ON THE CUSP OF RECALL

The woman holds
a basket woven from
spiders-web silk.
It's filled
with traditions
forgotten,
and she wanders
through
the sleeping city
trying to remember
the architecture
of love,
the customs
that combine
to make a life.
She feels close
to grasping
the notion,
but before
her mind
can get a fix—
it separates
and she is
left tremulous
with despair.

AN ASSEMBLING OF POEMS

Alarming poems,
thirsty for gossip,
slink from Dante's
storm drains
Creep through
streets, dark
with secrets,
to where poets
famous, and not,
gather in salons.

They meet
to speak,
their tongues
bathed in bronze
cognac, keen
as razors.
Pretend to think
loftily, mouth
ideas of import.