Esther

The one whose name is yours seduced a king

Spent a year in harem, perfumed daily

Clever virgin asked what pleasured Xerxes

One night, her informed delights made her Queen



Her uncle Mordecai kept faith nearby,

toiled in low office, saved the Regents life

When an ancient enemy reappears

says she must reveal she is a jewish wife,



undo death decrees, avert her people’s slaughter

To see the  king unbidden would be death

“Through feast, by wiles, I’ll avert disaster.

Fast, pray 3 days, I’ll prove my people’s daughter”



As with you by wit, by will, delivered

Though unnamed, God’s saving grace is rendered

Hungry in America

-->I count bread slices

2 each day is still

a day without

!/2 an avocado will last 8 days

but they ripen into urgency

one is gone already

the frozen fish is six days

the stringbeans, too
nothing lasts for seven

there will always be
one empty belly waking

40 years ago I was hungry

as I worked on the degrees

I thought would feed me

And they did for awhile

The weather has changed

Spring is cold, the insects

swarm on the warm days

As if they know  that night

will kill them how

short their tiny lives

have become.

Things They Should Tell You

Things they never tell you

Are told nonetheless

Otherwise how would you know

That the cat shouldn’t eat

the night before his tooth pull

Do you fast before the dentist

removes that last chewing surface

Or feast to remember

the infinite pleasure of your own

dentition, your own way

of grinding down and feeling up

as immediate as waking to the world

as once was,  easy, whole, natural

all your bits and parts intact.

Cat Went to Vet Today

Slim cat is now boney.

Woe is me, what could the matter be?

Feeding him meat glop did not stop the hard

edges of spine, stone jut of hips, the worry. Pleading,

please plump up Obi, why must we buck every trend?

America's aswarm with obese felines,

canine bakeries abound with waddling dogs

and you, already lithe, my little African heat seeker,

grow thinner.  The too cheery vet says

the gaunt guy lost only ½ pound

since the last urgent review.

This time he swallowed the tooth they scraped.

He must return to have another yanked for $200

I don’t have but will somehow find,

an offering, from the broken

that fur swathed  love remain,        that he last

to stem again the rising tides of loss.

April 1, 2013

6 am spattered whispers

tap against the shuttered vent

dark dawn is smeared in

crystal drops against the window

shining deeper into the

heart of the moment

to be warm against such

chill, and dry  

in spite of what soaks

the hard ground outside