On the border

The suited men have jaws 

                        that snap up & down
      about invaders.

It must be done, they growl,
                   hearts dangling 

      from holsters:

This yanking on necks 

     of newborns

while grinning 

    at the camera 

flashing light on the blight 

       behind white shirts;

                   stink steaming through 

 button holes

as the sunburned beseech
viewers on TV too pleased

       to teach the flip-flop clad

                    a lesson.

Beside the plastic men stand

       beauty queens

      double-breasted & stoney-styled

thinking about getting home,

sun shines on painted gold hair
and sewn back lids

at the fields of families

        tired, kneeling, sweating 

                    at our gates.

With no backward glance, 

         the mighty board          

                  their gulf streams 

and fly toward the stars
          like the gods we allow

                           them to be.

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

For my mother: Some stars become black holes. Others get sucked up inside them just for getting too close. --Author Kris Kidd

Let’s say you are the widow’s middle child

still in braids when you first hear

goose steps on your street.

Let’s say the last day of school the Luftwaffe

offers you a typing job, they mention travel.

Let’s say you ride in the back of a Mercedes-Benz Transformable Torpedo 

behind your boss and his driver

When the gates open and beings pour through the yard

Like rushing water, drenched as if just risen from the ocean floor.

Let’s say sleep comes and goes that night 

and the next morning you place your breakfast 

on the window sill 

and turn your back

And when you look again, the plate is gone

And you feel relief 

that a ghost has eaten 

And you are not arrested, your giving 

hand not cut off.

Let’s say the next day you repeat this act 

and later when all is over, 

in the dark of night,

You grieve because you did not do more.

And let’s say what was 

not done becomes 

the story and your life a protracted 

mourning for it, 

for what was not done.

Like a kidnapping

  One average day

       on a walk to school, 

 the love the child carries for you

     flushes out like milk                

from a leak in his thermos.  

The way that child looks at you 

     one evening over dinner 

is a look you have not seen before. 

     You can't be sure 

      you saw what you saw.  

The way that child speaks to you 

     is not the same tone, 

not like any previous tone.          

And for a long time, his sweet face                

    appears in your dreams on a

   poster pasted on power lines.  

 The new voice, new gaze sweeps 

     into every moment going forth.

Quiet as midnight,

     cool as that dark.      

All day I stroll with the dog in the redwoods.    

No thoughts of him 

I raised from birth

     who now shaves his face,         

him I pampered and praised--perhaps too much 

     because, well, he was so                

beautiful,  

so tender in all God's ways, 

     and exiled into life with me.     

When I return to the house,      

     it hails me again—

      the strange voice, that novel gaze

—that face-slapping loss.