Consider Bones

      ...When I started painting the pelvis
      bones I was most interested in the
      holes in the bones -- what I saw
      through them.
                                -Georgia O'Keeffe

The hard parts
of a body, skull, vertebrae,
pelvis. Bleached flowers
of the desert delicate
as lilies. Raise one blossom,
say the pelvis--life's first cradle--
to the sunrise. Look through
an egg-shaped window,
a nimbus or doorway. Stand
on the red threshold
of reflected light
and consider the possibilities
of yellow. Something as simple
as your favorite dress
in high school. Ripe lemon
graying with each wash
until relegated to hang
limply in the black closet.
Or as complex as sun,
source of color, seemingly constant
but already changed
before its light reaches
your eyes, organs of vision
all too soon jaundiced with age.




If a balancing rock falls,

will there be a reflection?
If I sleep naked, is a fire more
ferocious than tangling with a length
of pink flannel? Minds wander,

goldfish swim through the same
castle time and again. And what

about the mystery of goat
roping? Is it a rodeo sport,
or something more dangerous
like a blow job in a blue
Chevy pick-up after the bars
close? The goat's opinion is never
mentioned and the rock never falls
unless you're on top of it. I saw

a tree fall once--on Cumberland
Island. Its crash caused an armadillo
to take notice, a kind of reflection.
If only I had an armadillo
in my front yard, I could teach

it to eat fire ants. If only
I had the tenacity of a fire and biting
into a big toe and holding
until squashed flat
If only I could fearlessly sleep

naked, knowing at the first whiff
of smoke I would awaken and sprint
into the street with nothing to
trip me up, my breasts and belly
and legs all reflecting
foreign orange tongues.