Brunette Ambition

The full-mouthed waking hour stuffed with rakes,
blowers, and the alley dog's random alarms. For this
I ended my dreams in medias res?
 
I don't date rich men, but Madonna insisted.
My tongue still thrills with lobster, wine and proposals.
You offer eggs and oranges, while urchins
scrape their skateboards in the streets.
 
I am your favorite thorn. On heavy evenings
you breathe chamomile and marigold in my hair.
But bills are pressed in the dictionary, syllables
struggle, and the surf shop grinds next door.
 
Would I have run off to new money
and a pencil mustache, to sit quietly
under a wealthy pine with a quill full of words?
 
Fairy Queen Madonna, would I sell 
for silence what you lost for fame?
Could I win it all back with a nymph's kiss?

Take A Scarf

It very well may be that I am my wardrobe,
the sum of my sweaters--
I am what you and my shoes say of me
while candles burn and the dog bites his fur.
It is possible my toes are insolent and freezing
in those strappy gossips, I'm an uncelebrated, arrogant
belle lettrist and not even the carpet gives a hoot!
Will this choker do me in? Should this honest paste give way
to rubies waxing rubbish? When I 
was pregnant I could not see even my ankles
had so much labor, to unsay the clogs
deep in your undiscerning ears.
Listen Reader, lurking in my closet,
perhaps, you've always been here
waiting for me to indulge you. Take a scarf
lest once again, you leave with nothing.