Ghazal (2)

For Dawn Upshaw

O water, be the string to my guitar.

The land's encircled? Follow the evening star.

The flight attendant heads for her hotel—

The fossil of a bird rising through the tar.

Another photo-shoot for the pregnant model

We met in Andalusia, in a bar!

The way the sun burned through the morning fog—

Blood from a white-tailed deer struck by a car.

The soldier at the checkpoint waved us through,

While the mendicant examined his cigar.

A plague of locusts and a partial eclipse

Of the sun: send a virgin to the altar.

The neurologist at his retirement party

Thanked everyone for gauging him from afar.

The sun, the mountains, and the sea: these framed

The tragedy born of the scimitar.

Bored? Seeking love? Adventure? The divine?

It's a good time to go to Zanzibar.

The emperor dismissed the courtier

Who had prepared for famine instead of war.

And so they charged into an ancient land,

Like cattle herded into an abattoir.

The scholar's parting gift to the defrocked priest:

The fetus of an ape, preserved in a jar.

Take the reins, please. Now. I can't see the road,

Thanks to the blows I received from that hussar.

The naturalist bitten by a rattlesnake

Wore a black leather glove to hide his scar.

Steer clear of the volcano rising from the sea

Or else you'll lose that load of cinnebar.

They entertained the spirits of their marriage—

A turning of the bones in Madagascar.

A plume of smoke and ashes on the deck:

The startled lookout dangles from the spar.

Again they rose at dawn to sing hosannas:

If you're a Romanov, then I'm the czar.