Helen


She’s almost 90, her forehead
like an uncloudy day.  She must’ve
been a beautiful baby.  Now 
she farts during yoga, plow pose,
cow-face pose, even corpse pose,
you can hear her backfiring like
an old Vespa among the scented
candles.  Nobody laughs.  Certainly
not me.  No jokes about gasasana,
the five inner winds, the vibrations
of the blissful sheath.  I’m practicing 
ujjayi breath, pretending I’m fogging 
a mirror, imagining my blurred reflection, 
which is almost nothing & preparing
to bow & say the divine in me
bows to the divine in you. 





Cat Pose


My mat smells
like cat chow.  

As that old song 
“Somebody’s Watching You”

doesn’t say, nobody’s
watching you.

Nobody’s watching me
except both cats

napping on their chair
as I return to my breath,

preparing for corpse pose.
My teacher likes    

“hospice” as a metaphor
for life.  Why maim 

each other?  We’re all 
patients here.            





King Onela's Dog
                      

The Beowulf poet sang 
about “A balm in bed 
to the battle-scarred Swede.”
Some scholar translated
“balm in bed” as “sleeping 
companion,” identifying
this companion as King Onela’s 
favorite dog, not his queen, 
but you know scholars, anything 
to get published.  A dog’s nose
is 100 times more sensitive
than a man’s.  The Great Hall,
unwashed bodies, animal skins, 
chamber pots under the table,
guests, gorged, vomiting
onto the floor, ready for the 
next course.  To be a dog then 
must have been very heaven!
Around 400 A.D. these dogs 
got together & swore fealty to man, 
to be his disco ball & best friend 
forever.  What did the dogs
get in return?  All you can 
eat, some glorious stinks & best 
of all, the infinite loneliness 
of the two-legged tribes.



​

My Prayer


Martians, who believe everything 
on earth is a machine, would wonder 
about our new cat.  Why do earthlings
keep a defective Geiger counter
around the house?  Fundamentalists 
believe something else--
the natural world is a work of art
marred by our sinful fingerprints.
Look at this sunset like a bad watercolor,
the sky littered with glass.  Anyway,
Lord, whoever or whatever you are,
why don’t you take off your starry crown
& drop by some morning for coffee?
I’d really like to chat.

-all poems previously published in Get Serious: New and Selected Poems (Chax Press)