Antonio Wins

You,
King
of my little
world,

your smile so wide,
I wrap our home in it,

your laugh so warm
it could heat the house
all winter long.

Your music so true,
your eye so sharp,
your kitchen improvisations
so deft I could create
a million-hit internet
cooking show featuring
just you.

I would cross an LA freeway
on foot just to be
near you,

just to walk
down an empty road
or back alley
at your side.

Your massive, gentle, warm hand
touching my cool cheek
sends a nuclear fission-like
glow down my spine.

Your lush lips
draw me in
and upside down
until all the change
falls out of my pockets
and the clock loses time.

I am yours.
Queen
and subject.


~MH

Library

Stepping out
into the musty dark
of rotting leaves
I leave my objects within,
searing embers, disappearing,
their smoke-dust still coating
my fingers and nostrils
caking my tongue

I have eaten words,
inhaling them,
iron gall ink
and parchment,
mineral pigments
and tooled leather
for lifetimes

every syllable
crumbling
as I lift it to my mouth
shifting ash
sifting down
drying my vision
with an alkaline pale

Parch

I was born
parched

skin shrinking
on fragile skull

an empty pan
in an electric oven

scorching air
billowing out of
a black Chevrolet
on the fourth of July

I've raised myself
as sagebrush
on dry self-denial

true to the absence
of refreshment
true to the shriveling
of tongue and womb

and the burning of skin
at noon


~MH 1998/2007

Nightingale

I drove by 1982
last summer

Your house
was unkempt
overgrown and neglected
in a suburban decay
kind of way

No pony-tailed
Tom-boy
training-bra
Atari-girls

No imaginary intrigue
no television fantasies
buried under I Hate Pretty Pony
mattresses

No chess or cello,
or plank-walking
over ravines
No sleuthing or storytelling
No trespassing mischief
No BMX bikes over dirt hills
or making little brothers cry

Hard to imagine
This was the locus of
intricate realms
we created together

Our imaginings were
so much better,
levitated above
the listless, oppressive
sameness of
a pressed board
cluster of houses
in an alfalfa field
in Nowhere,
USA

No big-wide-world
waiting as seen
from six-foot homemade stilts
No sugar highs
on Big Gulp Slurpeez

Just wall-to-wall beige,
Country Tchotchke
and fake stone facades

In another lifetime
you would be 19
and pregnant,
marrying your
Super-Smart self
down the river
for fear of
loveless solitude
or maybe
hope of
love's fullness
complete

You, the only other
Sharp Girl
Brimming with opinions
and clever insights
Cello, channeling
your brilliance,

Calling you
from 1982