After Reznikoff

Sixth Avenue, midmorning: car exhaust
Makes pixels in thick air; the sudden shade
Of awnings; scattered cereal and seeds
Lie fresh across the sidewalk underneath.

One pigeon struts, his confident bright crop
Extended towards a second, worn and squat;
The first edges the other
Into visibility
And into the sun, away from the trails of grain.

Paper Anniversary
for Jessica Bennett

          Pale rain retraces Chelsea, and a pale
receding sky the color of new bread;
          sharp buds on the new rosebush—pinks,
enticing whites: the same
          new colors as the flowers fully spread.

Self Portrait as Kitty Pryde

I have been identified
as gifted & dangerous. People fight over me
but not in the ways I want. Who would expect
it in a girl from Deerfield, Illinois,
town of strict zoning, no neon & quality schools?
I pass through difficult physical laws, cement,
flames, cupboards, crowds, tree trunks & arguments,
precociously, like something to protect.
I am always going through some phase.

My best friend spent apprentice years
alone inside a study like a star.
My wide eyes & Jewish hair
are shyness, a challenge to artists, &
untouchable. I can slip out of the back of a car.
When I am tired I dance, or pace
barefoot on the civilian ground
of Salem Center, where rain falls through me.
I have begun to learn to walk on air.

Adventures overemphasize my age.
In my distant & plausible future I will bear
one child, scorn, twenty-five pounds
of technology on my back, & the further weight
of giving orders to a restless band
of misfits who save America from its own rage
but cannot save themselves, & stay up late.
My friends & the fate of the world will have come to rest,
unexpected, staccato, in my sophomore hands.