Twelve Thousand Suppers From the Wedding Day

Your blood could sheet this stainless steel, 
slide down the blade like dishwater,
droplets staining the worn linoleum.

I lay the knife down on the paper towel.
The fat potatoes fall
helpless, naked,
into the seething pot.

Pursuing the Muse

             for Barbara DeCesare


She distributes her dreams on tracts 
in cluttered coffeehouses, 
tosses out ideas like beads
at Mardi Gras parades, 
chases her fate as if it were
foretold by some old Oracle.

She zings sharp colored pebbles 
at Life's anklebones--
and when Life turns, frowning,
to raise an admonishing hand,
she flounces her skirt 
and skips down the alley like the Gingerbread Man
to tease the cow and the fox.

Some days she plays dress-up:
gauzy veils, her mother's hat, 
a diamond ring on every finger;
some nights she dances naked
under the round-mouthed moon.

Sometimes, somber-faced, 
she kneels in the jagged alley,
combing through gravel and debris 
for just one or two more 
sharp-edged colored stones.

The Gorgon Diaries

She imagines being Medusa, the cold anger
rising, writhing like serpent locks.
Her hair has always been too thin and fine, 
but hate gives it body, several bodies,
a life of its own, lifting and hissing, fixing
the enemy with a flat obsidian stare,
green laser light emitting from her eyes
like the best special effects 
from old Harryhausen flicks.
The emerald glow flickers and fixes,
directed by rage, background echo
of weird pulsating music that always plays
when someone in the close-up frame is "It".
Striving for calm, she stands before the bathroom mirror,
splashes cold water on her face, 
looks herself intently in the eyes wondering
if in fact her heart has actually
turned to stone.