Unglobed Fruit  


Two oranges
times two oranges
make four square oranges.
These, neither palpable
nor mute, gibber at gawkers
from their prison under glass,
then slip behind the frame
to multiply in private.

Sixteen time-traveling oranges,
cube edges blurred, hop 
from recollection to foreboding, 
sample mud and medallions 
in a jagged tour 
of fossil tracks and unbuilt skyroads 
zagging from whimper 
to bang.

Their two hundred fifty-six offspring 
hurtle outward past the climbing
of the moon, speed on the solar wind,
warp beyond spacetime 
to that nowhen where a throbbing 
googolplex of rhymed oranges
implode into a syzygy 
of poem : mean : be.


(Originally published in Mimesis)




The Mail Cart and the Pigeon


Waiting on the sidewalk,
the postman's lonely mail cart
meets a pigeon, and is smitten.

Each day while the postman
plays junkmail solitaire
in countless vestibules,
the pigeon and the mail cart prink prink prink
up and down the block in single file,
head and letters bobbling in sync sync sync.

The postman reappears.  The mail cart
deftly dims its green-and-lilac
sheen, unpouts its pouchfront,
and is again correct in navy blue.