Chinese New Year

Husband, how will you celebrate all the ways
that I please you and promise to obey you
in the year of the rooster?

I will honor your purest deceptions with a flock
of frightened bird aerial repeaters and a score
of musical pyramid mines, my wife.

Husband, will you hold me in your arms like
the moon's brightness is held within the spaces
of the parking lot across the street?

Yes, I will send out some black diamond missiles
that climb at least twenty-five hundred feet
and finish with reports as loud as our ecstacy.

Husband, I'm listening to a symphony by a composer
that I do not remember. Will you come in
from the porch and conduct with me?

No, but I will perform a duet of peacock fountains
and golden snowflake candles for you that
will help you put on the master's wig?

Husband, I found a lock of our baby's hair
in this book and I thought about that old stucco
house... do you ever think about...?

No, I only remember the crazy jack ground
spinners and catherine three-drive moonwheels
that kept me on the rim of night.

Husband, when you leave for the plant in the morning
and walk beside the piles of dawn-streaked mud,
will you write my name there for me?

I will launch whistling gemini missiles and light
marching cicada comets at the bus stop so
you will know the wild flower of my heart.