My mother used to set out a special 
glass dish when there was company.  It had 
a gilded edge, compartments for olives 
and carrot sticks, a third for celery.  
The celery was stringy so it was the 
salty olives and crunchy carrots 
I pinched, special treats, grown-up ones. At the 
cocktail hour, I still favor a snack 
of olives and carrots. No matter if 
the olives are green or black, with pits or 
hollowed out, the carrots Bugs-Bunny big 
or faux-baby small. As they say, it’s all good.  
They’re a fine match, carrots and olives, like 
a loving couple drawn from different worlds, 
one down from trees, the other up from dirt. 
And I, between noon and night, like any 
human child marry earth’s gifts in my mouth,
briefly happy in my muddled middle state. 
                        

Dirt’s dents dig rugged ruts, 
and gravel’s no gladsome guide:
between busted-up boards
all’s deranged, detached, denied.

How do I fare? what
recklessly remember?
I might tell you on Monday 
or maybe next November.

All Arkansas aches;
Maine’s no longer cold;
dry and dour the Dakotas 
and oh, New Hampshire’s old. 

Harmless, homeless, hopeless,
extant yet in exile 
from your human face that
smiled, once in a while.

From me from me from me
to you to you to you—
unwired, wistful, watchful, 
like a lorn leopard in the zoo.