Two PoemsMother Ghazal
At night I don’t look at the stars Sometimes pigeons smash into the stars
I leave my keys in the door
My mother brushes off the stars
Because they’re fading she wants
To love them her chin smudges the stars
Never never leave my mother alone
She’ll feed hamburgers to the stars
She’ll run errands across the air
What winter jackets will she offer the stars?
What blouse will she stain on the wind?
The dead curl up with the most luminous stars
Mother kiss on a beat up blanket under the stars
Karla Ghazal
for Mike Young
Stars are being made inside trailer homesby underprivileged kids who have been home-
schooled for their whole life. When a star explodes
a black hole appears, sucking at their homes.
They cool newborn stars in a plastic pool.
Sometimes they declothe to give themselves home
made skull tattoos or sniff rubber cement.
When the sky is bright their mothers come home
in cocktail dresses, flip through the channels
catch an hour or two of sleep, leave home.
Karla uses the bathtub to wash socks
while her sister cleans up around the home.
By lunchtime a quasar inside their home.