A Notebook – Since 2007
The best means to address
a missing sock is found
in a poem, the home
of rhyme schemes.
For, in the first place,
socks need not match,
as we now know a poem
need not end in a plan.
But if not for mates
we won’t know when
one goes missing
or another is lost.
Then again, in this
morning’s laundry,
alas, two socks
in a mismatched
duo, and, instead
of looking around
for their mates,
decide to pair off.
Tall steel T’s in concrete
about twenty feet apart
three wires pulled taut
but she needs a forth
with another on the way
wet clothes lines sagging
in the sunny backyard
of the corner lot on Mariposa
where a city truck pulls up
workers dash to the Village Market
and out hop back to work
when she hears a wolf whistle
as she dangles bras and panties
diapers socks and a white sheet
from the lines to dry and she
wonders at such sun in winter.
For you distressed I carry yr clothes
hamper downstairs taste every word
prior to yr ears like mosquito
static in yr hair I sit on yr head
snatch one with my tongue
smell yr salty skin yr cheeks
freckled read as shame burr
sounds around yr funny ear fickle
bone bowls.
Still you don’t care all that mulch
for words can’t help the ear aches
worse for wear and tears fall
fill the worn clothes washer
I don’t bother separating solids
from colors under from outer
and all that rhyme
fill the tub and ounce of salt
wort scrub-a-dub-dub
rinse the soapy nest.
Pin all to these lines
in the sun of daily
breezes off the water
spinning and tumbling
little white terns fly off
as you dry off in dry
bamboo grass we learn
we two live in a slip
and fall place as you slip
a link and fall into the abyss
of this lonely ableness.
The Coming of the Toads 