La Nouvelle Cuisine

It is a relief to know

of the marrow

in the bones

in the legs

of a cow

long left

in a field.

That I could crack

in, knife in

hand, hard;

unearth

some

thing

alive.

That a year could turn

overhead, sky

tumbling

black

to blue

to midnight

mouth open

to a sun, and again

and

I could

still be here;

guilty-breathless,

steaming with blood

satiated and grinning.

Seasonal Kool-Aid

It is fall

and my teeth are limned

with the grit

of the sugar

of the trees

committing suicide

during the annual Jonestown

massacre of deciduous

lawn-ornaments

that is the season.

If I lie down

beneath the one guy’s

maple on Shaw

will he construct

a little gravestone

for the tree and I?

Here lies some woman

I found rolling

around on my lawn

as the season forced

my tree to sleep.

Rest in Peace

this white girl

and the dropped dress

of my sugar maple

fallen about her.

In Memoriam

of the neighbor

who stopped here

and said “enough”

and the sun-bellied

red shroud

of the maple

cupped her

in its palm,

sang her to sleep.