Eclipse

The First Cummings said

she rattles like angry candy.
True.  

Luna'd been shooting wet Pop-Rocks 

like BBs against the wallpaper 

of the skull that lives in your face.

Every day.  All day.  For a while.

Filling the alleys with vodka 

just made her move slower 

and all of the pills stacked like cobbles

dissolved leaving you (again) with

that Italian bitch of a goddess Luna 

her bird shot adding: tic tic tic...

Hanging in the window were 

faces that were lean and brown 

as Peking duck now looking like

wrapped hams or cheeses.
I have been sitting for too long

waiting for a light to flicker 

in my votive coffee,
a penitent holding a vigil.

I looked up to say something
and you were there

in front of the garland and lights

smiling in all directions

the Second Coming of

The Buddha of Christmas

or something equally happy

which was altogether (almost)
incomprehensible to me.

We waited and we watched the

World-sickle sliced Creamsicle Moon
bleed out blood orange and go dim.

We kept warm by expanding
and "jiggling the particles"

and stirring the bonfire
while Luna hissed
"tick, tick, tick"

flicking frozen shards of
the longest night of the year
at us like hard-learned candy.

Best Puzzle Ever

Once there was a girl who loved... let's say it was puzzles. Picture puzzles. She was new to the town and met a boy who said that he also liked picture puzzles. She went on and on about how she had just rediscovered picture puzzles. He told her that he had loved picture puzzles since he was a small child and had been thinking about them too lately. She told him about how they seemed to be a symbol of life and by reconnecting the disconnections you could piece things together that had been separated. She told him about her whole philosophy of life based on the picture puzzle. He said that his fascination with them was more personal and declined to talk about it.

They dated for a little while. His friends looked at her like she was funny in the head when she told them that they had connected over a conversation about puzzles because they had never really known him to show much interest in puzzles. She took this to be a sign that she knew about him, a special part of him, a secret soul part of him that he had shared with her and no one else.

For his birthday, the girl bought him a big beautiful picture puzzle. It was the biggest must beautifully intricate puzzle she had ever seen and they both were very excited when he opened the gift.

A few days later, she came to his house and found him in his room, with the puzzle spread out before him. She ask him if it was the best puzzle he had ever had. He smiled a big smile and dunked a piece of it in a jar of peanut butter and popped it in his mouth. He said yes. He had loved puzzles since childhood, but this was the Best Puzzle Ever.

Dinnertime Carol

Predictions gave
your voices away.
I knew you would arrive,
to sing the new
Christmas carols.
A Grecian Chorus
perches rakishly
about my counterpane.
I feel your talons,
I who hide under the blankets
from the creditor
I invited to dinner
in better times.
It was always just the theater,
the silvered twin of life.
Now there's Don Giovanni
playing in the heat ducts.
The Stone Guest arrives
dragging me down
taking my car.

sure nest

I wonder exactly what it was that was lost.

I wonder how it was lost.

I wonder if it was tossed too messily

for any hands to catch

like rice

or by being too small or too wispy

for his clumsy hands to grip

or too big.

if it escaped

if it was was stolen

If it was thrown away

...by accident

...by accident on purpose

If it was given up for dead and was buried somewhere

...and is waiting to sprout

...if is it entombed there

If, quietly,

I placed what I see him without

in the sure nest of his hands...

if he would make me take it back

just because he lost the first one.