Tenderloin Blues

Nighttime city buses,
passengers bathed in
fluorescent gloom
sit silent,
every corner and crack illuminated,
no one casting a shadow--like the undead
prowling an ancient Carpathian castle.
There were two worlds--worlds apart--
the stark,
bright realism
of the interior
and the impressionist outside
where colored lights
bore through the darkness,
smearing and dripping,
splotching and streaming
onto a dynamic canvas of night.
The bus stops
to take on more sad ghosts.

Woodlice

The woodlice leave traces
of their work
around the floor of this
rocking chair.
In this old house,
raw emotions
seem so fragile,
only to be transformed
into the sound of this rocking chair,
measuring the shifting of wood,
burrowed in silence,

older than
any memory
that I will have,
like the dust
that remains.

Virginia Marvene Hixon

Years ago, as I stood in your kitchen
in green neon socks and first bra bravado
I did not care that you were born
in a cabin on top of Lookout Mountain.
Your smell of mothballs and Lady Stetson
lulled me to sleep,
and my droopy eyes were not surprised when
you drove to the store in second gear.
Years later I would learn of the
red hot talent that took you
from Alabama to New York for an exhibit
of your own. Perhaps the slow train ride
back is what makes you question my weight
or my complexion.
Now, looking at your painting of the cabin
on Lookout Mountain, my feet
wider and flatter from the weight of my own train rides, I wonder:
If I look close enough, can I see through
the window into your room?

Tatoo

I could paint a poem
On your back
With a Chinese brush
And India ink.
And then, with a razor
Or pin or sliver of bamboo
And a stolen hotel towel
(to daub the blood
and excess black),
I could make it
Permanent.
I have seen this done
Before on television
And in movies. But
You would never allow
This violence of
Obligation, this enduring itch
Of commitment.
You could never abide
My words on your skin.

Untitled

I want to take a trip to meet you
In a cool London park under trees,
And sit
Beneath the sun with our books
On a blanket. My head in your lap,
Tickling your ankle.
Run your fingers through my hair,
Please.
Teach me everything that life has taught.
Soak up my scant knowledge like a sponge.
You show me your Lisbon and I,
I will show you my London.

Writer's Block

He read a poem about his mother,
moving me enough to walk over to him after the reading was over,
but the words I wanted to say condensed
and sat cold and slippery on the hand
I offered him.
I wanted to tell him that his words were
beautiful enough to copy into my quote book,
one of my favorite things,
a selective selection. I wanted to ask him
how I could make someone's quote book--
how to write something that wasn't what one
of my professors calls a "burp poem,"
a regurgitation of youthful hormones
stuffed in thin, plastic bags,
overflowing like the dumpsters of beer cans
behind the row, smelling just as foul.
There are poems in my toes, at the bottom of
my feet; each day they flatten,
crushed under my weight, molding to my
instep . . . never making it to my fingers.

Spring

If spring were a woman,
she would be arrayed in yellow and blue and red,
not the colors of daffodils and hyacinths and irises,
but blue for waning winter days,
the yellow of daylight savings time,
and the angry red of stormy skies.

Her scent would be the fresh-ploughed earth,
her breath the breeze of melting snow,
and in her eyes of heavy clouds
would be the promise of verdant fields.

If spring were a woman,
she would be a gifted woman, indeed!