misaligned

if you think i
will fall that easily into your arms
pay an arm and a leg
to make you happy
and whistle while i work

if you think i
am your easy listening station
your weekly ration of food
your proof of success
a battle won while sleeping

if you think i
can solve your pains
will hear your sorrows
and mend them with
my own sad hands

if you think i
am capable of loving you
am the one who knows you like
no other

if you think i
see that you are something special
see where you came from
see where you are going
care about your every move

if you think i
want to know your history
want to seal your past with
strawberry lip-gloss kisses
and carefully placed praise
of your many, so many, talents

if you think i
am the one who will save you
serve you
be with you till the end
get you through
get you up
teach you the rest of the story
and tell you the rest of the idea

if you think i
will let you make me feel crazy
and give up my world for yours
and
will ask me for what you could
never give
then you are partially right
and you are just like
all the others.

feral

this time of year the
highway
(or is it freeway)
has red dots of broken tomatoes
on its shoulders
and the drivers of those
trucks
sway and dart untrained
along the asphalt

when i arrive at my
parents' house
the aroma greets me before they do
dad is canning tomatoes
he wears a safeway apron backwards
that no doubt came from a dumpster
and there is a shopping cart in the
backyard
full of wool for my mother's spinning

he is peeling tomatoes
and she is pulling stickers out of
buffalo down
i find a cat that will tolerate my
petting
and settle down in the cool grass
prepared to listen to their stories
one at a time

most of them are scavenger stories
wool, taxi cab signs, lamps and a
vase for me, held up by white frogs
one of which is missing a foot

i do my own scavenging at their house
basil leaves and a toad that immediately
pees on my hands
but lets me pet him more than any of the
cats that skitter around when i come near

germaine is the name i choose for the black kitten
that tolerates my touch
he has one white whisker and
purrs while looking at me perplexedly

i leave after a few hours
of watching them steadily stirring
tomatoes
and picking at buffalo down

by the time i leave
germaine is scared of me again
always ironic to me
how all those cats are frightened
of the love we want to share with them

rather hard to be thwarted in attempts
to make another feel good
rather sad to feel the impotence of
misunderstanding
when you mean so well

strange that i still try.