Frida 2

She places the gray rectangle of shadow
above her chin, delicately as a name card
at a dinner setting. It looks like Velcro
and roughs her skin. She hangs silver mirrors
from her earlobes, and paints the endless
Mexican desert behind her pupils, unlit.
She purses the red tin of her lips.

This face invents her
as she sits potted
before the mirror.

Outside of the frame
her hands are cupping the sun and
shifting with its hours.

Frida

A rectangle of shadow is beneath
her bottom lip, a gray patch, as if
placed there by her own hand,as she invents
a face for the mirror, with an immense look,
like the endless Mexican desert is behind her pupils, unlit,
or like a funerary portrait, the dead eyeing
death. She sits almost potted, there.
Her lips are tin painted red.

Evesdropping On Penn Students

"I wish that my Uggs
Had rock salt super-glued
To their soles so that
Ice would just melt
Wherever I walked!"

Evesdropping On 6 Year-Olds

"You're blushing"
"I'm always blushing,
My cheeks are just
Like that - I was born
Blushing, something
Must have embarrassed me
In the womb."

Tallis, Scarves, Condensed

Six hundred and thirteen knots
mark holiness. Six hundred
and thirteen braids
hanging down a back in shades
of brown (coffee, caramel,
timberland boot tan) the colors
tied in a cast down the arms of these women:
"Scarves for sale", feathers for sale
from these migrant birds, soft
and heavy on their wings spread
wide in display until
police come and they run like pigeons
from the foot of a child,
fringes scattering around the corner.

The world's richest fifth:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish
Consume 58% of total energy
Have 74% of all telephone lines
Consume 84% of all paper
Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet

Thinking About Leaving,

Things to always remember about home:
How the kitchen was, is, will always be yellow and chipping.
The couch pillows being really really dirty on the underside.
The TV antennas that point in all kinds of directions without ever picking up a signal.