FLASHPOINT

CHOPSTICKS

Only marginal chances
of finding a Great White
in my coffee
although the cigaret's tubular belly
is flotsam against my hand--
a dirty kerosene color, sleek & grey.

2
And stirring the embers of my cup,
suppose the grinds become primitive shark lore
of forgotten peoples or death sticks,
dry rot teeth, fathoms
squinting light.

EQUINOX

The four Equinox sisters,
the one, Fox, streaked--
all color, a blur
a Bloomingdale's on fire,
a wedge between Everest
& her fortune.

Samantha, the other
dun-coloured
earth-tide (in full bloom),
blossoms vernally & literally
busting out of her breeches with
eyes like barely sugar.
Jubilee. Fete de la vie.
Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
Rattan Bar, shooting star.

Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
flushed with heat.
Tidewater in full ripple, a
murmuring of abstract intelligence
orchestrating summer's growth.
Emerald keeper. Silken flax
beguiling smile, wiggling toes.
A stickler for detail, she was (with endless
contortions) always in the grass.

Brumaire, evaporating vapors,
the most withdrawn &
difficult to know--
a dead leaf combed thru
wind-swept hair.

Infernally inclined, a modicum
of sparse economy idly knotting ice thru
a cadaver fence before putting on a brave show--
her stern beauty and most commanding feature, snow,
shone like almonds or stars twinkling from
an anorexic fist.

Alabaster, her prison whiteness
this Brumaire.
A clock, pier,
immovable, still.

Firing up the flashlight
in the dark like
beautiful woods sleeping.

PENNY WISE, POUND POOR

Fall was a tubercular cousin
residing in the country
sparse hair,
rasping cough.

2
Night air was damaging
stringing pumpkins
around orange chains, the
milkweed pod shivering
in open shirtsleeves
little noises sifting
from burrows in her chest.

3
Fall was...
reputedly from another country
wore glaring cravats,
gold leaf and Rubenesque chain;
stalked the lark
mocked the breeze.

4
Penny wise, pound poor
leaves
a shock of hair
prematurely white
degradingly picked from
the comb
flung out fireflies
crisp bodies to singe
fire-cold light.

5
Advancing stairs
in po