9% Elastene

For months I had thought lost
my favorite pair of underwear
the baby blue Calvin Kleins
that framed my ass in all the right ways.

I wondered where I had taken them off
left them crumpled in a pile
and kicked to the wayside;
one more article
for the locker room lost and found
as I walked home commando.

I entertained the possibility
they’d been pilfered
from the community laundry
taken by someone in need of
the self-esteem boost only granted
by wearing a cute pair of underwear.

And if such was the case,
I was prepared to make of them an offering,
a gift of 91% nylon and 9% elastene,
because really, who wants a pair
of used underwear
except the perverted or the desperate?

Eventually I stopped looking,
became friends with the likes
of Andrew Christian and Diesel
and Evolve by 2xsist,
bought brands unrecognized
from that wondrous behemoth of online retail
where anything is possible and everything for sale.

Then one day I pulled a jacket down from the closet
and felt a bulge in the sleeve
like someone was happy to see me,
waiting to be saved from cotton confines
to fit again like a second skin
and rub against khaki or denim.

And there sat my baby blues
five inches of no-show trunks
captured in the dryer and hung with the rest
and me a fool with only tricks up my sleeve.

April 6 Dandelion Resilience

for my QTs

Let my roots grow deep

Anchored in soil

Both fertile and abandoned.

I will flourish

Where others dare not grow

Let my leaves unfurl

Radially resplendent their jagged edges

Catch solar breezes

From cloudbursts fallen

Bitterness tempered with wisdom

Let my stem reach high

A living straw drawing skyward

The bounty of groundedness

Bent by gusts and footsteps

But unbroken in defiance

Let my flowers spot manicured lawns

Beside daisy and clover in solidarity

Garlands, tossed circles

Like nets used to catch fairies

Crown yardside royalty and parents alike

Let my seeds be the playthings of children

Granting wishes with puffs of breath

Life spreads through sidewalk cracks

Despite sprays and shovels

Declaring otherwise.

Take me in whole

And I will sustain you

Make wine of my petals

And commune with joy.

Speak wildly of weeds

And walk softly

Always walk softly

April 5 Untitled Millenial

This generation was diagnosed

with a touch screen sadness:

Thumbprint faces

smudged and blurred

by the sideswiping of change

and ten megapixel selfies

out of focus but saved to the cloud.

Data error:

the server could not be reached.

Please check you network settings

and write this poem again.

This generation was diagnosed

with a touch screen madness:

Blue screens of death

a simulacrum of skies

tap tap tapping on glass.

The buzzing reply

anonymous legions breaking pixels.

Profiles in profile appear flat

until we take them at face value.

Eleven point arial sings

to be part of this world

riding invisible whitecaps

to hotspots

where heat of the hand meets cold metal and glass.

There is no cure but upgrades and patches.

Moving forward to move on

Warning

Your battery is below ten percent

Battery saver has activated

Please plug in your device

Or this poem will shut down

April 4 Circles

Tangent lines nestled cheek to cheek

with stranded circles

find solace in the singular point of contact.

Ley lines of the body converge in

unreachable places

parallels plucked by divine fingers

take shape

like double helix sinusoids

wrapped in a touchless embrace.

Tangent is the denial of completion

living in the only moment that matters.

April 3 Smoked Alaskan King Salmon Bloody Mary

Something salty, fishy, spicy;

the flavor of a city

rimmed in the glory of the Sound.

Savor this freshness

artisan bottled glass

sweating with condensation.

Mary sings her absolutions

sings for a morning just begun.

April 2 Goats

You can rent goats now in Seattle.

Ordered on Amazon,

one-click landscaping

delivered by drones.

Grinding teeth

making cud of kudzu

on rocky slopes.

Nature’s weed eaters,

reed eaters, everything green feeders.

The swarming herd

clears swaths at minimal cost

April 1: Stuck

You can shake sugar,
shake-a shake the apple tree,
but you'll never shake like glue.
No-sir-ee, I'm gonna stick
the apple,
the stuck you'll never shake.
Gonna run my fingers.
Shake-a shake.
Tighter.
Squeeze.
Because, because
your long black hair
keeps us tied.
I'm gonna grizzly bear
like wild horses
because I'm
stuck, glued sticks
hiding.
In the kitchen. In the hall.
A team of kisses
gonna do you good.
Ain't gonna take a tiger
from love. Grizzly kissin'.
That's how love is gonna keep us tied like side shakes,
like yes-sir-ee
Uh-uh-uh.
I'm gonna stick his daddy's side
tree starts stuck
gonna squeeze apart
Good.

In Memoriam Saeko Kawahara

For my Grandma Sy

Summer 1998

The clam digger squats,

intent upon her hole

filling five empty gallons of soy sauce

with filter-feeding rocks.

She remembers

chanting nam-myōhō-renge-kyō every morning,

the gong praying for peace and for happiness.

Maybe this is a memory of war,

of eight years old in

evacuated Nagasaki, 1945.

Repercussions reverberate.

Oysters crowd around her

as if listening to her story

waiting in line to be cut and dyed

like so many little old ladies of West Seattle.

Her grandson thunders down the dock

prepubescent energy shaking loose 
waves meant for higher tides.

"Deni-chan. Comb he-ah."

Danny as in Daniel.

God is my judge

but not my interpreter.

No, He knocked down a tower

and turned tongues into trees,

contorting vowels unrecognizable

until only consonants remained.

The crossing of oceans splits syllables

forgotten across generations

but blood is saltier than oceans

and accents are heard

decades away from landing at shore.

I read billboards aloud because of you.

I have dimples because of you.

I have years of bowl cuts

and a love of unorthodox Thanksgiving dinners

and a grieving sadness every Valentine's Day because of you.

I was ten.

Your daughter tried to make

me read The Joy Luck Club

to understand you

to understand her.

I couldn't get past the cover,

but I could see her tears.

And still you sit there,

only now, you gather

dust on the bookshelf,

name engraved in the family shrine

across the Pacific,

your company oyster shells

painted with googly eyes

and plastered with striped feathers,

the kind of face only a child could see.

I am still thundering.

I am still making waves.

Digging down to my roots

I am looking for you.

And I am finding myself.