Mother's Day

Today I ate ribs and cake

at 8 p.m. with my family

and two flamenco dancers.

I couldn’t have predicted

the number of paintings,

to the very very ceiling

like jelly beans in the Louvre.

I couldn’t have guessed

I would feel so simple and full.

At dinner the flamenco dancer

told us her mother died

days before (at 102). She

knows it’s impossible

to prepare for the fact

that nothing you do matters.

That’s why she brought this cake.

Look at your daughter,

pounding it with a sledgehammer.

Happy Mother’s Day.

What else can you do.

Label Maker

It's all underneath

an impassable bone.

What she knows.

What we know.

What we think

we know and don't.

We light a match:

the sparks fly

and the sky looks

and smells of smoke.

But it's not smoke,

it's a new snow.

We'll never say that though.

We'll never know we should.

Moments like this

are everywhere,

no sense in sorting.