What to Say to Those Who Think You’re a Fool for Choosing Poetry
Tell them yes.
Tell them poetry is what chose you.
Tell them
you had a night, once,
just as they did
White Rabbit
Late, I rush down the stairs. Distraction, tiredness, hunger, an error in muscle-memory, whatever the cause, I miscalculate the steps. My foot dangles, leather-clad toes seeking, yearning for something not there.
On Wednesdays My Father and I Eat at Masala Delight
and it smells like nag champa and vinadaloo.
Our waitress, fresh from Kerala,
wants to be a nurse, smiles
when I say I’ll write her a good review.
A Cut-up Mango
Cutting into the deep of this fruit, sweet and sour, just like nostalgia,
you reach to an ending point: meeting at the middle, a pit.
Flat. Long. And spread out. Thin. People usually slice it.
To the Man I Kissed Sitting on a Sunkist Orange Crate Smoking a Doobie
is where I buy my groceries—
where an onslaught of folks with a library of high ideals
carry eco-friendly jute bags of peppermint chard, Meyer lemons,
free-range organic eggs produced by happy, healthy hens—