Recent Poems of Late Summer

Dog Walks

I have a dog now
When I awake
Instead of showering
And picking out my clothes
And riding my bicycle to the coffee shop
To write and study prose for an hour
Before the day takes flight,
I walk.
Unbathed,
With my sunglasses,
And a crumpled plastic bag,
And of course, the dog.
A three-year-old fawn colored pug
I acquired while practicing the opposite
Of prudence, while in China.
She’s got tongue out,
And pulling on the leash.
Writing was always what I did first,
And now it’s walking,
It’s urgent and early as we try to make our way
Around the park before the hot summer
Sun turns the asphalt into a hot plate.
I know when it’s too hot to take the dog out
When she sprints to the shadows.
Nina, dog of the orient, flown across the Pacific,
A practice in my personal gratification,
A warrior to ward of loneliness,
She sleeps on my bed,
And wakes to yawn loudly and stretch,
To remind me it’s morning,
And time to walk.
　

My Armpits
　
I don’t shave my armpits.
At first out of laziness,
And then out of awe,
That yes,
I grew hair there
And yes,
It was beautiful
In the unkept and startling way
Nature can be.
Then I didn’t shave my armpits
Because of Feminism,
If they don’t
Why should we?
Then, it was winter,
　
And then it wasn’t anymore,
But I found a boyfriend who liked my armpit hair.
He saw it as bold and unconventionally sexy.
Then, he was gone too.
I thought about spending $3 on a razor at the drugstore,
But instead,
I went to the coffee shop
And bought a café aulait and a cookie,
And wrote this poem.
　
I’ve tried to justify my armpit hair’s existence for so long,
Why not let it be?
As another part of me?
　

　
A penny

What can it buy today?
It’s no good for laundry mats,
Or buses,
Or parking meters,
Or anything for sale on shelves,
Ah! What it bought then,
A bag of hard candy,
A bar of soap,
A needle with different colored threads,
A baby turtle,
A sprig of flowers,
A cup of peanuts,
Oh penny, no use you have today,
Save to make correct change.
You are a gesture of nostalgia for America’s past.
　

Cat on Girard Ave SE.
I picked up a cat from the middle of a busy street.
She was dying and bled a little bit from the nose
And raised her left paw,
Slightly curved in a gesture of goodbye
Again and again
She moved her paw up and down.
Traffic curved around us.
My friend Amy held the leash of my whining dog.
I placed one hand under her,
She felt soft, intact, whole.
Perhaps her last gesture was not a flexed paw,
It was only a cry for help,
Or one of surrender to this world
Of barking dogs and speeding cars,
Because when I picked her up,
I felt a purrrrr
Long and sound,
And when I put her back down,
That was all.