1. Sea Grape
Loose leaf:
golden
fire-streams
branching into bayous
of darker flame,
breaking apart
near the rim
to finer, finer veins:
unnavigable Amazonia
in the shape of a heart
—a real heart, dear,
not the idealized kind,
and thus all throb
and trouble, and fallen
as if to remind us
we’re fire at the core,
various heats,
though everything
mottles,
at this latitude:
fruit and flower
and once-pink
porch columns,
even the puddle
between the bakery
and Kingdom Hall
giving up thunderhead
and rainbow, even
the concrete pier
a slow study
in corrosion’s arts:
nothing unchecked
or unstippled,
(old pink taxi
rusting in the sun)
nothing simple or im-
pervious to decay:
why not
this fallen valentine,
candybox token
veined in hot gold,
its tropic wax
embalmed and blazing?
2. Catalina Macaw
Durer painted a wing like this
—but only one, to imply
a whole too splendid
to render, or ask
that we visualize
who extends
this fierce lemon
-and-orient-sapphire
stretched toward
whatever it is
sublimity points to.
Though Bubba’s no angel,
—she bit out the bars
out of her cage!—
and attitude flashes
in her rapidly contracting
and pulsing eye,
flickering dot of pupil.
Are you the one
whom my soul seeks,
she seems to telegraph
in alert and eager Morse,
are you my tireless
companion,
the faithful other?
Pulse. Ruffle
of the feather-shallows.
No? Well then, cracker?