Jiggle

That woman looks so happy
Walking down the street eating her chocolate bar.
Chocolate isn't something I would just eat
Without thinking about it,
Like it was food. Chocolate
Is to be doled out to myself in
Tiny pieces, after I have earned it through
Hard work and a nutritious meal and
Vigorous physical exercise. That's when
I can eat my small square of chocolate.
And this is because my body
Is supposed to be spartan, is not
Supposed to look like it's made
For building babies inside it.
My body is supposed to be
Lean, like a monk, like a captive,
Like a prisoner of war,
Like someone who is not interested
In chocolate, in eating chocolate while
Walking down the street, like that lady
In the long skirt, the loose t-shirt,
The flip-flops, that lady with the body that
Jiggles in the same way mine jiggles
Even though mine is not supposed to.
Mine should be neat like barracks, like
A monastery, like brown rice and steamed
Broccoli, but it's not. Because I have
These hips, this round soft belly,
And most incriminating of all, this ass,
This giant ass, bouncing over plump
Thighs, as if to announce to every gawking passerby:
This is a woman!

Rabbit Poem for JK

Those are rabbit ears

Sticking straight up, like television antennae

From that pile of meat and intestine on the road

And that is a patch of brown fur

Soft like my sun-warmed cat on a bright morning.

That’s what happens.  One day your body is a miracle

Of function, a machine that turns food into

Ideas, a bundle of engines and pumps and converters connected

By neat rivers of blood carrying oxygen

To cells, which are also machines,

A trillion of them, pumping in symphony,

A masterpiece.

And then another day, it could be any day, just,

Bam, you get smashed

In the street.  One bad day,

Wrong risk taken. The car, the gun, the virus,

The overdose, the heart

That just stops. The perfect thing

Crushed into a mess of sticky unfixableness.

I think someone wrote a poem about this already.

I think someone wrote ten thousand poems

About this. It’s just so

Obvious.  But I can’t help sticking on it.

Blood on fur, organs collapsed, tiny perfect ears.

Do you think someone loved him? Did he have little rabbit

Cousins, who used to hop by his burrow

For some killer carrot cake? Did he use

His little rabbit paw to stamp tiny

Rabbit paintings into the soft mud by the hedge?

Did he ever smack that paw

Against a friend’s face, say, “You need

To get your life together, stop running

In the street, before you get

Yourself killed.”

Not bothering to mention how the other rabbits

Said the same about him, that he scared them

That he had darkness inside him, that he

Sought out drama, danger.  That he was weird.

That the brightness of his anger, the

Fierceness of his pain was easier to set aside

To deal with later, to forget.

When he disappeared, did they say,

“Oh, that’s so sad.  But hardly

Unexpected.”  Were they just a little

Relieved?

I know someone wrote a poem about this already.

I know they wrote a hundred thousand

Poems, but it sticks with me.  No point

Dwelling on it. But I can’t stop

Piecing this stinking garbage pile back

Into a rabbit, gathering the stomach

And intestines and spleen, stringing veins

Like tinsel, puzzling together bits

Of skull and brain.

And last, those ears, sticking

Straight up like antennae, tiny ears striped

Through with tiny veins, tiny blood cells

Carrying the unmeasurable love and suffering of the universe
From ear to brain to heart.

The Duty

I know a woman who had it for six weeks.
Six weeks! It could happen
To anyone, ripped as if by cancer and broken bones
From life and normal things. We pretend to be immune but,
Like cancer and broken bones, it calls us all in time.

Each day she rode the train from Livermore
To Oakland, my home. For her, it was going somewhere
She would not normally go. Quarantined in the county seat, she
And eleven of her peers called a man a murderer
Then went for beers. So it turns out

Their shared trial formed a bond, and they remain
Best friends to this day. Talk about
A positive attitude. "It could happen
To you," she says. But we all know,
Just like there's no such thing as true love

Or true justice or learning from suffering,
It wouldn't happen to you.

Like reasonable people, I live in terror
Of my summons. I always defer
To the twenty-third of December, which is not
A holiday. If you must come for me,
O Judge, come then. I'll be waiting, limbs
Stretched, bones ready for breaking.