Sweet Knees

Your sweet knees

are confusing to the bees

they fly thirsty, bypassing flowers
petals offering themselves openly
heavy with nectar, gone untasted,
simply because
you wore that skirt today,
that soft fabric that floats
in the air that parts for you
that bares your lovely
legs to the breeze.
Your sweet knees
are confusing to the bees.

Scalpel

There is a place in this heart
near the left ventricle, I believe ---
where a scar begins
to form, time and time again
to seal over the first swift incision
to heal the place where the bright blade
of your eyes made a clean, surgical slice
cutting quick into quiet chambers I could not see,
without warning, and so soft I never felt the edge
until next morning, when it ached like hell itself.

Please visit me again, and soon
with something beautiful and sharp
concealed in that wicked gentle smile
like a scalpel up your sleeve ---
it can be done in just a moment
the drowsy guards will never notice.

Cut me again so it cannot heal.
Please, just cut me again.

Down's Syndrome at the Jazz Concert

The mongoloids are here; their yellow bus
is waiting at the curb.
They are pale chaff, against
a field of healthy tans.
They are naturals
to the elements of burlesque:
the pratfall, the double take, the drool.

No one in this crowd will laugh at the elements
in this unstudied form. We are still young
enough to incur God's wrath...young enough to conceive
these children, these forever children, for ourselves.

These old toddlers are able to move
with more than ordinary freedom
among all the other faces here,
faces not as open as their own.

A genetic glitch has given them a family...
a kinship that defies all bloodlines: the same face
here and there...watching the band, watching
each other. Most of them are standing
up front, taking trumpets full into their faces;
the brass is telling them something they
can understand.

This kind of thing makes them want to move
to burn off the energy into something that shines
like sunlight splashing off trumpets...
It always makes them hard to manage
on the long bus ride back out of the sun.

She Does Not Need

God does not need your praise;
it is a currency She cannot spend.

God does not need your obedience;
it rings hollow in the halls of Heaven.

God does not need your suffering
unless it shocks your eyes to open.

God does not need your chastity;
did She not bless you with that body?

God does not need your resistance
She would rather you open your heart.

God has no use for your sanctimonious
solemn vows, your righteous indignation.

God throws wide the gates when you laugh out loud
and She knocks them down when you dance.