Turandot Valentine

How will we tame ourselves

without becoming whipped dogs
Let no one sleep
a ten year old angel
belts it out on TV
to a roomful of wheelchaired
nodding blue heads
if we abandon our children
and set our old ones adrift
I am like two plumeria grown
three feet apart one inside
the other outside the house
how opposite air and light
weave leaves of totally
different green and heft
how I’ve slept
through most of it
catching only the drift
of what’s fading fast