A Love Poem 

Here’s to you, Mr. Potato Head, sweet patootie, with your kissable red lips and the lobe of your removable ear between my tongue and my teeth.  You needn’t look so surprised. I’ve been throwing the dice of this game like mad, I’ve been assembling your pieces and wearing my heart on your little hat since I was a hill of dirt and you sprouted underneath me. Oh, that was a game-changer. That was a pair of sixes.

Getting Organized

I knew – had known for some time – the spice drawer needed organizing, so it’s not that I didn’t know. It just wasn’t a priority. I didn’t mind the mess, didn’t mind lifting every bottle up and reading the label when I tried to find some of the stranger spices.  Still I knew in my bones that I would need something like Whole Cardamom and just not find it, ditto Chinese Five Spices, Powdered Mustard, White Pepper, Fennel Seed. Then yesterday it happened: Goddamnit where the hell is the Garam Masala, I said. Here, he said, calm down, and he walked over.  It’s right here, he said, and he lifted the bottle of Garam Masala out from behind that not-very-empty bottle of Old Hickory Smoked Salt I’ve had since the year our oldest son was born, the same year my two sisters-in-law also had babies, both of those boys died before they were eighteen, that was also the year I learned how to clean a lot of things with vinegar.  So this morning I decided to bring the alphabet down on that drawer because there’s no way Goddamnit no way he’s ever going to do that to me again.

CLEOPATRA AT THE PIANO 

All Caesar can see of her
through the tavern window
is profile: sharp brows,
bronze eyelids, black beads
in black hair, one snake
of a curl at the forehead,
breasts big as Tangiers
under the half-buttoned blouse,
and how those breasts shake
each time she strikes a chord,
and how he shakes watching,
how he listens hard as each blue note
nails him to the sidewalk.
She has hands that could handle
any arpeggio, he’s sure of it,
she has storm-force hips and shows
a lot of leg, Oh, mama, he thinks,
how long has it been since I sailed
into the delta of a river like that?
I’m a god, I’m Caesar,
why shouldn’t I hold her in my arms,
this eagle-beaked Queen of the Nile,
pounding out a mean tune
that could incite Roman armies to riot,
that could grind any tyrant into dust?