to his rash mistress

if we were running out of time
this rashness, baby, were no crime
your headstone's second date's not nigh
ours would be old news when you die
having forgot our first impressed
you little sober, less re-dressed
(or were you just too satisfied
to want again what you once tried?)
'twas not your deathbed where we slept
you won't recall much there except 
a rush from one fool to the next
not whether you returned some text
or ever gave another kiss 
to somebody who sent you this

the joker ain't the only fool

the queen of spades had dug a pit
for which the queen of diamonds paid.
the queen of clubs pushed him in it.
the queen of hearts peered down and said,
"with me you could've had a chance,
until i heard about your arm,
you're heading straight for indigence,
and god, what happened on that farm?"
"it wouldn't matter," he replied,
"that i can't fill three other suits,
if i could court my fitting bride
without her sisters in cahoots.
i'll never be a king except in love,
and we should start a flush." face-first, she dove.

bad air

"i spy a may queen, you were miles
above me," younger by four years,
so many baby steps ahead,
like on that hike when you flipped out
because i claimed you never did.
both being wrong was our best game,
but practicing left you winded,
even before the hit-and-run.

you condescended for a while,
walking backwards like a tour guide,
facing me - smart, given that face.
i bought your campus and its state,
and soon, though too late, make-up flowers,
each fight more desperately arranged -
you once suspected florists' aid -
all meant as final, as is this.

on the centennial of the quake
no one could hear if dishes shook,
only two slams, room door and car,
dusting our heels - you'd recall whose
turned first - with bursts of paint and rust.
good bodywork was not enough;
even your teeth figured out fast
you needed crowns i couldn't fit.

we were the sweetest sour stuff,
two isotopes of oxygen,
mass numbers 15 and 19, 
met at 25, 29.
negative spin and positive,
corrosive like the normal kind,
but much too heavy when combined,
technically, practically, unstable.

physicists keep debating why
this mass in me decays so slow,
despite emitting waves of tears.
is this quantum entanglement?
if so, your heart depends on mine,
no matter time, nor distance squared.
biologists, at least, agree
that you breathe better without me.

sadie hawkins day (for kate)

These rows of houses, arrow-straight,
though old, were not the first
in Deerfield, town whose massacre
we count among the worst.
Little remains of Roanoke;
Williamsburg sold to Disney;
Plimoth Plantation has no ghosts;
Boston grew to a city.
But we can mourn here, Deerfield's name
denotes no "vanished" place:
rebuilt - the clapboard victory,
buried - the winning race.
Some whites turned Indian, more ran real red:
Twenty-five English children, this time, dead.

laura and the conic sections

"We're similar," said the ellipse.
The circle told him, "Bogus.
I can't stand your protruding tips.
You're projecting an extra focus."
"Projecting?" th'ellipse queried,
Saving his single face,
"You can't stand—can't stand, period!
Roll on, you special case!
I'm not surprised you missed my point,
'Cause you don't have one in ya.
But there's a linguist in this joint
Who's shown it in Tigrinya."
At that, the circle realized she was smitten.
They were wed atop the Oval by L. Whitton.

oh mi corazón

Ferdinand quit the china shop,
Broke even in corridas vs.
A range of accidental matadoras.
Now softer horns make sharper pop
From shards of each flamenco verse.
Vaquera harmonizes on the chorus.

we're all on

more world than word, less can than did,
more camera, less caption;
less quantifier, more adjective,
less quatrain: smile! more action!