or dancing on the roof in a mirror his grandfather saved

from a burning city whose streets were raked

by a rain of gunfire like this one.

Open for Business

Newspaper bunched in hand,

you’re misting the door with Lysol,

wiping the glass panels in wide arcs.

But the man in the blue paisley bandana

who’s whistling the opening bars

of ‘Hanv saiba poltoddi voita’

isn’t planning to get scrubbed off the menu.

He’s pushing through with a crate of eggs,

his hands itching for whisk and skillet,

the first Spanish omelette of the day.

He’s a dancer sweet-talking the boatman

into getting her across the river.

You’re a tightrope-walker with a limp, nursing

a sore throat. You spray the swinging air with soap.

Rain Dance

The dancer wilts,

her early lessons in balance

squandered.

The first rains lift her spirits.

Only much later, as she hears

the reassuring peal of thunder

and the sky empties out

cloud by cloud,

will it come to her:

lightning travels faster.

The news comes late,

the damage already done.

Figures on an Amphora

The girls of this town are dancing drunk

in festive black on the minotaur’s horns.

Their laughter garlands his thick neck

and perfumes his scored, sweating hide.

Pierced by their supple pride,

dragged in chains from his lightless maze,

seared by the baying crowd, the intended sacrifice

shifts from hoof to spurred hoof:

he shakes his scarred bronze head

to a tune from his calfhood no one else can hear.

When he opens his eyes, the song ends.

His fists clench around its closing phrase.

The first dancer feints, pirouettes, leaps at him

with a somersault: her palms strike air,

her feet find purchase

on nothing, she shrieks as the sky

dodges her grip in the torchlight.

The horned ghost doesn’t miss a beat

as she slides off his oiled, glistening back

and breaks under his dancing hooves.

Under the Tree of Tongues

there is no healing.

Eight Rules for Travellers to Thebes

Beware of babies left on hillsides with their feet pierced.

Don’t fight with old men where three roads cross.

Don’t marry a queen twice your age.

Don’t ask oracles what they mean.

Leave fallen brooches alone.

Keep a list of sanctuaries handy.

Try not to answer riddles too quickly.

The sphinx keeps the hardest questions for the end.

Miniature Painting

the worshipper as lost cloud

as woodpecker

as five-crested tree

as turmeric plume in the night sky

the god as spray of rose petals

as parrot wings sparking against rock

as the sea’s voice at first light

the worshipper

as leaf serrated by the shears of love

the god as spear point piercing the rainclouds

the god

as half-moon and starburst

as hermit lying on a deerskin at the river’s edge

the god

as pomegranate tree

the worshipper

as its bending shadow

the worshipper

as kneeling saint

the worshipper

as runaway bride