The Caspian Sea

               the world’s largest inland water body

I’ve never been to the Caspian Sea.

The Caspian Sea

has never been to me.

But sometimes I, too,

feel landlocked.

Neither a lake

nor a real sea.

“Real seas

don’t cry!” my

detractors shout

through megaphones

from the edge

of a cliff.

“You sorry excuse

for a sea.”

Well, after all, I am

both the orphan

and the mother

of crying.

I invented

the otters’ grief.

I penned

the swans’ song.

Bears come

weeping into me

because their tears

are homesick.

Night Drive

Sick of their own deaths, they

are driving again

across the night desert

through the storm, bold red

sports car, seatbelts

off. Grandma clutching the steering wheel—she

who never drove a car in life, and Grandpa

in the passenger seat, tuning the radio

to the frequency of the stars. On

the other side

of this heavy rain, there is the town

they’ve always wanted

to live in, which they might’ve dreamed of

as children. A town

without duties, sickness

or rain. No gravely ill daughter

to look after. No needles

in their own thin veins. Only the moon

between them like a baby

opossum, carsick, throwing up light

all over the dashboard. Yes, they’ve stolen it

from the clouds’ nest

and the clouds are out to get them. O

the thrill of theft

speeds through their veins

like red lightning. A lifetime

of quiet austerity

for a night of laughing and crying

and never stopping to wonder

if it’s all worth it—

her foot on the gas, him turning the stereo

all the way up

and the rain outside, singing

as loud as they can.