Vetiver / Echo Sayr

My cyclothymic hands lost in vetiver, verse vetted

whateviter, ambivalence ached via catheter,

naw, I don’t care about the inconsistency,

though it’s seasonal salmon trying to spawn me,

a protein collapse, a headheart deficiency,

the question of now, the question of then,

the question of soon, the zen jack-off of when.

I am sorry my poison it bled me of you,

my compliments were no weakness,

some tailspin misconstrue. You’ve got a TV show,

I know it, you’ve got a big smile, you showed me.

You’ve got the ancient spice to seduce their wives,

you’ve buried actuality under minarets, you bet.

I bet with cyclothymic hands lost in vetiver,

I find all of myself lost in vetiver, I’m swimming deep gone

black in that vetiver, entombed murky blessing of measurers.

You’ll be lost with your hands dipped in vetiver,

an arm or a chance or a negator.

An army of you over vetiver, poles augured in mud

of this tetherer, what scent, what since, what was ever,

o, tell me you hear words written by shears dripping

deep in the silence of vetiver slunk steep in the crease of the

Janis-eyed sheets you won’t see, the window unopened,

mirrors deflected, the diversity of worlds unmet, unmetered yet,

speciated as fires lit in heather mounds on conversationally split hills—

For this a coin flipped, teared-up down the endless well of monsoon rose smells that hang missionary bells to foretell the absolute end,

what sepia sends, a kiss clamped too deep on an envelope sent and

sealed with the cuff hiss mercy of a woman’s last drop of nothing she

held to be wetter than vetiver.

Taxi Bone / Michael McQuarrie

Momma moved like a swan

curved along vacuums

arced over dust rags

danced at sinks

jumped rope in the living room

gave great bear hugs

watered high ferns and cacti

and children that she grew like plants

the bone

came from a taxi driver

saw days of picking up fares

running meters

tick, tick, tick

mornings of slow riding

can you go faster

thrown change

no change

this whistle

that "taxi!"

those legs

tick, tick, tick

days of big yellow

counting airports

sniffing courtrooms

evenings of tiring typists

retiring clerks

smothered laborers

nights of underage drinkers

swinging bingers

beaten wives and sleeping angels

tick, tick, tick

meter running down

and down

stop

the interval passed quickly

between disk slipped

fracture

hospital

surgery

taxi driver's bone

fit momma's neck

those days were pink bathrobe

cushion pillows

help me up

momma standing like a 2x4 ran down her spine

hiding the scar below her neck

with scarves, bandannas, kleenexes

beautiful, bold, red-eyed

dad driving the stove

brother brandishing vacuum

sister scrubbing floors

me dropping by for money

those days held pain

in momma's eyes

these days momma embraces again

hugs with both arms again

turns her head as she talks

classes, job

doesn't wear turtlenecks anymore

she moves gracefully

like sunset in a summer rain

warming

sustaining

nurturing

but every so often

I swear

I can hear a meter running

tick, tick, tick,

and see a flash of zesty yellow

drive across her smile

Life is a cafe' / Julie Wells

Life is a place

where you eat homemade

oatmeal cookies, drink

coffee, and smoke too much,

inhaling crumbs. Life

is a place where outdoor seating

is rusty because no-one sits inside.

Life is journals and favorite pens,

unknown music, little handwritten signs

on tip jars: Share the Love.

Life is cookies, in all their flavors and handcraftedness,

and the painted ones, shaped like animals.

Life is a place where you smoke too much,

talk too much, and laugh at the rain. Life is a place

where you light a cigarette next to a pregnant woman

and no-one says anything,

a place where mothers meet daughters

for lunch, a place where the cookies are homemade

and packaged in wrappings that bear the inscription:

Share the Love. Life is conversations about films

only half of us have seen. Life is a rusty table

holding a half-empty cappuccino

in a to-go cup that everyone is ashing in.

Life is the extra wide mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream

melting into it, cocoa shavings sprinkled on top, full to the brim,

sitting on a rusty table with a half-empty cappuccino

and a propped up handwritten sign: Share the Love.