter in my fan
and hum my heartness here
alone

Lawnmower

The lawnmower is ankylosaurus.
Low to the ground.
He rumbles deep from the earth.

Not stomping, angry, look-at-me.
That is tyranosaurus.

Not running and shrieking wildly.
That is raptor.

Not stocky, stern, and deliberate.
That is stegosaurus.

I love Ankylasaurus the lawnmower.
He wakes me on Saturday morning
And eats grass instead of cheerios.