Six poems by Gloria Avner

Away

friends write home from Myanmar
Havana
Tiruvanamallai
Upsalla

like scents of sandalwood
and spices for authentic alu ghosh
exotic place names conjure
memory and saliva
make me want to sing
Basho in past life languages
trill haiku
ululate
ride bareback through San Juan surf
comfort orphaned baby sloths in Costa Rica
hide in Marilyn’s big suitcase
emerge in South India
be hugged by Amma

Packing

packing for five days away
or eighty
Pretty Marsh or Uttar Pradesh

the must haves and the maybes
expand like chia pets

zip it

a hurricane
in a hatbox

East from Tetuan

Hadouzha of the gold eyeteeth
rents us half a house
her husband stationed in Rabat
Rif mountains at our back
the roof our favorite room
Orion’s belt barely out of reach
fig tree ripe for plucking by the painted door

Hadouzha’s pregnant belly
jiggles in disbelief
teeth flashing laughter as I beg
freedom for the pair of fluttering birds
tied together through their beaks with straw
caught by her thoughtful son
for our dinner

Morocco

watching donkeys
in the Sunday market
giant pistons of pleasure

Hijacked

the screen tells me my photos
are in use or damaged
taken over
by some other application
as if whole families or factories lived
inside my machine
a tenement where Mrs.
Murphy two doors down
needs and borrows
18 cups of memory
without a shred of please or thank you
dips into years of story seed
kidnaps past and future paintings

Ordinary Things

I like poems about ordinary things
like morning coffee
how the cup almost burned
your hand my love
because you did not take it by the handle
at first
then when it was safe
in place on the fossilized coral
coaster near the singing bowl
you put your hand
still hot
flat on my naked garden
and we both breathed relief