my mother’s muscles wanted—as now,

I seem to be writing, but I’m listening for what you want,

it would be my joy to give it to you.

There is so much joy on the earth even as it is being dis-inhabited

by the other animals, and over-inhabited by us—as it is being

knocked off course and smoked and drowned.

While we have food, let us share it and eat it.

There is so much action required of us now.

And pleasure is required of us.

O my darlings, so much pleasure is required of us.

If I Were to Sing Myself,

and celebrate myself,

I would start with the fact that I wait for the pitch,

not chopping the bat, desperate, but

attending, in my Circe wheelhouse,

then circling the ash, up and back,

making the loop of a bow, which cinches

its knot when the ball is hit, and the ribbon of my

single falls between third and short.

Then I might sing my slow, portly

stroll from my towel, on the sand, toward the water,

my cellulose, my cellulite humps

and humpesses calling Matron! Matron!

(a Maiden forty pounds ago)—

flesh now rich with kisslessness,

opulent with celibacy,

bearing the actions of eating and drinking

taken against the body’s craving.

And then the walking into the lake

icy with snowmelt—fully in

and under, to the pure, deaf,

wide-eyed stripes of chartreuse, navy,

and sapphire, out toward the deep center,

then the turn,

and back up the slope to the bank, the parea

clinging to my staggering thighs—and in rivulet snakes, down over the breasts,

my hair, which will dry to silver ripples.

Meanwhile, tottering on titanium femur-knobs, I’m

glistening, within and without,

then supine under the sun, so much of me, and mostly so luscious.

And when I sang my fat lament,

someone said, No, not fat—

zaftig! Rubenesque! and I thought,

Ithyphalliques et pioupiesques! And I

strode to the fire and the wine, my feet

touching, in their worn sandals,

the pink snow-tips of the sugar-packed peaks.

Into Tahoe

Then I couldn’t remember what water is made of.

Maybe mineral, worked

and softened, over time. The agate of it,

closely rippled, golden, parts without

difficulty, to permit my foot

down and in, and now the whole

semi-solid of the lake is misshapen,

cut into by this human appendage.

Where has the water gone which my thick

twig has displaced? Then the other foot, then the

wading, into the stone cold.

Knees, thighs, life-shock of the sex—

slowly, from the soles up, the bottom

half of a creature is appearing in the water as if

lowered down, out of the sky.

Moment of the waist!—surface of Tahoe

ringing it, the lower torso and

legs enclosed in the ice-water skirt.

And now the danger approaches the ribs,

from the half-loops up, and now alpine frigor has the

lungs and heart in clean attack,

the breasts firm up,

and icicle summer takes the shoulders.

Now there is a body of winter,