All Night the Night Has Been

lightening with moths

white behind the walnuts

If a woman couldn’t sleep

and came to this window

in this light her skin

would glow like bones

Clouds over the full moon

even with the wind

What would have been

nuts looks like limes

on the white stones,

it sounds like some

one tapping on a glass

coffin.  It sounds

like someone tapping

from within the tree

                                                          printable

Being Jewish in a Small Town

someone writes kike on

the blackboard and the

“k’s” pull thru the

chalk, stick in my

plump pale thighs.

Even after the high

school burns down the

word is written in

the ashes.  My under

pants’ elastic snaps

on Main St because

I can’t go to

Pilgrim Fellowship.

I’m the one Jewish girl

in town but the 4

Cohen brothers

want blond hair

blowing from their

car.  They don’t know

my black braids

smell of almond.

I wear my clothes

loose so no one

dreams who I am,

will never know

Hebrew, keep a

Christmas tree in

my drawer.  In

the dark, my fingers

could be the menorah

that pulls you toward

honey in the snow

                                                         printable

Dream of Ivy

you know the story of

the woman in a

turret and how ivy

puts its fingers

across the moon.

And besides, no one

could hear.  Ivy

that grows like

kudzu in the

deepest part of Georgia

swallowing up a

single house

in one night.  I would

have lowered my long

hair to a lover,

lured him with blood

in a bottle, each

drop a ruby with

a poem etched on it.

Or carved my initials

in the grey stone

around his heart.  I’s

have talked to ;the

birds or waited,

slept 20 years, given

away my children.

Only I was outside

trying to get in

                                                             printable