Sexed on a Kona Balcony

All his lovers have fed the birds he says

This is after I've sprinkled the balcony

with pieces of pancake

Well, we can't help it

Our wombs command the role

as surely as the moon dictates the slap

of waves against lava rock below the hotel

We are hardwired to feed hunger, if not in children

then in pets, plants and wild things

I especially like the wild ones

The touch between feral and female

A scrap becoming energy that burns in both directions

The myna who is empowered to squawk and walk 

the perimeter as if giving orders

Zebra doves too dumb or smart to pay attention

House sparrows hopping like wind-up toys

as they pick up pieces for babies in a nearby palm

All of them fueling to follow their own destinies

And me with the same small flame that must have

kindled Annapurna when she filled Shiva's begging bowl

It burns through my morning bath

When I come out wrapped in a towel 

to find more food for the birds

A saffron finch with fluorescent head 

is eating macadamia nuts 

that my man chopped with his pocket knife

He calls it male bonding

The nuts are coffee-coated, sugared and salted

Observations at a Poetry Reading

He reads wearing blue Bermuda shorts

at a Border's coffee shop 

for a small but rapt audience

The front tables filled with females 

There to increase their appreciation of poetry

and its effect on scrambling the senses

For which the poet is infamous

They listen with eyes that grow large 

Then bigger as words bulge 

into nine and a half inches of metaphor 

escaping from his mouth 

A meaty tone that wants to burst through blue 

They see through the pores of their skin

openings they never knew were there

Their tongues grow long 

and wrap around the animal scent 

as it scales the inside of skirts

Slippery into folds of fever fiery enough 

that when the women walk away

Their ears are still steaming

like the extra hot latte coffee-of-the-day