Me & Howard Hughes


                                        I'd pay for your kids' teeth
                                        if only you'd be my friend.

                                        It's this desert
                                        that's so hard to take.
                                        My canvas canteen clatters
                                        on the highway.

                                        My checkbook 
                                        is as good as worthless
                                        with no water nearby.

                                        For a drink of water
                                        I'd give you
                                        a million dollars.
                                        Honest.

                                        These lizards are bold 
                                        and I'm afraid…

                                        Not even a cactus stands
                                        nearby
                                        to tide me over.

                                        I'd eat it like watermelon
                                        just for the juice
                                        and ignore the thorns.

                                        A flower would be nice, too.
                                        In fact I'd give it to you.

Mountain Climbing


                                       small enough to
                                       make a giant of my hand
                                       light enough to mail
                                       with a few postage stamps

                                       these kittens 
                                       scale the long smooth face
                                       of my leg, ankle to calf,

                                       and pitch camp on the treacherous
                                       plateau of my knee 

                                       the blue half-moons of my eyes
                                       pulse over them

                                       they try to climb the tangled 
                                       ropes of my hair
                                       chestnut tendrils damp and fair

                                       Their tiny breath 
                                       is white
                                       in this cold steep air.

Pinnochio


                                       Oh Gepetto
                                       that we weep and kneel
                                       at this wooden doll
                                       propped in our spare clean house
                                       under a blaze of white stars
                                       and blue sky.

                                       Our eyes grown dim
                                       in the candlelight
                                       after years of wanting
                                       what we cannot have.

Unchained Posy


                                        Man reach out for woman,
                                        woman reach out for man.
                                        The sun reach for children
                                        The moon reach for civilization.

                                        Hiawatha dance in heaven,
                                        he dance for evermore,
                                        his land of sky-blue waters
                                        is tide on every shore.

                                        This body deny the tide,
                                        that man hate his shore.
                                        Woman sing her child to sleep,
                                        child love his mother's song.