"Do you want to Lindy?"

Tandem Charleston doesn't know the word loneliness;

Lindy Hop doesn't know fear. "I never liked rollercoasters,

actually." (And neither do I). But the anticipation of a night

out dancing requires only to fall into the rushing wind
of a swing out, land in the arms of someone human.
Demonstrate West Coast in the street with me. Practice
tuck turns in the parking lot. Show me how to swivel

on the sidewalk. Tell all your secrets to strangers, shiver

on wet picnic benches beside the suddenly familiar scent

of sweat and smiles and sarcasm. Midnight means my feet ache,

means my mind runs loops of jazz, means we are just two empty

beer cans beside two empty soda glasses, but I am entirely full.

New Pennies, Old Pigeons

I was born under a halogen bulb,
misplaced constellation of the old country
and new whiteness. Childhood was a spiced
picket fence, a gentrified tenement,
and here I learned to want,
the way guns just need to be emptied
into the pink breasts of pigeons.

Mother was a dress form, satin like custard,
the fantasy of stockings and the thighs
beneath them and father ripped both
nightly, nails like pen nibs and curses.

If I had more seamstress and less poet,
more feathers and less whisker, maybe
I could have wanted less like a bullet
and more like the bird.