Ode to a Hard-Ass Bed

Your woods are not lovely, dark or deep
Yours is not an invitation to sleep
“Sleep if you must!” you say,
And rest thy weary bones on bricks instead of hay
Because at the end of a long, weary day—
This is Fresno. This is Sparta. This is life.
And though you sigh, and though you shudder,
At the end of a long, weary day,
You’ll take this bed over nothing at all
Instead of sleeping like the dead,
You’ll rest on this bed coughed up by Hell.

Leviathan’s Handmaiden

There she stands, Leviathan’s handmaiden—
Halfway in the water, and halfway out,
The photograph is worn, the clothes,
A plaid Victorian dress
And she scrubs the ivory throne
Of the one she serves, but she looks through the photograph
Like it’s a mirror, or a portal to another place
The whiskered fishes saunter by
And the colors are all faded, title scratched
Name forfeit, when she took this job
But surely she knew that, going in.

Our Lady of Sunbeams

Our Lady of Sunbeams,
She washed up on the beach,
Clothed herself in red to match
The streaming hair, lips of fire
Hers is a deep-rooted sadness,
And she closes her eyes,
Birds of Observation tending
To her messy halo
She is not the Lady of Death,
And her domain is not
Sorrow in closure
But tears of cleansing, the
Queen of Spring Cleaning
Of the heart.
Praise her,
Our Lady of Sunbeams.

From Columbus

Subject: From Columbus
Sir:
I hand you your city. They have sold lumber to be shipped
For delivery—ask if it can be routed,
Save a switching
We will absorb the $2.00 ourselves
Won’t you take this matter up?
I will not, until I
Kindly return.
Very Truly,
Mme. Estelle