(title currently forgotten)

In the slow slope of a winter day
my heart rises, unbidden,
and trembles, a snowflake,
at the corner of my mouth.
I will not let it drop

into a moment suddenly suspended,
a white moth fluttering in the space between words
awaiting return.
Instead, when you look away distracted
I lean over and smooth your rumpled collar.

bitter haikus 2

Once, comfort between
our collarbones, hearts yielding
soft pounding pillows.

Sheltered in my arms,
called home my mind and marrow,
now you are cast out.

My best poems were
written for, wasted on you.
I don't want you back.

105 E. 4th

How often have I pounded down those steps:
half a hundred times a month?

Striding across the porch where we ate burgers,
beneath the slanted roof where we lay and watched a lightning storm.
One-two hips swing, three-four knees fling, carrying me
into the clear darkness,
Careening to a waiting car,
chasing jubilant into cold downpours,
drifting down the evenings when the starlings chatter
and sunset burns the leaves yellow.

Leaving
fucked up at five a.m. (dizzy with smoke)
vodka drunk at two or three.
Pissed, glad, walking tired,
barefoot, booted, swaying back together or
alone,
always alone on Mondays,
turned away from your screen door,
threading these sidewalks home
beneath a full moon, half moon, stark starry sky.

How often I have clattered down those four rickety stairs
and out across town:
one thousand steps from my doorway to yours.

bitter haikus!

I haven't seen you
in so long I forgot why
I loved you at all.


His hands stroked my hips,
nerves sang, my body betrayed
me, just like you did.


You never made me
feel beautiful, not once or
twice in all that time.

Place

The moon dangling from the curtain rod
is the same moon that was shining above the clock tower,
criss-crossed by cable-car wires,
a silent catechism in that coastal city.

Since then I have seen Orion's star feet
skimmed by an airplane's wing.
He stood for a second on the fleeting stage
and passed into the west.

Here the bright bulb is filtered all by falling leaves,
pine needles, storm windows.
It is not the same.
It rolls against the corner of my eye
like a marble on a slanted floor.

Self-Sufficiency

Open jars, go to bars,
apply, interview, qualify,
pay rent, vote, laugh,
open doors, vacuum floors,
wash windows, carry groceries,
fix a car, open jars...

Sometimes at night
I tuck
a strand of hair behind my ear
and wish
someone would do it for me.

Farmer's Wife

How peaceable to be awake and listening
to the slip-slip
of fabric over his skin: undershirt, buttons, jangling belt.
Six a.m. he dresses in the dark, leaving the blankets warm.
His smile a porcelain mug - thick white full of early morning coffee.
Tonight we will dance beneath that bare light bulb.

Winter Awake

It was not a May-time explosion of dandelion petals,

hummingbird kisses,

a beginning and an end.

It was the taste of ginger on the tongue,

lovely and true,

burning away November wind,

a thesis statement

proving what could have lain dormant all winter:

black water beneath thick ice.

Scalding and brief,

a sudden branch through spinning spokes,

an embrace like

falling into bed.

Alecto's X

You do not believe I am not still in love--

Every once in a while I cannot resist

reminding you just how comfortably I fit

between your arm and side.

After all, hell hath

no fury.

back yard

I'd like to sit on the back step with you,
feel evening settle over me.
I want to accidentally touch you,
and when you look at me
I want to kiss you
and for you to put your arms around me.

The Best Part

The best part of having friends, he said,

is how they notice when you take too much

but don’t mention it.

The taste of caramel apples will always remind me

of how I did not begrudge him that extra bite,

though we were sharing one between us,

and of how we had crept through damp alleys

past dumpsters and growling semis

just to buy that apple,

sticky, crisp and sweet.

Later, quarter to six in the morning,

we paused beneath a pale streetlight.

Hair tangled, nose running, rainwater and caramel

smearing my face. He looked at me, I saw

a strange look pass over him

and he said I was beautiful.

beyond midnight

Moonlight creaks on sidewalk cracks
and rusty playground chains
ivory light on yellow leaves
fallen, falling.
The long scarf of a windy night
howls victorious through skeins of fog.

Howls victorious!

windy night!

full white moon!

If ever there was a time for werewolves...