I Lost It

I Lost It

He runs, tipping the backyard garbage pail.
In the kitchen, mom is peeling a carrot.
Knife clanging in the sink, he grabs her leg.

[A robin hobbles on the neighbor's lawn.
Last look at own entrails… open beak.
Worms underground crawl heedless.]

Darling, darling, she bends and lifts,
wiping away his tears --
Where is your new slingshot?

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Coffee Forest

Coffee Forest

Pretty sure it does not grow like this,
I kept dreaming. Trees like sequoias
dangling coffee beans.

Men on scissor-lifts hacking at vines.
The berries falling as I strangled
my pillow.

Other men, side-spike boots, climbing
and cutting as they got higher,
tossed a branch or two, to me.

All of these characters I forget, recalling
your brown eyes, Evita. Recording names
and activities in your ledger.

Following your calves into the quonset
where I pretended to know why I was there
as the sun was setting.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Poems

Poems

Listen to me because I am not saying anything.
Every day of your life is a minimum of twenty of these.
Or thirty.
Or more. No less than ten, if you made it from bed
to toilet. And then drove a car.

Or rode a bus.

Or got back in bed.

So quit asking me things. Quit trying to say stuff.
All the time, yammer, yammer. Is the world so quiet
that you must elaborate?

And yet --
when your lapel caves in because your ribs are dust --
someone will be writing words you cannot fathom now.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010

Sweat

Sweat

Horizon to horizon, it melts me, the sun does.
Sunday to Sunday, I bend to gather what will
never
belong to me or mine.

Water to water, from my brow to this leaf.
Cell to cell, soaking. I am crumpled, working
ever
thirsty, dripping wine.

c. Ciprianowords, Inc. 2010