Tang                                               

The auditorium was lit
a dim blue

as the room filled with men
smelling of wood chips

and women with long gray
ponytails.

The speaker spoke lyrically
of redwoods reaching
a vanishing point beyond
sight

and railed against disposables.

We all applauded her.

Later our carefully combed
blue-shirted hosts

ushered us to the book signing

and served us Tang
in clear plastic cups.

Love Letter From Death Row       

Consider these hands, and the good they could do
if they once again held you. Consider too that they
killed a man, and society has ruled they must die-
waste, perhaps, but the way of the world and love.
Consider the work they have done in the meantime,
letters they have written, hours they have counted,
walls they have punched, stars they have tried to hold.
Consider these hands and the good they could do.
 

Disappointment                                 

She had practiced on Ritalin.
She had been thin anyway.
The line of coke up her nose
was to reinvent herself
after the breakup.
Meg said it was fun,
just like an orgasm,
and it was the release
she missed the most.
 

The Only Thing                          

The young Guatemalan in cigarette shirt,
his quiet wife in a dark blue flower print,
and all their small round kids
make fireworks at home.
It's the only work he knows.

He heard about an accident five years ago
in which five children died;
packing the gunpowder, that's really
the only dangerous part.

He hopes for a loan from the government,
or help from smartly-dressed aid workers,
so he can pull tomatoes or weave baskets,
or find a direct buyer for the fireworks.
It's the only work he knows.