THREE POEMS I WROTE

A TASTE OF WATER

With the baby in her arms,
she stood on the edge of the desert
beside her man, cool breezes
slipped through her hair, her dress
gestured softly behind her,
revealing the shape of her legs
behind light summer fabric.

Together they stepped onto the sand.
Caught by the sun their bodies wavered
as tissue paper drifting on the sea,
or kelp fronds waving.

Trusting its mother the baby slept
against her breast, trusting
her man the woman walked beside him,
leaving the prints of their feet,
shallow depressions filled with sifting grains
breathed by the heated wind.

They moved further into the desert, over dunes
that sucked at their feet, eating their strength
as the sun singed their skin,
almost tenderly at first then with cruelty,
crisping the edges of their shapes,
burning into their eyes.

The baby sagged against her neck,
its blue eyes cracked open,
drugged by the fire in the sky its skin clammy
against her dress against her own
wet skin.

Her man fell and she beside him,
clutching the child between them,
their backs bowed, necks bared,
their sweat poured onto the sand
that sucked it up with greed as their knees sank deeper
and her hair hung down.
Their faces touched the searing earth,
lips moving to catch a taste of water from the sea
that covered this place in the beginning.

*****

EAT MY MIND

I stumble along this razor edge,
dragging my poetry, my art
rides the blood slick that pours from my ruined feet.

Inspiration clings to me with greedy fingers,
pinching my skin to scrabble up on the back
of my desire.
I want to leave my thoughts behind,
my head is a fireplace
flames sear my brain, sparks leap onto my words
and sail out through my mouth.

What is a poet without passion?
(let me carve out that part of me and find out)

My emotions are too massive, I feel too much,
insatiable hunger that swells like bread dough,
it must be punched down and kneaded,
pressed into place,
made acceptable it should be molded into loaves,
or thrown out. Let the birds eat my mind,
swerve up into the clouds and be gone.

*****

SENILE WARD

In the elevator, mother presses '3'

Others turn away,
first and second floors arrive to free them,
they escape, rushing.

We stand, a tight clutch,
pretending we don't mind.
Elevator lands with a bell,
doors fly soundlessly away,
we are flung out on stiff legs.

Long hallways snake before us,
marred by rusted people tied with strips
of cotton fabric to shining metal railings,
clicking fractured thoughts
with brains like sprung bedsprings,
odd cries released from mouths
whose teeth are lost in cups.

Antiseptic smells ride currents,
curl like smoke, melt into walls.
Beds fill gray rooms, display remains
in their centers, old bones waiting
inside brittle, crackling skin
to be rearranged in more beautiful poses
and cradled in satin.