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Song-Riddle: Asian Turtle Box

Questions for a zoologist
starting with anatomy
concluding with love:

Is a turtle"s skin loaned?
True or false: weight of his shell
is lighter
than the light of drums.

What is the under-shell
and is it tough as a mangrove?

Can he see through his shell-box?
Can he see out the rear
to this sea of ours?

Does he exist in the order of things?
How does life begin, when does it end
and is that good or evil?

Convinced, 1957

At last I was convinced that giving in to their thinking represented a huge error in the evolution of my family affairs. Riven with a savage melancholy, not permitted out of the house without two minders — one armed with needle sedative, the other armed with arms — I armed myself with myself and threw off the vulgar superstition and reactionary domination that had up to then poisoned my mental library, imprisoning me, making me believe, with them, that I must have children when I knew that I must not, would not. And I did not.

Lithium Dreams

The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia holds the world"s largest lithium reserves. " As remote and unlikely a place as can be imagined for the world to seek its salvation. " — Matthew Power

Once, volcanoes walked & talked like humans. Married.
Quarreled & gave birth. When the beautiful Tunupa"s

husband ran away & took their only child she mourned:

she cried & stormed, her full breasts spilled until she made
this sunken bed, a dry & ragged ice-white sea. Tears

Death Gets into the Suburbs

It sweats into the tongue and groove
of redwood decks with a Tahoe view.
It slides under the truck where some knuckles

are getting banged up on a stuck nut.
It whirls in the egg whites. Among blacks
and whites spread evenly. Inside the chicken

factory, the Falcon 7x, and under the bridge.

There"s death by taxi, by blood clot, by slippery rug.
Death by oops and flood, by drone and gun.

Death with honor derides death without.
Realpolitik and offshore accounts
are erased like a thumb drive lost in a fire.

Indian Winter

Why does Mama wear
Indira"s red and green earrings?

A jinx is the inverse
of Jewish artichoke;

kinship is the transverse
of no opinion coke.

Flambe is the reverse
of Papa"s poker chips;

touche to the universe
of acquiescent lips.

For the same reason she wears
silent Nehru jacket, holy Nehru jacket.

Almost Nowhere in the World, as Far as Anyone Can Tell

It is pleasant, very pleasant, to sit at a wooden booth
surrounded by parrots, wheels, right-turning conch shells,
the victory banner and the endless knot,
the lotus, the treasure vase, the golden fishes —
is this not so? Is it not pleasant
to sip Tsingtao beer, or Zhujiang, or Yanjing,
and tap your fingers on the bamboo mats?
After we"ve drunk enough, there will be Buddhist Delight,
Mongolian beef side dishes, a whole host of sauces,
even some pizza and chicken wings if children are present,
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