Two Poems (June 20, 2009. Issue 6.)

Picnic, no basket

Down by river, they check for stragglers.
Revolver in holster, keys clink
a warning to vulgar
visitors who come to get a reading
from some lowdown sundown
hat check girl. You picked my number.

You fit in my cheeks like apricots.
Your stance is earthen, your surges, solar.
Knee low, I am wearing
your secrets, cross-creek park
somewhere east of California.

Next time you will bring sandwiches.
Next time we'll pack corn in ears.
For camouflage dress in gray
or by chance color these woods we walk.

My tongue traces covert felonies
in a waltz-two-three cadence.
Shoulder bite, claws extended into inconceivable
holds as seen in the last animal planet episode.
Lover, come groom my fur, bring purple feathers, twine.

Katydid's Song and the Possibilities of Plurality

Up from birch ghost perches
green chirpers call for insect love.
Katy-Did! Katy-didn't.
Katy-DID! Katy-didn't.

Metal spring of identity
rebounds harmonic motion
"good girl-bad girl" motion
until eventually
Miss Katie's Did's outnumber "Didn'ts,"
"Would-never-do-that-evers" and even the
"What kind of sick motherfucker would even want-to-do-thats"

Yes Sir. Pleased
to meet you. My name is
Mrs. Him, mother of Them

but not tonight. Here we count the beats,
calculate the temperature.
We follow and swallow each others songs
with names on tongue invented.

Katie, my name is Katie. Or did I say Jenny?
Kiki? Anna? And you lover are
usually David, Roberto, or James.

We call each other out by scent
and slippery trials of distinction.

Green wings chirp from behind tinted windows
of a plural anonymity.