---

A waitress, taking in the air
outside, looks up from the
Cincinnati street. Returns

inside. Tells the waiter
with the squirrelly pony tail,
‘A flock of geese just went by!

‘In a vee,’ she says. 
Showing with her fingers
a sidewise ‘V.’

***

This pen wants to speak.
But what is there to say?
About the sunlight in the 

store opposite the cafe.
Lighting foreheads of the
customers in the poor folks’

grocery. I think I’d like to
photograph these
illuminated skulls behind

the glass. A misdemeanor,
of the liberal, artistic sort? 
To capture others’ attractive

squalor. You call it just
getting by. From my catbird
seat, sipping a double

cappuccino. Considering art,
first. Then, guilt. Then, art.
Then, guilt.

***

I want to run and embrace
this tulip-yellow light. But
where? Where do I stand and

meet it all? Face to face with
beauty bigger than myself, I
quail. Sit in my broken chair —

one slat’s missing. Thinking,
maybe it’s the coffee in my
bloodstream

that makes me
mad to kiss 
the sun.

~ cincinnati, 1989