I Gather These Crumbs

I gather these crumbs-
your laughter’s reverberation
tossing your boy smile
over your shoulder
at me.

Your arm’s determination
snowballing the high arch,
missing your mark.
Your fleeting disclosure,
never foreseen.

I tuck them
in my pocket to drop
along my way,
my day- a trail
through the trees.

I Am Jazz (Nikki Giovanni)

I am jazz
I am smooth but not pop
I am cool but not contained
I run the soundtrack
Of your life


You enter me with dissonance
Then command a little rag


There may even be a prayer or two
Somewhere in there


I am jazz


When you are alone
I come to you
Giving you rhythm to work
And rhyme to care


I agree with pure jazz
I am safe for your dog
Cool for the cats
Salt in the pond
For your fish


You need me
Admit it
You need me

Long Before This Tenderness Between Us Was Born (John Rybicki)

Whitman knew he was a drop
of light that fell splashing against
the mud and landed upright a man

sprouting calves and hips, the sweet
fruit already ringing in his chest.
Imagine the orchestra of drops

pouring from God's face, long before
the throat became a smokestack,
long before this tenderness between us

was born, there was a mouth rising
from the ground to pool like some
birdbath under you, a drum

where your navel sits, and a hut
whose walls were bathed in lamplight.
Tonight you listen to our daughter sleep.

You flick her bedroom light off
because it's the one hard star
you are in charge of.

You lean in the doorway
pouring your blood
up to our daughter's throat

where it sits like some blanket
you keep even though she lives
on the outside of you now.