Ladies in Indonesia


This photo, courtesy of AFP, shows Indonesian women protesting the arrest of Abu Bakar Bashir, the preacher accused of leading the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, as theycover their faces with his photograph at a demonstration in Jakarta on Nov. 1, 2002. Foreign policy officials should check their premises.

Leaving you

gets none the easier
for repetition.
What practice fails
to make perfect
distributes its own
fair compensation.
I admit to faking fascination
with the Christmas cards,
to scouring the shelves
for a map or an atlas or
an excuse to linger
between the warm lines of your arms.

Loving you,
unlike leaving you,
lacks the procrastination ritual.
And though we slave at different speeds,
cross our hearts to different gods,
your patience makes me beauitful,
taming memory into wisdom,
turning wanderlust to wonder
and lust.

Darling, I am disarmed and ready;
yours is the dream worth sharing.