What do you want from me, she said,

he only looked past her into the brush

beyond it the wide open cobalt sky.

What do you want, she said tapping

her annoying and painted fingernail

like a metronome. She was tapping

it against my palm, reading it, waiting

for a signal or a sign of my compliance,

surrender. Outside, I was watching,

a gray squirrel come up to pick at

our charitable bird feeder; he was hung

upside down, clinging to the top, so that

he might not fall and snap his neck.

With a deft paw, he snuck kernels

from the feeder, he looked like

our son, when he cannot sleep

and is anxious of hulking monsters

underneath his bed. The squirrel

fed himself and then a blue jay

flew in furiously, combatting

the squirrel's tail and bludgeoning

him with the wings. Confusion

rapped the squirrel and he fell.

He fell into the grass with a

plop. The blue jay, not satisfied

dove down, batting him a little more,

then plucked the eyes, feeding himself

from the body of the quivering

squirrel. She said, she wanted to know

what it is I wanted from her. I told her,

I don't want you to eat my eyes.

Please Hold Little Hands

The best time to swim is Texas dusk,
Because that fatherly sun has curved
heat into recline, and you couldn’t ask
For cooler depths of water to ruin
With your otter-like body. Quiver

Went the ripples from that delightful
Collision of liquid and skin. Naked
Arms, elbows, fingers, thighs, a full
Moon surprised the tough Texas dusk.
I am eager to bite that leather hanging

From your jeans, on the lawn chair
Outside of the water. False light
Makes our pieces underneath appear
Smaller, like coming from children
With little fingers, little hands

Pointing at us, saying ridiculous
Things; meaningless things sinking
Like stones to the floor below us
And we dive higher into Texas
Dusk flapping little hands, wet wings.

He Cuts His Hair

The seat and chair are immobile.
What moves, really moves, comes
down like a Doric column, to tile,
and into a tin-cup base fettered
with human hair.

An old Oriental man, pocket jammed
full of scissors, shavers, and combs,
wants to feel my hair. The tactile
grain and weight of hair is his
education, learning

to cut human hair, is to touch human
hair. A smock like a dentist owns
for those X-Ray days is draped while
water blasts my nostril and lower lip,
that clean scent

water has, that ability to smell fresh
and only fresh; and his fingers comb
my hair, pinching the bits into piles
like tall hay, and then the first cut...
But not the last.

Foreshadowing.

The creatures that prosper in my knuckles
are wailing for another, another slick
hot moist poem to jam in their maws, thick
with slime and love. I guess what troubles:
I am hers. Mongols draughted the wailng juice
from their horses' pulsing throats; or like
a rising sun holds cloudy blobs to drench
in frantic color, what Juliet could call envious,
and Romeo called his death.

The Nude Way Of Entering a Room

The nude under the towel, erect
and drawing the room's thoughts,
can think poetry is a nicer way
to live and love than

anything she could ever expect
to learn from school; it clots
the mouth and clouds her nude way
of saying the nicer

things in life. Like legs dulcet,
in tone and silky; no high spots
of poetry can fix her way
of doing things

the nude way.