My poem ENGINE appeared in the November 2005 edition of Sy Safransky's THE SUN:
www.thesunmagazine.org/november2005.html
Here's the text of the poem:
Engine
The Los Gatos parking lot is filled with Lexus,
PT Cruisers, & Hummers. Housewives angular & tan
stream by, eyelids creamed & lined, optimistic breasts
nonchalantly pointing straight ahead, past the men
striding confidently with their cell phones
plugged to ears as though listening to somebody’s gospel,
or mutual funds rising, or another country falling.
Emerging, then disappearing again inside sleek metal
& fiberglass cocoons, pistons fire in each cylinder of heart,
spinning the world’s crankshaft, powering this endless rotation
through the void. There is always
someplace to go, something new to want.
And the young single women slide by so unencumbered,
radiant, untested by weddings, births, the thought of death—
engines humming beneath hips, cache of eggs to spill or grow.
How the young men revel, penises purring under red hoods,
bent on roaring down the road. Or the aging beauty in pink pants,
blue star shimmering on the curve of each bouncing cheek—
doesn’t someone love her like a secret, like the only one
worth having? Sometimes
there’s just too much speed, something in you careening,
looking for more, always more, cylinders of the heart
wanting to slow, to meander past these opulent hills
into the great brown fields of the San Joaquin—
so much space you almost feel lonely for the small
huddled towns, could almost start again—odometer
counting down the years, the ones that are left,
numerals fluttering languidly towards zero.