6:12 a.m. PDT - 2001-11-05
for the poet-collab assignment for November: Topic: Write a poem of any style or pattern, using the following line as the first line of your poem: "Laughing, she danced across the moonlit bridge."34.20, 118.37
laughing, she danced across the mooonlit bridge - the moon was watching after all, and so was i, and i told the moon that someday she would be my wife. nice feet she has i said. i like feet. and arms and eyes and hands and ears and even in this nine o'clock dark save this cold november moon, whom by the way was now sipping a yellow mug of hot cocoa and singing guantanamera, i've forgotten what i was saying. i wanted to say something about her skin, but it would be a lie since i can't see her skin, and what i think is her smell is probably the leftover lilies i planted over the summer now pulling soil over themselves in my garden. at nine o'clock i am hungry, i am soaking some mung beans in the pot the way my dad used to make, i want to cook them with shrimp and pork and bits of pink fry sauce. i wonder if Bridge Girl would like these flavors: salt pork, shrimp, the green mush of mung beans. i wonder if she has a man, if she is tired of him, of his bossiness or his beatings or is he just flat-out boring, if he can't imagine life beyond the radius of his own arms, if he sees her as a leg to his compass, if they live only in small circles. she's just this girl on the bridge, i can't even tell what her hair looks like, but the cutout she makes against the november night even makes the moon whistle in the wind. maybe i will give her a compass, one with an arrow that spins, and a sextant and a piece of paper with my chicken-scratch of 34.20, 118.37. if she's my girl she'll know what this means. and bowl of salt pork and mung beans is just as good as a kiss if eaten hot.
