Cautionary Poem

These are
       the words
              your mother warned you about
These are
       the long bladed scissors
              with which you cut
an ordinary day,
       which will answer questions
              about heaven and its mindless
gestures. Which is not
       to say that dying for lack of love
              is better than not leaping
from that second story window
       and resigning yourself
              to merely being
there.
       You could lie
              in the street and wait
for passersby to tell you what's wrong,
       meaning, for sure
              the demise of good form,
the arrival of year-round torrential rains, with
       flooding so bad
              crying is outlawed.
Hush, little baby-
       I mean, don't you cry.
              I mean, don't run
with scissors, don't think
       about taking that last flight
              out of Casablanca.
The Germans never wore blue
       and besides, this desert's the right place
              to be. Just look
at all that space, move closer
       to the knowledge that the sun was born
              in Disneyland.
This is why
       you should
              wear clean underwear
just in case
       you ever end up
              in a poem like this.



Language Lessons

A word has meaning
only if it excludes something: a dog
        [is not] a cat [is not]
a triangle
of birds heading south, light
        [is not]
dark, even though
it appears like that sometimes.
Speak: Say you want to be
  a night watchman.
Say it with authority:
any man
in Eden
is already trespassing. Kick the dog
        [which is not]
tongue-tied with sorrow: it wails.
You compose a thank-you note:
For witnessing what has become
        of me since the fall--thank you.
        I am learning--
        I am learning how to say
apple and how it falls
into my hand like a woman's breast.