Little Tokyo

There's only one way
to find out of the ginger's real-
or if it's even ginger at all-
and that's to taste it,
to pick up the chopsticks
and feel the flavor while the cool sake
courses through my blood & the old man
sings Japanese commands into the cell phone
at the table beside us.

I took a picture of him
while he wasn't looking, his noodle bowl
suspended and his chopsticks working the air
like a mixed-up conversation-
until it all quiets with the presence
of a new guest, the conversation pacing
like it's twenty years old,
the friend grabbing the soup spoon
and threatening to dig in
but warded off by the waving hand
that says, "No, you old dog. Get your own."

So he gets his own and starts
with a miso soup, the rhythm between them
so familiar the silences are predictable
but rare-

The promenade fills with afternoon people
and languages and in the middle
a little Japanese woman in a faded orange
sweater - so many people walking alone,
so many people walking together,
mothers and daughters forty years apart.

Old men greet over a small bamboo fence,
old men call each other to the table
and they laugh and grab for silverware
and money, sharing the price of a meal
and an afternoon relaxing
beneath the grey California sky.

19 Feb 03

†

2 A.M. on Monday

She plays with her feet when she's tired,
fussing a little very now and then
stretching like a leftover morning
sleepy evening everything unrested.

An early morning, groggy eyed awakening,
hair tussled lion girl with her motor toes
moving everywhere at once and singing
songs with words that don't exist.

16 Nov 03
for Sophia

†

Did You Even Realize?

Did you even realize the walls
are painted white?
Or that Charlie Chaplin posters adorn
a whole wall between walls
of Diego Rivera and General Zapata?

If cornucopias were found at Mexican feasts,
this one would surely be full
of surprises: my husband drinking beer
from a can, eating guacamole,
sitting tall, waiting for the pen.

†

Maple Street Collaboration

Metamorphic mimes of animalistic
traits, specific as morning sunlight washing
everything soft and cotton light and white
smothering the limbs in the
sun swimming in the darkness of
light--like firefly embers in the black-night
ferns that grow like plastic bubble-gum
jewelry incubating on my neck and fingers.

Fingers fly through the loom of
life as they weave the pattern
of fate. So turn it into something new, a fresh
beginning, the beginning of the end and an
African sun and tantalizing rays
of the moon will light your way.

30 May 04

A collaboration of
Kristen Gremillion, Sallie Slater, Michael Dingler & Katie Bowler

†

sweet Vidalia purple eye shadow

Sweet vidalia purple eye shadow--
like darkness emptying a black night into morning
sunlight sparkle eyelids and a smile
beside me, take a sip, stay awhile, sing away the
hours--tick tock tick tock--the clock is working
against the black rocks--water slipping over slick
algae flavored raised leg upon a beer-laden
table-top nightmare & other conversations drifting
between the happy beginning and the
happy oysters in a brackish bay, swinging
daylight breeze cold & forlorn and there's hope of
Thursdays turning into himself, a hallway of broken
mirrors that show that every day is the best day of my life.

30 May 04

†

The last place we went together

The last place we went together: a red
summer delight, a green warm & humid
charade, dancing bodies & fingertips telling an invisible
storybook tale of planet-wide soul
work--work work work!--let's turn this chore
into Sunday morning fun, the stem of which
is pure satisfaction, like warm water on a cool evening,
like dreaming of sour apple tastes of
wrought iron twisting & curling, sunshine
washing the baby's grey & trying wisdom,
running miracles into distant horizons, another lost
year--a conglomeration of days and
experiences, a lost dream, a sense memory
leaving the toilets upright in a
dark and empty garden.

30 May 04

†

Midnight Breakfast after Avenue Faulkner

The flowers red soft & quiet in the midst
of Friday night Russell's Marina Grill noise
seem like a tangerine goldness full of glow
when we were done--like midnight
stars under an art deco light and a Greek woman's
smile--let's roll this sky into morning, turn stars
into passion cloud suns beaming bright as yellow
sails gliding on the sea, a wide blue becoming black
in the empty night there up on a glittering seventh
hill called blinded eyes or empty eyes--either way
nothing but memory closed like the sea deep down
riddening ourselves of almost-lost memories
drawing themselves on our skin, tan & cream & full
of splendor sparkling like incandescent fireworks
exploding across a crested water that sings a siren's
wisdom, always there in your eyes, open and big,
wide while the treasure sparkles like the fire sunset
in your blue eyes--all the brilliance and stars--
even at 2 a.m. over coffee.

†

" Painting grout lines"

I lived a quiet night goodbye
wrestled on the floor painting
grout lines with my finger tips
longing to be long with you,
and later, you slept with the blue
light streaming through the window,
your skin warm with covers-

by morning you were gone
like the last silk fabrics slipping
through seamstress hands-
your motion like wind through the bedroom,
then the sad sound of the front door closing.
I imagined you moving
across the yard with an armful
of books, stepping with your tiptoes,
dew laying peaceful on moist morning grass.

23 Sept 04