finished poems, no. 1 and no. 2

i give up on making the formatting work (which is a shame, since this is the first poem in a long while where i've actually USED form...as an extension of content, not merely just part of rhythm, cadence, aesthetics...)

TOMBSTONE

It is the moment at the Peanut Barrel,
you rolling a cigarette full of Danish Export
tobacco, tongue darting quickly
over the edges of the papers. Even the tobacco exotic,
as though you could only have it delivered by train.

It is the moment we meet on the landing of a staircase,
you asking,
have you got a match?

It’s the moment when Doc Holliday winks:
He, the Earps, all motionless at the OK Corral.
The air is pregnant with their stasis, with
the very cliché of the Western genre; a tumbleweed
even rolls past.

The man’s face melts.
43 seconds later,
every cowboy with a gun
is dead. Except Ike
Clanton, who scurries away.

I cannot tell you how many times
I have watched the movie
without understanding that moment.

Yet your lips grazed my neck
like a warning shot, when you walk
it is almost slow-motion;
the very stillness of you,
that spur-clinking Western vacuum of silence so vast
you can always hear the cocking of the gun.
And of course, the wind.

Look at you, Doc Holliday: the sarcastic Southern drawl when you offer to drive me home;
I steal away through the back door,
sure you’ll catch me sometime later, high noon sun at your back.
And there you are, leaning against the fence post,
box of matches rattling together
like Colt .45 rounds in your palm
the cigarette hinged in your mouth.

like the new movie grindhouse, this post has two parts!

POEM FOR YOUR SECOND BIRTHDAY

Even as an infant
your hands flew about, impossibly
small digits scratching
against your bassinette, nails
growing so rapidly
they seemed more
like talons.

All bedding
pitched
from your pale nest,
your father and I
terrified
you’d shred another flannel blanket
and smother yourself.

We would hardly admit
that already, nine days in,
we were petrified
of our own
daughter, those
pterodactyl blue eyes.

These mornings you wake us
with small pecks on cheeks, noses,
foreheads, a deft flutter of one hand
against my cheek. Your eyes
hundreds of shimmering colors
all at once:

they remind me of something in flight,
my daughter, my starling.

******************************

seriously, why won't blogger accept my formatting? i'm quite annoyed by this. and the lack of interface between google documents and blogger--does anyone know how to do this?

alas, alack, i have spent far too long getting pissed about this and not addressing all the house b.s to be done before we embark on a birmingham adventure for easter. joy.