FROM Zócalo Public Square at http://zocalopublicsquare.org/thepublicsquare/2011/06/22/through-the-panhandle/read/poems/

Through the Panhandle

We think of the whole world in temperatures
because numbers describe and delineate,

allow us not just to compare, but to
judge: too hot, too cold, just right, the story goes,

how crass to sweat—worse, how naive not to
admit the heat, the humid sticky

humanness we have (or a chill we feel,
gooseflesh and shiver of warm-bloodedness).

We don’t stop in Texas, find no reason.
Sometimes, it’s easier to keep driving.

We enter a new state plenty soon enough.
My lover describes the change: the earth meets

the sky halfway; greens are verdant, varied;
light and dark, of interest to us again.

FROM La Fovea online at http://www.lafovea.org/La_Fovea/anna_leahy.html

In the Meantime

is the mean
time, that malicious wait-and-see,
in-between time,
until we set our clocks
back to save the daylight.

FROM Constituents of Matter:

A Rational Choice Theory

Let's barter for love. Isn't a bargain better
than something we'd get for free?

Naturally, we select our reasoned preference
at any given moment. Later, we debate,

become churlish even. Can't the sensible
be sensual?

You give me your family history,
and I'll give you mine.

I offer efficiecy, but it come
with laundry day and multitasking.

You offer the one thing at a time, the reconciling
of a checkbook, the toothbrush to the grout,

but this comes with stacking
of books, bills, everything in view.

I am the out of sight but calendar stricken.
You wear the watch in this house. I keep time.

Exchange theories aren't good with details:
don't count your chickens,

this little piggie went to market, this little piggie had none.
We must think better than yesterday's wants

that we misguessed with good intentions.
Evolution's little luster favors us.

Let's barter every day: why notarize a trade-off,
why not question an even deal,

why not risk a less pecuniary life, bank something?
Love's expensive. Let's haggle.