SKINNY  TOMBOY KID

I was a skinny tomboy kid

Who walked down the streets

With my fists  clenched

Into tight balls.

I knew  all the  roofs

And backyard fences

I liked traveling that way

Sometimes, not  torching

The side walks

For blocks and blocks

It made me feel victorious sometimes.

Over the  street,

I like to fly

From roof to roof

The gravel falling  away

Beneath my feet.

I like the edge

Of almost not making it

And the freedom of riding my bike

To the ocean to smell it

And I traveled disguised

In an old army jacket

Carrying my fishing tackle

To the piers

With bumming baits

And a couple of cokes

Catching crabs

And sometimes selling them

To Chinese guys

And I’d give

The fishes away

I didn’t like fish

I just liked to fish

And I vowed to never grow up

To be a woman

And be helpless

Like my mother

But  then, didn’t  realise

The kind of guts

It often  took

For her to just keep standing

Where she was.

I grew like a skinny stubborn  weed

Watering  myself  in whatever way I could 

Believing  in my own myth

Transforming  my  reality

And  creating  a legendary self.

Every once in a while,

Late at night,

In the deep darkness

Of my sleep, I woke

With a tenderness in my arms

And I followed it

From my elbow to my wrist                               

I realised, my fists

Are tightly clenched

The streets came grinning

And I forget.

Who I’m protecting

I coil up in a self fashion

And say to myself

“It’s Ok”

PURCHASE

I like the smell of new clothes,

The novel aroma of challenge

This dress has no past

Crinkled with regretful memories

To taint it

Only a future  as hopeful

As my own

I can  say of an old garment

Laid away in the trunk

This lace I wore  on any day

I prefer the scent  of a new  cloth

Of a garment unworn

Unbridled like the  new self

That I become

When I first  wore it.

THE BLACK SNAKE

Like lightening, the black snake 

Flashed onto the road

The truck could not swerve

That was how it happened

Now it lies looped and useless 

As an old bicycle tyre

I stopped the truck 

And carried it into the bush.

There he, lay cool and gleaming

As a braided whip

Very beautiful  and very  quiet.

As a dead brother,

I left him under the leaves

And  drove on thinking

About death and its suddenness

Its terrible weight

Its certainty and reality

Reason burns a bright fire

Which the bones have  always preferred

The story of good fortune

It says to oblivion: “Not me!”

It is the light at centre of every shell

It is what sent the snake coiling back

And flowing forward

As it springs through the green leaves

Happily, it came onto the road again.                  

THE MEADOW MOUSE

In a shoe box,

In an old nylon stocking stuffed,

Sleeps the baby mouse.

Found in the meadows

Where  it trembled

And  shook  beneath a stick

Till I caught  him by the tail

And brought him in.

Cradled in my hand

A little squealer,

Whole body trembling.

His absurd whiskers

Tickling, like in cartoons

Feet like small leaves

Little lizard feet

Spread wide as he tried  to bolt

Wriggling like a frightened  puppy

Now, he’s eaten three kinds of cheese 

And drunk from a bottle cap

So much, he just lies in a corner

Tail coiled under him

Belly, big as his head

His bat-like ears

Twitching and tilting towards no sound.

Do I imagine he no longer trembles?

I come close to him,

He seems no longer to tremble.

But this morning,

The shoe box on the porch is empty

Where  has he  gone?

My meadow mouse

My thumb of a child

That  muzzles my palm

To run under the hawk’s wing 

Under he watch of scavenging owl

Viewing from the elm-tree

To live by courtesy of the strike

The snake or tom-cat

I think of the nestling

Fallen into the deep grass.

The turtle grasping,

In the dusty rubble of the highway.

The paralytic stunned in the tub,

And the water rising.

All things innocent,

Hapless,forsaken.