Christmas in Damascus

When, underneath your hair,
all your skin has gone scabby
and dry, run for gin --
the Dutch spirit is rife
with juniper oil, and the
power of the conifer
is noted in Scandinavian texts
with lots of consonants in their titles.

And in your evergreen
health, every green roof
in rural Maryland will both
contrast and camouflage
itself in the wide
and verdant December
of our warm new millennium.

And in the library a long cat sits
with scabby skin,
waiting to be discovered
by the intrepid librarian --
the first awake
in this gray Atlantic morning.

Incorrigible Cake Licker

This Cake Won't Lick Itself
(thanks to Kris Chau)

Bouffant cake-licker,
with food floating before you
like a breath,
what will you tell those
who ask: why did your tongue
touch this cake?

Your face will not blush;
you jive with all the colors
of meats and pastries;
every day brings another pink
palette of comestibles
like dawn: pink tongue,
pink cake, pink stomach --

and poor cake has no mouth,
or it could take care of these matters
on its own.