An Anchovy

I stare through the curved, distorted glass

at the shark shadows thrown against 
the back wall of the tank, cast by 
dozens of the beasts swimming past

clusters of fake sunbeams that cut through the water 
from above, dancing like disco lights.

The shadows leap and flicker as if caught in a strobe.

The striped skin of the sharks glows

with an unearthly aura as they slip through the water

like ghosts floating soundlessly through a nightmare.

In the next tank over are the anchovies,

separated from their predatory brethren

by a single thin wall.

These pop-eyed critters gulp constantly,

each mouth’s wide wedge opening

and closing as they swim,

the foil-coated hinges of their jaws crinkling.

Each fish is little more than a mouth

dragging a blade behind it.

These silvery pizza-toppings terrify me

more than the sharks, which are at least elegant

rather than cartoonish.

The sharks may have to keep swimming to live,

but at least they take a break from eating, unlike these creatures

who are incessantly consuming. Do they even sleep?

It seems insane to be so ceaselessly tenacious.

Perhaps they remind me too much of myself;
my eyes bugging open, searching wildly

for what, any kind of usable material, desperate to keep

on creating. I may be more aware than these little creatures,

but am I any less voracious?

I wear myself out with my constant pushing.

I need to learn to relax, need to find a new role model.

I should be more like the jellyfish,

gently floating along like pulsing organs,

like parts of some larger, more complex creature

rather than things complete in themselves.

Certainly not things that have survived

for millions of years despite being not much more

than translucent bags of cells,

trailing threads and filled perhaps

with a few light-bulb filaments, or else oozing

huge ruffled clouds of tissue

that grow and contract, sucked into and squeezed from

that soft, pulsing bell.

Clappers of smoke, held together by almost nothing:

a splash of pigment, a membrane so thin

its shape can only be retained

by the water it is suspended in.

I could watch them for hours.

The sharks fill me with awe, the anchovies make me anxious,

but these drifting balloons, these lava lamp blobs

make me feel like I am floating with them,

make me lose my own form,

force be to become defined by the void 
around my self.

The Chill Wind from the Sea

A child's faint footprints
leap across the sand
toward the rocks, then
skitter away, leaving
a few scattered handfuls
of torn starfish arms
lying in the clear, still water
of the tide pool.

Haboob

Scoffing at the approaching downburst,
we parked behind a scuttled Texaco station
on the outskirts of Ahwautukee and shut off the engine.
Fumbling to undo the clasp to let drop
those twin, heavy sandbags
of your breasts, my fingers slipped
and I cracked the crystal face
of my wristwatch on the dash.
I nibbled your neck and ankles as
the sudden flurry of dust scoured the windshield.
Your howls rose up to try to imitate
-or intimidate- the gales for a while,
though they never backed down
and you were soon spent, the sheepskin seat covers
squishing with sweat. We remained glued together
for the duration of the dry and chilly night, the drifts
finally rising up to lean their gritty heads
halfway up the windows, as if the entire world around us
was one giant hourglass,
stilled to signify that it was morning
and our time was up, even if we were not yet
fully buried.

And...they're off

Finally out of the gate!
Inanimate Hare Conveyor

Florida Bound

A shaggy one-legged man keeps hopping
up from the wheelchair parked beneath
the scarred glass of the bus shelter.
The tough, tan skin of his arms stick out
from the shreds of a black t-shirt that once read
"Florida Bound". The stump of his severed leg
peeps obscenely from his camo shorts.
He finally settles down, flapping in front of his beard
the same daily paper I'm reading now,
with the same front page story announcing
that the rocket Juno blasted off from Cape Canaveral
early this morning, headed for Jupiter. At noon
the craft unfolded its flat black solar-panels
without a hitch. Its journey will last five years,
followed by a year of orbiting, recording and analyzing,
whispering a stream of data back to its birthplace.
It will be the first spacecraft to do more than speed past
the gas giant, and at the end of its mission it will plunge
into the planet itself, one last kamikaze dive.
I find the whole thing reassuring;
here we are, this entire country rattling and smoking
like an old beater swerving across the yellow lines
with a cracked windshield  and a tank filled with fumes
and no spare in the trunk, piloted by a leathery old man

who smells of sweat and gin, with one leg and a fierce gray mane,
while out in the silence of space, an instrument of pure reason,
eager to sacrifice itself in the name of knowledge,
elegantly spreads its wings.

Finally!

I've finally gotten the drawings done for the new poetry book, all I have to do is narrow them down from 30 to closer to 15 or 20 (the book's only 100 pages of text, don't want to overload it with pictures). It should all be done by next week, hopefully.

Here's one of the pictures that didn't make the cut.

Blinked

Occasionally the keeper's brush would kiss one
as he gingerly sidestepped clumps of dung
in his dance to sweep the yard, and furtively
he'd stoop and snatch the prize, slip it
into the pocket of his shirt: a shed lash,
winked free from the gray crepe eyelid
of one of the lumbering pachyderms
that shuffled across the earth, unaware of
the precious mote they'd lost, as he latched
the enclosure gate behind him.

Would he go on to tuck one of these hairs
into a folded sheet of onionskin,
then post it to a favored niece,
or bundle them together with a ribbon
and present them in a bristling bouquet
to a plain, shy young lady
whose windowsills were already crowded
with peacock feathers, tobacco twists of snakeskin
and a single rotten-rooted cougar fang?

Or would he keep them for himself,

a fistful of stiff whiskers protruding

from a souvenir zoo mug on his desk,
gathering dust, now retired from their duty

of  providing protection from flies

and wind-whipped specks
to a placid eye that spent its days
slipping its gaze between their fragile bars?