UNIFORM CONTROL
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:40pm
I’ll have no truck
with nurses in purple pinafores
& black pants —
just let Me have
My Cats
My House
My Dreams
of a little brown elf
I will pluck
from these unsalted
waters
The Hawk T.V. Room 12:38pm
I got enough sleep
Not The Sleep Of The Dead
still in My Pyjamas
She seems to want Me
close —
My Daughter’s Cat
I tell Her “It’s OK”
I pet Her “It’s All Right”
She gives a breathy mew
& lifts Her Head
to Live
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:41pm
Oh to be an Egyptian Tabby
dying on Her Mat of Gold
pampered to excess
until the last pet
sees Her through
to the next
January 27, The Hawk Queen Bed 11:22pm
Old Cat Named Abby
Can You See The Dark
Before You?
With Your Plaintive Mew
How Can I Get Through
The Night With
Or Without You?
The Hawk Window Seat 5:20pm
A Sunset scatters
Itself across
The Wildest Sky
with tiny outlines of Gold
along the bottomest of cloud
I hear The Wind Song along
the southern face of My House
and watch a neighbour’s weathervane
list in translation
Eliza’s Room 2:30pm
I live in a lavender room
where I have pulled up
the curtain against a backdrop
of rolling waves
and scrub spruce tree tops
above a painted chest
housing My Mother’s Childhood Diaries
I am sanctified
in My Daughter’s Room
where The Out-stretched Quilt
of rippling bands of purple
spreads Itself beneath two walls
of My World Trade Center Rooftop Painting
titled Self Organizing Galaxy
and beneath My Signature
in three-foot-high letters
coloured Black
The Hawk Outpost 5:20pm
I am kneading in line
with The Low Line of Lichen
wrapped around Our Scraggly Apple
matching up with The Linear Extension of Scrub Spruce
against which The Apple’s Naked-tipped Tops
reach for The Sky’s Haze of Pink
I put My home made dough
to rise
The Hawk Dining Room 11:09am
I catch The Silver Glare
off The Ocean beyond
a neighbour’s shed
The Sky is paraded
by a scattering of cloud
I sit in The Light
to write of My Day
to tell The World
I Am Staking My Claim