Family Vacation
My father in his red bathing trunks and bare feet,
his back glistening with suntan lotion liberally
applied by my mother, was not the same man who
came home tired from sitting at a desk all day
when what he wanted to do was move.
Audio
LA Is Burning, Countries Are at War, and I Am So Damn Grateful for My Shower
And god said, Let there be showers!—
and water fell on the bowed heads and shoulders
of people throughout the land, and sluiced
over breasts and bellies and buttocks,
Hallelujah
Jesus healed somebody in her church, she said.
The woman had been
wheel-chaired since forever
and a group of friends
surrounded her
and prayed real hard.
Injustice
The beautifullest bird’s the pigeon,
but “pigeon” doesn’t rhyme with “love,”
so poems praising love, religion,
or nature all ignore the pigeon.
French Omelet
When my parents came to France to visit
they got on the wrong train. We lived
in the middle of nowhere, too small
for their map.
So Much Space for Song
What made the winter wren say,
this is my home now, as it carried
stick after stick and tufts of grass
to the tractor, shaping a soft place
inside the arm that lifts the bucket?