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The Legs for It
Rust rouges your fingertips and thumb
when you rub the circumference
of the cast-iron skillet you put away without drying.
Rust the color of war paint, of dried blood.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
In the overheated kitchen you carve an avocado,
slice creamy crescents into a bowl of greens.
Here is no red in ripeness, no blood.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
You have the legs for it:
for finishing triathlons, winning the broad jump.
Your swift backward kick slams shut the door,
your thighs flash pale in dim light.
Rust rouges the fingertips and thumb.
There’s an old slimming diet of just red meat.
Some fruits don’t ripen until they fall.
Published in The Dirty Napkin
Cooking with Garlic
Naked cloves I’ve just released
from their jackets clump on the cutting board,
dormant lanterns, their facets retaining heat
from my hand.
Look now: fire-fly in a vial,
in a teardrop.
Light, but no fire.
Whenever two cloves are called for,
remember to use at least four. Four is a family,
or five, roasted in a small clay casserole. Or chopped
and sautéed live in olive oil until they’re straw-hued,
golden. In these we anticipate the sweetness of cashew;
the brio of fresh coffee, its hint of bitterness like filbert,
like walnut. There will be fine sensations,
and tears in the house by night.
Published in Innisfree Poetry Journal;
republished in The Garlic Peelers (Quill's Edge Press, 2015)
A Violence I Can Sing
My palms are open, cupped and fleshy,
moist—the petals of peonies that fall away
from the tight bud at their center.
My soul, an iris still sheathed in its bud,
a knot that angles the stem slightly
where it is freed from blade-like leaves.
Flowering is wildness even in the garden.
The mute cacophony of hollyhocks and freesia—
their riot of trumpets and peal of bells
chiming for something else entirely.
Published in Innisfree Poetry Journal;
republished in The Garlic Peelers (Quill's Edge Press, 2015)
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