Signals
from within,
You pause, watch, listen

Lift a pen,
trace a form's
impression in letters

A copper sculpture
suspends
in air

like a shifty question:
Why?
Why did he prescribe a drug

strong enough to quell anthrax
too strong for her minor
infection?

It caused an allergic jolt
"Devastating," she called it
(One not prone to drama)

Pain stung,
she faltered for days,
too weak to stand

In a daze
jot it down
and follow

Vibration of a slammed door
husband off to work early
I remove headsets

worn to aid sleep
The house creaks!
Steady, not an earthquake

just a old home's yawn and stretch
And traffic hum of the 101
fills the warm bedroom

Sip black tea, begin to recall
another floaty dream piece:
Standing before

a yawning librarian
asking for a dictionary:
"I need to look up C.R.W."

She shrugs,
"None to be found
Don't you see we're REMODELING?"

He brings a ready-made
lunch in a box and a new
Bio on Virginia Wolfe

With a "See, I told you"
look in his eye.
I settle hungrily to read

Wake. Find myself
working a sticky pen,
hunched

over recycled paper
My feet curled under this old desk.
Flooded with new

thoughts:
a friend's wedding,
the health-care rally soon at noon

The poem presses on and on
signals
its will…

Patagia,
2009/11/5
San Francisco