Two

I had such a great solstice. Five people, fire, well-marinaded steak on sticks, wine. Apparently a lot of folks in this town are closet pagan or sympathisers. Sunset and sunrise both left color in the sky at the same time. Great first okc date yesterday morning. Dave coming up soon. Filled with so much well-being I don't know what to do. Luxuriating.

Dog on the Floor in the Pet Food Aisle 
(Ruth L. Schwartz)

It's so simple, really, 
the tenderness we need 
lives everywhere, 
there is no place it does not live,

and we seek it
savagely, 
and we flail and hurl and fling
ourselves toward the brass ring of it, 
as if it were a narrow chance, 
a shining and unlikely prize...

It is hard to pinch the air
between our fingers, but we are determined. 
It is hard to survive by denying
ourselves, but we are accustomed. 
It is hard to live inside the flawed 
and gritty chambers we believe ourselves to be,
but we have strapped our bodies in,
we watch our lives through airplane windows, 
small and dim and scarred,

and even so, life noses up, 
rolling before us
like a black dog,
its brown eyes steady as the sun,
its belly in the air, asking for touch.


Lecturing My Body 

Here's the deal: You
take care of me,
I'll take care of you.
The body's a car
Whatever's-not-the-car,
that's the driver.
Or the car's an animal,
the driver a zookeeper.
The animal's a ditch,
the zookeeper a wheelbarrow.
A wheelbarrow bringing
tobacco, whiskey
& even love because,
well, just because.

By Jefferson Carter