Poem Not to Be Read at Your Wedding

- 1971-

You ask me for a poem about love 
in place of a wedding present, trying to save me 
money.  For three nights I’ve lain 
under glow-in-the-dark stars I’ve stuck to the ceiling 
over my bed.  I’ve listened to the songs 
of the galaxy.  Well, Carmen, I would rather 
give you your third set of steak knives 
than tell you what I know.  Let me find you 
some other, store-bought present.  Don’t  
make me warn you of stars, how they see us 
from that distance as miniature and breakable 
from the bride who tops the wedding cake 
to the Mary on Pinto dashboards 
holding her ripe, red heart in her hands.     

Souvenir

Though we vacationed in a castle, though I 
rode you hard one morning to the hum
of bees that buggered lavender, and later
we shared gelato by a spotlit dome
where pigeons looped like coins from a parade--
we weren’t transported back to newlyweds.
We only had a week, between new jobs, 
we both were pinched with guilt at leaving Claire.
When, in our most expensive, most romantic meal,
you laid your sunburned hand upon your heart,
it was just to check the phone was on.

When the trip was good as over--when the train 
would take us overnight to Rome, the flight
would take us home--I had the unimportant
moment I keep having.  I wonder if 
we choose what we recall?  
                            The train 
was unromantic, smoky.  We found a free
compartment, claimed the two bench seats, and eyed 
the door.  Italians who peered in and saw 
your shoes, my auburn hair, our Let’s Go: Rome, 
soon found another car.  And we were glad.  
But then, reluctantly, two couples entered, 
settled suitcases on laddered racks, 
exchanged some cautious greetings, chose their spots.
Then each one turned to snacks and magazines.
The miles scrolled by like film into its shell.
Night fell.  Each took a toothbrush down the hall.
Returned.  Murmured to the one he knew.
The man beside the window pulled the shade.  
We each snapped off our light, slunk down until
our kneecaps almost brushed.  And shut our eyes.

Entwined I found us, waking in the dark. 
Our dozen interwoven knees, when jostled, 
swayed, corrected, swayed the other way.  
Knuckles of praying hands were what they seemed.  
Or trees in old growth forests, familiarly 
enmeshed, one mass beneath the night wind’s breath.
Or death, if we are good, flesh among flesh, 
without self consciousness, for once.  
                                       Husband,
five years husband, you slept, our fellow travelers
slept, scuttling through black time and blacker space.
As we neared the lighted station, I closed my eyes.  
Had I been caught awake, I would have moved. 

The Kudzu Chronicles - Oxford, Mississippi [excerpt]

1.
Kudzu sallies into the gully
like a man pulling up a chair 
where a woman was happily dining alone.   
Kudzu sees a field of cotton,
wants to be its better half.
Pities the red clay, leaps across 
the color wheel to tourniquet.  
Sees every glass half full,
pours itself in.  Then over the brim.
Scribbles in every margin 
with its green highlighter.  Is begging 
to be measured.  Is pleased 
to make acquaintance with
your garden, which it is pleased to name
Place Where I Am Not.
Yet.  Breeds its own welcome mat.

2.
Why fret 
if all it wants
is to lay one heart—
shaped palm
on your sleeping back?   

Why fright 
when the ice 
machine dumps its 
armload of diamonds?

Asked for a Happy Memory of Her Father, She Recalls Wrigley Field

His drinking was different in sunshine,
as if it couldn’t be bad. Sudden, manic,
he swung into a laugh, bought me
two ice creams, said One for each hand.

Half the hot inning I licked Good Humor
running down wrists. My bird-mother
earlier, packing my pockets with sun block,
had hopped her warning: Be careful.

So, pinned between his knees, I held
his Old Style in both hands
while he streaked the sun block on my cheeks
and slurred My little Indian princess.

Home run: the hairy necks of the men in front
jumped up, thighs torn from gummy green bleachers
to join the violent scramble. Father
held me close and said Be careful,

be careful. But why should I be full of care
with his thick arm circling my shoulders,
with a high smiling sun, like a home run,
in the upper right-hand corner of the sky?