Crunchy, But Good

I lay
on the table, her hands
working my back
and the lumps that form
from every day stress.

Sometimes I name them.
"Ah…that one's Georgia, the daughter.
Oh… that one's Jack, the son,
and goodness, that's got to be
the current project,
the one with the looming deadline."

"No matter," she said.
"The body needs tension.
Otherwise, it falls down to the ground,
a pile of bones and yuck."

In The Dark

We were friends and fourteen
in Taiwan—
a long way from home
and busy, missionary parents.
So we broke curfew,
climbed out windows
through bushes and iron gates
to smoke
behind a poor farmer's shack
hidden by corrugated tin,
and plywood,
and night.
We left our ashes
and our fiery adolescent confusion
in a sand pile by the door.
That night
a fire burned
the place down.
With morning light
we were caught
and punished.

My father
only wrote once
in all those years
I was away
at boarding school.
The letter
was on a blank note card
penned in his familiar
and mysterious scrawl.
It was only a few
sentences long.

“Dear Erin,” it began.
“I am disappointed in you.”
He explained:
Not for breaking rules
or ruining my body
with bad habits, no.
But for being with two boys
in the dark.

I kept it for years
as the only keepsake
I had from him,
and memorized it
word for word.

There We Were

There we were
standing by the water,
the stream rolling by
over and around obstacles;
a limb.

You said, “What now?”
I said I loved you.
You said, “Is it time?”
A child answered
yes.

You bent to kiss me then,
and kiss me again.
your lips were soft.
I fell into you
and the frothing, watery
turbulence.

Love, Mistaken For a Knick Knack

Made in China

A basket of hearts
sitting in a stall
in cheap rattan,
piled haphazardly,
wondering what happened
to the houses
they once inhabited.

Bare Foot and Rice Paddy

The mud sucks out
of the ground and up
between toes, down
over the foot in
the middle of the rice paddy.

A farmer looks up,
angry threats rain down.
The foot runs out,
as the blood flukes seep in
and drink to their good fortune.

Untitled

Footsteps on the veranda,
Hushed whispers,
Acacias lightly rustle
in the sticky night wind.

The door opens,
shuts,
opens,
shuts.
The mystery deepens
in the emptiness
of my bedroom.

A knot in my neck,
A lead ball in my stomach,
A sudden snapping
beneath my sternum
indicates the presence
of one,
simple word,
large enough
to be swallowing me whole:

Want.

Latency or Thousand Year Old Egg

Look around! Look around!
Every thing's still,
frozen in the Earth,
hard, immovable.

Like a buried egg
Laid in the ground
for weeks,
you emerge
black, gelatinous—
a delicacy!—
in your 1,000-year-old
incarnation.

Rite of Passage

I looked at the small
wrinkled turd-like ball.
“Wah Mui. Dried Plum,” she said
holding out her gift, palm up.
Warily I took
and searched the crevices
for some portion that might appeal
to my nine-year-old eyes.

“Nibble it first,” baited offer,
and I knew
she had a secret buried
in her small rough fruit.
I couldn't refuse
or I'd be
a wimp imp child in this new
concrete jungle heat.

Showing only
a small bit of trepidation,
not enough for another
nine-year-old to see,
I nibbled an oh-so-small edge...

Shivers up my spine
from this salty ball of turpentine!
Tongue held, I swallowed
her dark surprise

and passed.

He Comes to Me in Pieces

Teapots or a Chime

Sometimes,
instead of a blank page,
it’s easier to look around,
pick a point,
alight on an object,
and just write something
rather than think
of all that white space.

Want of Apron, It Goes Like This

Butterfly appliqués,
embroidered lilies,
scalloped edges.
Chinese peaches,
and polka dots,
atop cherry blossom swirls.

They line the walls on perfect pins
like grandma had:
Wooden men with no arms
or faces
but a barrel of potential
with a bottle of glue, a pen,
and a few pipe cleaners.

I’m not an aproned girl.
Life’s too messy to clean up
as I go.

But the possibility’s there
hung out,
strung out
for me to want.

What Goes In Must Come Out

We've been aware of pesticides in the water, antidepressants, hormones, other medications and caustic chemicals for a while, but cinnamon? Vanilla? Nutmeg? Caffeine? Yep. What goes in, must come out and it's definitely effecting the water and all that live in it.

Go here to read more.

Falling Red

Falling red, closed honeysuckle-like blooms
Beneath child’s light tapping toe.
Mother turns to look,
fewer footsteps beside her gait.

Soaking in small daughter
Tapping on hop-scotched sidewalk,
Returns by way of mortar
And concrete houses’ gates.

Two lowered heads tasking,
Popping vine’s red fallen blooms
To crackling morning’s crispness
On a hundred afternoons.

On Cheung Chau Island

Down the street, through the alley,
drifting scents of grease and jok.
Onions in a barrel.
Entrails on a hook.

Turn left, off the hill
between hovel houses
and shackled doors,
roofs no higher than a father's head.

Look! A monkey!

A temple.
Smokey joss stick prayers waft up.
A thousand angry gods grin down.
The little gwai-lo, white ghost girl stands,
still.

Morford on Meat

(http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/)

An old but good topic written in a new light. Sometimes he hits right on. This excerpt is particularly fabulous:

See, meat is, for the liberal progressive trying to cultivate something resembling a deeper conscience, a bit of a paradox, inside a conundrum, wrapped in a dilemma and grilled over fine mesquite on a sexy little $600 Eva Solo grill. To eat red meat with anything resembling joy in the most liberal and environmentally conscious and vegetarian-happy part of the nation is a bit like being from Salt Lake City and claiming you really love anal sex. In church. While sipping absinthe.

Dr. Jekyll & Minced Meat Pie

I eat potato chips
after a work-out.
Sometimes I sneak
a smoke.
On tired nights I refuse
oral hygiene.
I get cavities.

Often, I don’t cook
for my kids.
I trim my own bangs
and harbor my own thin line
of resentments.
I yell at the dog.
I shove the cat
on better days.

I pick my teeth
and the walnuts
out of my chocolate chip cookies.
I don’t make my bed.
But then, I do.

And in case you were wondering,
it’s true:
I speak ill of my friends
and my parents
and my children
and everyone they know.

But I pass, sure.
A proletarian to some.
A Samaritan for many.
A terra cotta statue,
a Chinese brush stroke
a faux finish
a bas-relief.

Listen to my tone, now!
A perfect pitch,
harmonious hum,
the tongues of angels.
I lift.

But listen for the bells;
the sound of the alarm.
There comes the time
to alleviate the weight—
lighten the load—
unleash the burden
to prevent chronic fatigue;
repetitive stress.

My house is in shambles,
my body a mess,
my thoughts huddled,
shivering in a murky brine.

Friend, won't you carry my bundle a while?
Brother, can you spare a spine?

Winging it

One by one they’re flung
by an enormous catapult.
The elephants land with only a small, distant thud.

Is this too much?
Metaphors should be savored—
Stirred slowly, gently, not shaken.
Elephants, Darling, fling far too easily
as we rapidly thrust toward middle age.

Forgotten promises.
Loves unkempt.
Tossed resentments, larger than life.
This is not your mother’s Almost-Forty
or what granny always said would happen.

Cry, “Freedom! Incoming!”
unabashed.

In the News—Profile Wendy Tokuda

If you're a Bay Area local, Paul Kilduff (interviewer extraordinaire) has a great piece in the Chronicle this morning on KRON's anchorwoman Wendy Tokuda that's worth a read:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/11/HOGG9M7UVS1.DTL

In the News—Fast Food Nation

I missed this and would've loved to have seen Pollan and Schlosser on the same stage discussing the corporatization of our food chain. This Cal Berkeley piece sums it up:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/10/20_fastfoodnation.shtml

The movie comes out November 17. See it

Fall on the Suburban Farm

Hark! Arise! Chicken time is here!
The late angled sun sounds the alarm.
Morning ablutions begin, hours later than yesterday.

Corn mash is poured for the pecking—
fowl devotees of the lay-pellet god.
The bees begin morning rounds—
Zen-monk workers of the harvest.

Sunflowers, peas, corn, tomatoes dead on the stalk,
yanked in preparation
for the Winter goddess.
Let the wet cold nights begin
their evolution into compost!

Garlic cloves stand in the wings,
waiting for the line,
the cue to be pressed into frosted soil
and begin their spicy journey
to fruition.

The newspaper’s been tossed on wet grass.
Lumbering diesel behemoths circle,
collecting waste and refuse.
The pizza man’s called for an early lunch.
A plane lands on schedule,
a Suburban comes to a stop in the driveway.