Throw my hair back; al Tonno this eve. No need
to agonize over the curls and silver strings –
I’m ready. I prefer nakedness, moccasins, day’s end
bathos. Might people think me quagmire-d
in over simplicity, and perhaps I am not a well woman,
never to understand the latest acronyms, à la mode.
Turn a beat in my mind, shelter my moony eyes
beneath a cap, poco a poco with my
words, Your handwriting reminds me of my grandmother,
cursive and uncured, full of boughs  arcs  tendrils
my preposterous amount of punctuation
I lay down as footprints, It is easy to follow you
on the promenade, crossing the street, at the café,
You are the one in the park face up in the grass
with an arm tossed over my eyes, always
I cover my eyes, my windows
blanketed in curtains, I turn a beat in mind: Is it really
so obvious, that I am not prepared, not trimmed
painted  plucked  not bright enough  not designed
for television, I’ve not been in a photograph
in over three years, point my SLR
up into the dogwood’s canopy, so overjoyed
by the bees; the President is a sequoia tree
in California, I say to people, I want to meet the President,
and my blue blooded friends all look to me
in alarmed confusion. Let’s recap:
You are the one with the nonfiction book,
Who doesn’t carry a bag or phone,
You, with the Roman nose and too many moles
spotted bush snake, or leopard, or boxfish,
I saw an eagle several days ago ambushed by crows,
ten thousand times I’ve had souls tell me
they feel like that eagle, and ten thousands times
I’ve secretly yearned to be so regel
and revered that a murder of black wings
would descend upon me. I remember though,
I could not hold a pen, if I had talons for fingers, and
night is so rapturously cool, the darkness from here
to the narrows has a koine, and it speaks
in mostly metaphors, the language I pinch
on papers until the dawn. Is it so unclear, it’s not hard
to grasp me at all, in my bathrobe. My father use to say
I have hair like Albert Einstein, and the stylist tells me
I have soft soft tresses like her baby girl’s.