at the rate of  3.78cm per year
 
Crossing  Central Park,
a trainer stops and lets his husky
lick salt from his fingers. 
The badge pinned to her halter 
says he’s teaching her to be a Helper.
 
Wide front paws 
lie side by side on the Great Lawn.
She’s not full-grown
but she is wise, aloof
from me and other passers-by.
 
I hope her future owner
relishes the luster
of her silver coat, the gleam 
of amber in her lake-blue eyes,
 
not that a husky minds 
if her invalid is blind, 
or deprived, by improvised explosive,
of hands, feet, face, 
or mind. 
 
Her name is Artemis,
like the Goddess.
She will help a human 
move more nimbly  
through this wounded place
 
while the Moon,
the Moon, forgets its name
as it travels into space.
                        

A sweeper gathers coins
from the floor of the fountain.
The Ocean God looks on, glad
to have more space for water,
less for wishes
 gathered before dawn and given 
to the poor of Rome.
 
A rabbi pries with a broom  
slips of paper from the Western Wall, 
which has no need for paper as mortar.
What about the prayers
drawn from a pilgrim’s soul 
and tucked between the stones? 
Too holy for the poor, they are buried
beside worn siddurs and scriptures.
 
My own paper wish 
was whisked away by a sweeper
who told me to visit the Wall 
and pray with the women.
When Beauty and Joy
 were mentioned in the poem
ha-Shem wouldn’t listen.
The words wouldn’t come.
 
They needed to be changed
and chanted like a psalm.
                        

		“The flower began as a plea and ended as a phenomenon.”      
			Ferris Jabr, The New York Times 

His slim tongue sips 
from secret pools
underneath the petals.

Iridescent Guest
and Host, together ,
resemble a single
multicolored flower—

	Beija-flor!

—until the honey-drunk,
pollen-powdered Visitor
flies off on another errand.

You and I
like branch and vine
are intertwined for reasons 
I refuse to explain.