A great raven squats
on a green dumpster
behind the meat market.

Its black is blacker
than anything near to the earth,
a thick hang-nail beak blackest,

more than the pitch-black in its eyes.
"Click-clock, click-clock," I cluck at the bird
who ruffles his feathers, staring right through me,

then one cluck gets in, and he ***** his head
to watch my tongue, a pink hatchling squirming
away from a stabbing. He waits for scraps,

gristle to choke down; a deviant bird
who pokes out your eye if you simply stare
a little too long: "The plane is alive;

it is born. Each form is a world."
A supreme semaphore, a whistle,
a croak, a hop and a squawk.

Everything’s worn out Mijita.
Our sheets threadbare and stained,
your shoes tangled beneath the bed
and my back aches getting ready, again, for us:
our candles, our mirror, all of the roses
you’ve hung by the stems, and tonight
tonight is for manchego, anchoas,
our kitchen buried in snow.

And I’ll be too tired to know why my love,
why it’s so cold; or are we so drunk
on the cava we drink and we drink
that you can’t remember?

Tonight is for sunflower seeds,
your pipas, for gambas al ajillo!
And all of the shells you spit into the ocean,
I sweep from the floor in the morning.

So this hawk,
this red-tailed hawk,
this 'At first I thought it was a little dog?' hawk
was hunkered down in the alley,
was feeding,
was ripping up,
was eating by tearing off little strips

of this pigeon,
from this iridescent rust-blue pigeon's breast,
a blizzard of pigeon plumes falling
on blood-spattered snow because
the pigeon's wings beat
softly, softly, softly, still
making angels.

The Glossary of Rocks and Minerals says that
invisible structures in crystal
explain the qualities:
gravity and hardness,
the fatal habits, why
invincible diamond
will cleave along axes
of symmetry too small
to be seen.
                    But threshold,
where the eye unaided
apprehends transparence,
brilliance, the glide across
visible surface, its
lexicon of flatness,
this world, informs the intention of
the crystallographer, too far out, on the ice.

Look, look, look,
get out of your Jacuzzi for a minute,
swizzle or swallow that Martini's cherry, wonder:
“Where'd you put your housecoat?”
Naked's not too bad on you, still
snow's a-piling, bending boughs in silence, except
you just stand there, a-dripping and a-dropping,
until you're just a tiny trickle
to your people
anymore.

O, the Jacuzzi crowd prefer their sweet martinis,
so they can place the cherries in between
their moistened lips and languorously slip
inside the silkiest pajamas, gripping cherry pits
between their perfect teeth.
& even if a little dribble tickles at their chin
they know someone will lick it off,
like the ones who seem to say:
"I am a mighty river
to my people!"

Looking out
over the lip of his Jacuzzi,
limbs adrift-o in the boil, our a.k.a., Mr. Linguini,
from his fetid broth, will lift
a steaming finger: a sort of signal which,
beyond the bathtub rim can hardly wallow
any further; the gurgling water swallows all,
apocalyptic now,  like Martin Sheen
(though his muddy Mekong would reflect
the dream-sung air-strike), whereas here
only the lingering whiff
of a sweet morsel:
Chilean (still half-eaten) sea bass.

Mais, mon cheri, c’est de vous qu’ils parlent a la tele!
& pray tell sweetie, how can I say more
in French? Encore? Staring in the mirror,
Speckled trout? Artic char?
(Incroyable! les Anglais ne savent pas manger...)
the dream undone, he'd tried to order pizza
& instead now found himself in bed,
or soon to be so, foreign tongue
tastes best confused. Denial?

O he was into it, over his head,
with crocodiles, our Monseigneur,
at last, exposed to darkness
& the fishiness of darkened things, to feed the beasts:
to reach, to squeeze, to raise the hemistichal stream.
Snow sloughed off an over laden bough
& slapped its spot of sunlight:
this would be afternoon would be.
He rose, our Mr. Linguini,
at last took stock of things
just as they are,
just as they were
& surely just
as they shall be.

The crazy boy is clawing at his mom.
Or does he think she is a tree?
Her trunk twisting backward toward the ground,

a crippled mulberry.
Wicked.  Wicked.  Kicking with his rubber boots,
there are no worlds for him to be

in peace. On something like a hidden track
inside his little hell, he squints an eye
and yells, Let go, let go!, and so she does,

a sob, the tear wiped from her cheek, he's run
across the street, a ratty pompom bobs
on his wool toque, two squirrels ***** a crow

into the sky who caws the same three notes
and settles on a yellow sign that hangs
above his head and warns "No Exit", so

I laugh and look down at my feet to see
a worm tormented by a swarm of ants,
it's spring, a car squeals by, I take a step

towards the brink and beg myself to stop:
I know the boy has gone ahead, I know
the stream descends through hollow rock.