the irises by the Jacuzzi,
we love you
for the way you talk,
you teach us
not to trust weather,
even be skeptical of stones,
are you always California?
Ease open the dark knot-work of morning clouds,
I think that’s what you told me,
let the rain out,
the multitudinous
element in us,
But then I was a child,
stood beside the window box, pansies,
leaned back against
damp cinderblock garage.
Hurt no tree,
take care of me.
And the stone lips, hips, of Phryne
posed as Aphrodite,
yes, yes, see the gods
in our friends,
Olympus is the body of the other,
where all deities abide.

2.
I haven’t said a word all day
so don’t know who I am.
You know the rule,
You are what you speak.
The cinderblocks
were like rainclouds,
Genghis Khan
drove his warriors
over the pages of my book,
the roses were just beginning.
Watch my fingers as I talk.

3.
Wine poured over the piazzas,
something being
celebrated,
a horse or a homecoming,
tables spread,
old man shouting over the fiddlers

We spill the milk
of herself the Sun!
We all of us together
are Her one child!

What a neighborhood
to grow up in,
satin blouses,
the mass in Latin.

4.
More to come.
Insert weather here.
The Weimar Republic
has a way of persisting
and we know what comes from that.
Try again. J’accuse. Leave
the fascist envelope
unopened.
Letter litter,
walk it to the dumpster,
come back and sniff
evening settle on the lawn.
Some laws are absolute.
Now help me rise.