My Father
My father was a whistler and a penny
lobber. He had no use for the lowest
denomination of hard money, so handing
pennies to him for change was followed
by a quick coin toss to the sidewalk.
Poets Respond
We Don’t Call It a Riot
That summer was an oven on self-clean—
beyond hot. The cops raided clubs for weeks.
Huddled, frightened men and men and women
and women and human and human held
at the end of a nightstick in contempt,
being held in the arms of a lover
Anti-Aubade
You shuffle through your waking house as though
the miracle of dawn does not deserve
acknowledgement, as though the way you go
downstairs, through doorways in the dark, and swerve
Ode to the Cop Next to the One with the Pepper Spray
Your cheek turns, Christ-like
from your buddy with the buddha
belly blowing chemicals
on crowds of my students.
Close Call
I’m still not sure I really saw the car—shiny red
on a day that was a long green nap—go airborne.
Mother’s Day Unsonnet
To think that I was once a germ of light
in the belly of another being,
and that this fact is unremarkable
in the vast plod of human existence …