SIMPLE BIOLOGY
Everyone that I have ever known
who would say “I think we’re
getting somewhere!” ate donuts.
I think of them as The Donut-Eaters.
What a movie this could be!
with their getting somewhere
and eating donuts, and me
watching from a safe distance
under an apple tree
with my tummy making
sounds and all the paper wolves
in my head staring at
the donuts in my heart
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CRY MOVIES
I love movies that have no love or sex in them.
Usually I find that movies that have sex in them
mean somebody will get pregnant and then there
will be one more name to remember. Usually I find
movies that have love in them also have death in
them, because if you love someone and they don’t
die, what’s the point of crying? There’s no drama.
You can’t have someone crying for no reason, not
in a movie. Although I do remember this one movie
in which everyone was crying all the time–cry, cry, cry.
They were all strangers and they were crying
all the time. They were all crying because they
were all strangers and loneliness makes you cry.
It was the most beautiful movie I ever saw.
When at last they died because of loneliness,
which of course they would have to,
I made a new decision about the movies
I would from now on see.
You can now cry in movies
that I will from now on see.
But if you cry, you must die,
and even if you are born
half way through, and even
if you are young and soon
lonely and then die, I will
still not remember
your name.
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I KNOW OF PAINTINGS WITH HUMAN FACES
I know of paintings with human faces
and the faces are composed of fruit
the smile is guava and the eyeballs
are mangos and the noses are bananas
and the lips are papaya and the hair
is coconut. Surely what the painter
is telling us is that we come from
a tropical island and there is no
going back from this place of love
and over abundant sunshine and
surely there is no reason to–
Our faces are beautiful and we must
learn to trust and to love and to never
eat ourselves alive until that cloudy day
When the painter goes home for lunch
and never comes back