criss-cross double cross

like the mismatched shoe,
cunning in rebellion
family members
smudge floorboards

chess pieces bowled
every which way

in taunting horizontal vantage
point. I could be any Alice

in this lethargic melodrama

and all because
the hero died—the one
with ambivalent sceptre.

January in March

round feathers fall
tricking the senses,
but most of all

kinetic memory is tossed—
rubber against brick

pink Indian ball
and the tangoists
raise high  fox collars
outside a defunct hall.

next time

someone pauses lost
in thought and you happen
to be target

you may think "do or die"
but precisely what to do

in extremis

all crises pass even
Stalin retreated,

unbelieving.

you scour
and sulk yet
the blues arrive

in startling tones of blushing burn

and you are jilted
in your vial of unlikely return.

irregular choice

when I pinch plump
pistachios out of soft jackets

and instruct saffron threads
to bleed into porcelain

once again
a cautionary tale
nips under shin:

choice of shoes, irregular.