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I.

I live aloneexcept for Fangfangwho is long hairs on the bathroom floorair thick with tamari on Saturdayswhispers of her husband Junghai on Sunday mornings.

Living room more like a lounge,politely underused,

the heater we don't bother turning on.

A fork sweet with green chiliand white cakeplate dusty with crumbs—

I live alone.Except for the shadow of a dark manwho is my father—

Except for the houseful of Greeks,Irish, Italians who changed their namesand left one to rummage

Among the Bobs, Johns, Robs,Jims, Toms, and Als—among the horse thieves—

My grandmother who couldn't driveshowed me her sketchbook from 1950,rounded pencil portraitsof Playboy pin-ups—

she, and the one who traded arts—

My arms in Californiamy chest that breathes me in the darkmy body, color of Cairo sandDown the cliff to a beach where fat palmsstand sentineland waves break against rocks,pebbles ground to gun powder,you pick one upand realize it is jade—

La Val's, its neon beer stein tipping into nightspilling a blood scream over the arched browsof Spanish windows,branches curtain the game on the big screen,colors whiz by, oblique—and laughter—

The knock of espresso grinds brings me back—the boy across from me reads Under Milk Wood.

II.

        Are we no longer prisoners of beauty?I wake up drooling on a copy        of every book I ever longed to be.

        I have avoided the first personperhaps because when I look there        I find only shadows.

        That moon shape—        furtive absence—

        after we've decided        what's enough.