Bits & Pieces

Fixer Uppers
We take
Long Walks
Along blocks
Once dangerously
Off limits
Moving at a
Pace that's
Less than sprinting
But fast enough
For two geriatric
Specimens to
Break if not
Their neck
At least a sweat
Navigating
Rejuvenated
Neighborhoods
On remaindered
Sidewalks hoping to
Retrofit brains/
Muscles/aches
And pains
Ten thousand
Gentrified steps
At a time
With Michael, Photo: Margot Boyd
Weed Spree
Today I am a dandelion
the ugly duckling
of the flower world.
Persistent as sin
you stab
with your tongue
as if to uproot me.
Repressed now
I reappear later.
You might as well give up.
It's part of nature
to ignore your wishes.
I'll sprout in your garden
when and where I choose.
Love Is
I love to cook
for my husband
our friends
to make a meal
that tantalizes
the tongue
and teases
the palate
to create a plate
of edible art
from a carving
of meat
a dollop of
oh so colorful
vegetable matter
I love
the wine
the talk
the store-bought
bread
I love the love
Poem for M
I'm holding on to my past
with a handshake gone limp.
It's not memory that
sends blood through my veins
erecting each finger
into full-bodied response
but waiting for you
I sense the fronded hollow
of your arms
as it curves against my cheek
and feel you walking
your warm breath
cautiously among
the cages and traps
I've been setting
in our bed
no longer anxious
I know you you'll be here soon
knowing when to take chances

Something I "cooked" up
9/16/01
We have a belief that we need not believe in. No dogmas, no ritual, no mythology, no church, no priest, no holy book--what a relief!
Frederick Franck
Believe It or Not
The gothic arches of the
World Trade Center
Are no more
The light-reflecting
Towers have collapsed
The twenty-story
Pile of remains
Too is transitory
To be hauled away
To Staten Island
Across the bay
Truck load
By truck load
Work progresses
Ritualistically
Procedures are
Followed
Rules observed
Stories get told
And retold
Mythologies grow
Heroes rise
From the ashes
World Trade Center Memorial
