All Is Vanity
after "Basket of Fruits" by Balthasar van der Ast (oil on panel)

"Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes, vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas."
– Ecclesiastes 1:2

Where the apple turns away the cheek
riddled with worm holes we choose 
to see plenty. Where the housefly tiptoes
the pear, determined to coax the sweet
from mottled skin. Where the paisley curl
of lizard laps the rot, undeterred 
by dragonfly whir
and brush of butterfly wing

because there is no stillness in life.
Because decline is inexorable. Because
the nautilus shell we carry home from the beach
is an empty house, an echo of life
on the sea floor. Because the fructifying seed 
also houses decay. Because all is vanity,
we invite Death to the table, place 
the brimming cup in his fist of bones.

So we stretch the canvas, load the palette,
pick up the brush. So we embrace
the tabula rasa, though we still can see
imprint of mistakes in the wax. So we become 
the worm, the fly, the flicking
lizard tongue feasting on ruin. So we turn
the wheel again, return to ash,
return to seed.

Originally published with Moon Tide Press, Poet of the Month, February 2020

Unbeautiful

no cornflower-blue eyes 
instead 
burning embers
more suited to kohl than mascara 
brows arched in perpetual surprise

no golden hair that feathers 
perfectly à la Farrah Fawcett 
repeatedly tucks the same loose strand
behind her right ear

Maybelline ads are wasted here.

She's not beautiful.
self-conscious about the gap in her front teeth
maybe she smiles anyway

no endless supply of 
Fair and Lovely Lightening Cream 
will fade 
cinnamon skin,
bark of some other rare tree 

dip of waist flaring to 
fecund curves
prized in the tropics,
not here in this
City of Angels

No two-inch thigh gap here. 

speaks quietly, sotto voce
lean in to catch every word
pronounced lisp at once child-like and sexy
sudden laugh loud as a stack of plates breaking 

She is no classic beauty,
yet haunting
in her every imperfection.

The world drab without her,
this unbeautiful girl.

First published in Altadena Poetry Review 2019