Shoplifted Cheese

You cut the sandwich in half,
without asking if I wanted half a sandwich.
You broke frozen bread in half on your knee
and stuffed it full of shoplifted cheese.
You made me feel smart and clever
though I know I am anyway.
A well-meaning charlatan is still a charlatan, they say,
yeah a well-meaning charlatan is still a charlatan.

You poured me a cup of tea
and read such good books to me.
We stayed awake til dawn
yeah I fell asleep at dawn.
The next week you were kissing that other girl
and wouldn't hang out with me.
A well-meaning charlatan is still a charlatan, you see,
yeah a well-meaning charlatan is still a charlatan,
and and adorable liar is still a liar
and Aladdin is still a thief.
And Robin Hood had STDs and every actor plays a part.
When will I learn not to sell half my heart for half a sandwich?

Lines

i.

At five am, after nibbling
the coarse corners of dawn,
our mouths are full of hours,
our feet are bound to earth.
Goodnight, he says, and tumbles upstairs.
Through the hundred-year old floorboards
I hear him walking-
a heartbeat through old plaster, pummeled waterpipes.
His footsteps are fingertips
tapping a table. Together
we slip into our rooms, then out to the bathroom.
Hallways mumble at our passing.
I hear him walking
then we stand, spines aligned,
brushing our teeth at the sinks.

I am a line extending forever from one fixed point.
Ten feet up he is sleepy-eyed parallel.
We are railroad tracks, those curved and rusty ghosts.
The waters runs, falls silent, creaks on again.
Hinges squeak. We pace
a balanced minuet to sleep.

ii.

One night in the trainyard
He tries to tread the tarnished beam
but always tumbles back down.

We discover
that side by side with arms outstretched
like flimsy spring branches,
we can run.
His mitten locked around my fingertips,
fleetness is a matter of inches.
Our feet telegraph those two cold spines,
meters skimming by.

In that hand-held darkness, surefooted,
I suddenly believe in flight.

November Nights

November night
piled beneath old blankets,
cold close
enough to feel the stubble,
see summer creases on the skin.
We lay, legs colliding,
our arms curved like bird wings
around the others slow-fluttered ribs.

Each word is a jar
opened and spilled out:
coarse nutmeg, papery anise, cinnamon bark.
Each touch shudders: fennel seeds
spreading on the tongue.
We are bright with questions: cloves and broken glass.

Will lips touch those laugh lines?
What explanation is offered for the minutes
between now and dawn?
It is enough to have these phrases.

Morning comes open-mouthed
without words,
only soft thoughts
that crumble like walnuts
between the fingers of a moment:
waking up curled around one another's toes.

Want for Anything (Insurance)

I took the money that they sent me
to get a ticket home,
and I bought a xylophone.
I took the groceries that they bought me
threw them in the Mississip:
snapping turtles, fish and chips.

I don't want a girl with health insurance, cause I
don't wanna want for anything.

Fine meals eating from the trash can
a diploma as my napkin
thought you were looking thin
And then, when you did a headstand
through your ribs I saw your heartbeat
we lost our heads but kept our feet.

I don't want a girl with health insurance, cause I
don't wanna want for anything.

One night standing by the river,
had to hop some chain-link,
don't those fences make you think.
Cold enough to make you shiver
the water bears the trash away,
and I don't think that I can stay.

Ghost Sonnet

The hammer and the pulsing drum that ring
inside my ear like voices singing clear,
these tiny bones that float in darkness bring
all sounds into my waking brain: I hear!
Those quiet specks become my walking stick
stuck deep into the streambed as I leap
from shore to shore - the river rocks are slick-
how small the sounds, the bones that balance keep.
Without those sturdy sticks we should fall down,
live robbed of height and breath and summer light,
lie still as skeletons in dry ghost towns
beneath the canyon walls out west. My sight
keeps on, my hearing right, these feet stay true,
in truth, these bones are you, they're you, it's you.

another haiku

so softly in love
with all those windy moments
blown quickly away.

Hangover

Last night's frantic voyage
(pizza joints, stoplights, spinning stars)
gives way to this morning:
corked lungs, stomach slick like salad oil,
blood filled, filtered,
drained of cheap wine.
A long sore gullet, a long clear head remain now,
they cannot be traded for last night's blur.
This body stands limp, glassy, an empty jar.
Today has been stitched to the cuffs of the coat
worn warmly
beneath autumn's disheveled yellow leaves
and cool marble sky.

Ride

Perched, precarious, I hold his sleeves around the corners,
barely balanced on the slight suggestion of handlebars,
his lanky knees at my straining back.
Our faces side by side I enjoy the pavement disappearing
beneath my feet dangling like heartstrings.
My hair gets in his mouth, we giggle just a little,
he wheezes once going up a hill.
And how we glide! faster than my brain can turn,
beneath bowing trees that hold the stars
above this gravel-ground night.

Of all the things in the world I want,
I only want this to last,
each instant growing brief and perfect
as we slide home
to the end, a few blocks closing fast
this moment
our faces side by side
2 am riding on his bike.

October 7th, 2008

On a day like today
a man I haven't met
will sit beside me
eat onions and white rice,
break fortune cookies,
watch the rain.

One of us will make a joke
as small and damp as the sunlight today.
We will be quiet
and slowly grow dry.

There is no day like today,
only other days
to sit and drink
cup after tiny cup of tea.

October

One day
I will not get off the train,
leaving my bed unmade and Scorpio
slung across my shoulders.
I will count my change,
catch the bus down town, some town,
eating the freedom of a one-way ticket.
One day
I will wrap my ankles to survive a long trek
in withering shoes, carrying goldenrod seeds,
scattering milkweed as knees brush sumac leaves.
My bags have been packed for years,
each day they grow lighter,
like sidewalk chalk in the rain.
One day
I will shimmer like sunset.

Old Jack Kerouac, let's split a piece of apple pie-
you know the weight of nothing in your pockets.
Tonight let's sleep in the musty lungs of a haystack down the road,
let's sleep dizzy with hunger, pricked by raw rotting gold (one hundred thousand spikes
of the railroad we've found ourselves to ride).
I know in the morning you'll be gone.

Invocation

I have never written a poem to God.
Father of verse, we climbed those secret nights
twitching, sighing, (on) high...
you scratched your beard and my pen
exploded.
Midnight blew by obscured by leaves
as we tried to stay awake.
It was easier to dream
with wine in our cups.

God - allow me to be filled.
Heaven is a white house with narrow stairs.
When I try to find that place again
I do not know the address,
remember,
you always showed me the way.

August 20, 2008

There are six hundred and eleven shades of green this summer,
twelve in the cornfield alone, depending on the time of day.
Tonight I followed the acorn-shaped tracks of a deer
between those narrow rows, the coarse leaves eager
to serrate my edges.
Through milkweed, wild carrot and tired goldenrod I wavered,
then surprised the white-tail in the short grass at the side of the road.
It waved its long flag, leapt up and ran
away, like summer.
Tomorrow when I move to the city
it will still be August,
the sunset will, like today, arch like an eyebrow,
pink with surprise.
Again the moon should rise orange,
muffling that deers wet dirt clover footsteps.
But
will I have lost this green,
this eye?

Morris

I.

Oh Morris, the plains bring us to your door.

This western prairie is not kind, it is not benevolent;

it is brown and bare and flat and lovely,

the breasts of an old woman, of a young girl,

rushing too fast.

We never see your summer, it is a flash of heat.

There is only the feel of perpetual autumn, the trails of

swans, cranes, and pelicans leaving this behind,

leaving broken houses in eyeblink towns that even in spring are not green.

Beneath the unbending wind, the pelting winds that circle

like blue skin below the eye of the world,

beneath this clamor clench storm clouds, rolling clouds

tired of so much soil, so much potential, so vast a space as this frontier.

II.

Oh Morris, your midnight streets are cracked and windy

trees bending, time bent, leaves scattered,

uneven curbs and the hum of the plant somewhere to the south or west-

side suburbs and grey grids of homes, rope swings, kids on bikes.

5000 strong you factory workers, barroom glarers, staring at the

young money that just walked in through the door,

who only know these eight streets, from the hospital to the park,

Dairy Queen to Pamida, the ice rink a slick spectre,

grain elevators harvesting the horizon, gathering in, carrying

corn through chutes and shooting seeds,

spare piles of spilled grain lying dusty in gravel, dropouts who remain

washing dishes, making meth, getting drunk,

tripping down railroad tracks.

Those trains are not yours, they tear through the night

and push on to greyer stops, more grain, states flat and unimaginable.

III.

Oh Morris, look at us.

We trundle through the night,

bundle into classrooms:

shitty classes, whiteboards wasted, hours whored

to papers, posters, cigarette lectures.

We choke down dry rice, soft-serve, coffee in our hearts,

we are dancing. We are in love. We hate you, Morris, you are ours.

These same paths take us place to place untouched on lonely nights,

unrequited.

Let our pockets ring, call and answer, we will hear nothing.

Not furnaces roaring, not life behind dorm room doors, not sidewalks over secrets.

We will dig our mittened hands deeper into cold pockets, deeper into one another’s hands. Find some comfort there.

Fifteen hundred students at the TMC, laughing at the wind.

IV.

Oh Morris, we love you as if you are the only thing we know,

at 3 am when we only have each other.

This poem will go on long after we have gone

and been replaced by other shadows.

riverside

Weeds tickle your upturned thighs

as you crouch, back exposed to the dusty sun,

head bent toward the rocks resting round between your shoes.

Tired muscles quiver like willow leaves,

breathing slows to the sounds of birds.

Focused entirely

on drops of moisture curlicuing down-

you become that tiny vital crevice

in so large a forest

waiting to let go.

Paths

I spent the summer following your elbows down mountains;

at night above the hills, the stars were cold and slick as river rocks.

The sun was a walking stick, the moon a nectarine.

Your arms grew tan, leading through pines, lupines,

across upturned beaver-dented logs.

There were flowers between our fingers and our worn-out toes.

The coughing wind dragged me east, I went.

Close the book! Today is here!

My arms have grown tan now, too.

Yellowstone

A frozen map of flowers,
waterfalls,
hat-brims soaked with sweat.

Lost Lake, Blacktail, Cascade Creek,
footsore in the tracks of bears.
Shoes: waterproof!
They climbed mountains

improbable! Their love
the snow in June, seeming
never to melt.

They came looking for the yellow stone,
all they found was gold.

Walk to Work

The walk to work
through squealing doors shut carefully,
trying not to disturb the morning.
Gravel crunches in the thin day,
a service road in idle brownness beneath hushed mountains.
Breath catches in the cold just as eyes,
ten minutes before, had caught on fluorescent
hallway lamps
and ears (consciousness) had been caught
by the harsh trembling of
that alarm
clock.

Apron tied, pockets heavy with keys,
ravens overhead,
the walk to work
before chipmunks are awake.
Last night still hums,
so recent the cream soda lips, the curl
of absinthe toes against a soft bedspread.
Now, in the dawn, those others
wrapped in sleeping bags,
warmly unaware,
waiting for older light,
birdsong, breakfast.
The walk to work,
lungs filled.

Ice Cream

They were beautiful. Roland was small and sad, Betty was always brimming, her hair always smushed in the back as if she had been lying down all afternoon in bed reading or making love. One of her shirt-tails lay untucked like a flag beneath the sweater on her thigh. He hitched his pants nervously.
“Do you want some ice cream?” he asked, glancing at the cardboard tubs like frozen mouths. She wanted ice cream.
“No thank you: she replied.
“Are you sure? My treat!”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“You don’t have to be hungry to eat ice cream” said the tall man behind the counter. He was grave and dimpled and his apron was too short.
“You’re right” he said, considering him seriously. He only waited patiently, the ice cream scoop stood in creamy cold water, waiting. Sunset brushed through the windows of the tiny shop, across brown tiles and tables that didn’t appreciate the light run clear from the mountains to close down the day. Spilled salt and pepper, ketchup bottles in cheerless wicker baskets, spring-loaded napkin holders. Waiting.
“But I don’t want ice cream” she declared, meaning she didn’t want ice cream tonight, her stomach hurt, but she wanted to come back and let him pay for two scoops from that tall man, wanted him to count out his nickels and watch her lick the cone down to the last corrugated bite. She would wait.
They left, the door tinkling shut, struck the sidewalk with her bag hanging empty from her shoulder.
“I hate going in without buying anything” Roland said, his hands patting hungrily at his pockets. They extracted a cigarette, and as he lit the paper stick looked guiltiy as three children skipped by, breathing clean air.
“I do it all the time,” Betty replied. She had no money.
“I always buy something” He compared, reconciled.
“You just wanted to buy me ice cream to assuage your guilt” she accused. Her feet accused the sidewalk, trying not to stomp, to pout.
“It’s true. I felt bad because I filled your bed with octopus.”

He had. It had been a laborious task, it had been the sun rising and bison birthing and a hundred trips with heavy plastic buckets, but her bed was full of octopi. Now the surprise was ruined.

morning comes

The body, deprived of sleep
feeds itself adrenaline to survive…
morning comes flushed with shaky energy,
a pounding heart
so easily mistaken for
love.

Your bare feet were lined with grime,
I wore your sweatshirt.
Awake before the alarm,
dressing hasty in the kitchen,
I am sure your roommate must have seen my shoes.

Walk By

There was a sparrow on your windowsill
as I walked by, as I walked by.
The moon it gleamed with light and lemonade,
turned our shadows into gold.
These empty streets know the tread of our feet,
I’ve been sleeping on your couch.
Will we make it home?
We will not speak of what we might have been.

All I want is to sit by you,
All I want is for you to touch my hand.
With all my words I can never ask for you,
so I will walk by, I will walk by.

There was a light on in your room last night,
as I walked by, as I walked by.
Those days we sprawled and spoke of airy nothing,
compared our dirty toes.
This tired town, flushed with red at sundown,
finds us still awake at dawn.
Will we make it home?
If we jump the train and ride it west…
All I want is to sit by you,
All I want is for you to touch my hand.
With all my words I can never ask for you,
so I will walk by, I will walk by.

This is the beginning and the end,
an embrace like falling into bed,
the seeds of a dandelion float away,
all these moments lying where they may.

There was a sparrow on your windowsill
As I walked by.

Commencement

Forever is a random affair, we’ve found,
so we will cling to where we land
as we are shaken out, scattered,
left to grin away sleep.
Tomorrow we will graduate.

Afraid to make an end
we will lie here, rumpled,
reading a bedtime story at dawn.
In the morning we will be rearranged.

Like bread your chest rises warm against my back,
hands tangled restless across my stomach.
We never have been this close,
never seen these eyes uncovered of glass,
those cheekbones like nearby hills.
There is no room to move,
but tonight we would rather sleep poorly
than alone.

Oh God, this is it, this is spring,
here it is!
all the light runs parallel to the ground.
Ice is gone, hallelujah, broken glass!
here are trilliums, and rabbits,
this fucking light
is so brilliant.

All winter we slept in caves and frozen ditches,
shut our eyes against everything.
Now the peonies are sprouting,
pulling through the earth,
painfully,
we are forgiven.
we wake up with our shoes on,
ready for the road.

Paradelle for the Prairie

Branches turning green this rainy spring,
Branches turning green this rainy spring.
Grass, seeds, birds like kites overhead,
Grass, seeds, birds like kites overhead.
Overhead branches, rainy green grass kites
this turning spring. Birds like seeds.

A town without walls hearing wind calling,
A town without walls hearing wind calling.
Writing sidewalks with midnight footsteps,
Writing sidewalks with midnight footsteps.
A midnight wind with writing, calling without hearing.
Footsteps, walls, sidewalks: a town.

This is all green, all dark and new,
This is all green, all dark and new.
Floods of starry flowers down the plains,
Floods of starry flowers down the plains.
Dark down plains, all starry floods of green
and the flowers, this is all new.

This, a wind, floods spring with green green seeds.
New-hearing birds calling starry footsteps down
grass plains without sidewalks.
Kites writing overhead, and walls of the town
like rainy branches turning dark.
This midnight is all all flowers.

Ode to the Third Stall

O grey cubicle, neutral walls enfolding,
swinging wooden door unoccupied!
Neglected, your paper supply lingers, that
rolling dispenser hanging loosely from the wall.
You stand at such a perfect distance:
no first stall, vomiter's release,
no favored second child,
but still no unwanted fourth, that no-man's land
beyond recall.

O blank space, empty cell!
Cloistered my tears are thrown in muffled accord
upon calm taupe tiles,
peeled as paint in that dingy space.

Third stall, you are sanctuary, you are hope!
Your bespattered throne stands enshrined, ignored,
for how the flush throws water upon the seat:
distasteful! And so avoided,
rejected!
Thus you are mine, and truly
I am yours.

Metaphor

Crashing a sled we barely survived
we lay in the snow, laughed for a while.
When we stood up, you were my smile:
the best moment I can remember.

You’re my standing up after falling down,
up in the air, spinning around.
You’re buckwheat pancakes at 2 am,
a handmade scarf in winter.

When I’m living far away
I know you’re thinking of me,
You’re all the ginger candy ever,
plus the oolong in my tea.

You’re the four-note bass line
of a real catchy tune,
you’re the now and the next
and sometimes the soon.

You’re clever lyrics and dry socks,
my library card and mix cd,
you are my only dorm room key
with a really spiffy lanyard.

three little words

Why must we say with words
what can never be explained with words?
Others may say it better:
but you are home to me.

Just thinking of your laugh
is enough to make me start to laugh,
and I sing the songs you write
when I'm walking alone.

When I misquote Shakespeare
- I'm forever misquoting Shakespeare -
you always know the next line
it is the lark, my love!

Why must we be profound
always defining what we have found?
Can't really say it better:
yes, you are home to me.

Twenty Minutes in Sydney

This city is white
as if it had not been built on brown bones,
as if civilization had sprung easily from beneath Cook’s colonial collar
to flourish here instantly on the coast,
over the ochre and blue-green shore.
Now it bustles sunburn and silk ties,
epilipetic with traffic and mirrored sky-scratchers.
No one looks up or down.

There is no busker’s hope, no grit along the harbor,
no homeless hunger sleeping beneath the snowless sky,
only this proud commute,
urgent, helpless against the sea.
Where are the starving poets,
the stink of dreams unfurled in this adolescent town?
Where was Sydney when the Beats were dying?

The city wants the light, it wants the song
of more ancient bricks over more ancient bones.
The gold rush is gone,
but it needs to believe it’s own postcard,
knowing that no one suffers
like they suffer up north.

Australia

Steady driver, left-hand lane:
for three months we have been unfurling wings,
finding new coordinates,
trying not to mind missing midwest mornings in the snow.

She is the familiar voice
when Orion falls upside down
and the words of strangers burr and buckle,
sprawl and crackle at these new latitudes.

Finally we fold the maps away and drive,
missing turns, tongues burned
on morning diesel made hot to beat the rain.
Knees bent we dream against the dash,
second gear leaning up a hill,
pushing the pacific rim with the radio on scan:
bleary songs at the edge of the world.

One night beneath the gum trees
she shows the Magellan cloud
that white freckle just beyond the milky way:
she is the closest solar system to where I stand.
The southern sun browns constellations on our shoulders
as if somehow
we might learn to navigate our way back home.

Brand New

hey, he says, want to go to Perkins?
It is so late and I am a caged lion pacing the confines of my room.
i don't know i'm a little depressed I say, stuck.
He doesn't ask why just says
so are we, see you in five.

We go. There is snow on the ground dirty with grey ice,
the seats are cold, no words are spoken
as I climb into the back for a long drive to the middle of nowhere,
but we go,
coats bundled, breath harsh we are weighted
by this town and the thoughts we won't discuss
maybe not ever beneath these stars.

The wheels shear the pavement and cross white lines,
we are mute as music whispers from breaking speakers,
When we hit the edge of town, plunge into darkness,
the song begins to scream - we are thrown
rattled back and jolted up and we scream too,
mouths grim and bare.
The car flies and we are open, alone in the noise.

We go and leave the yellow lights behind.

The town is swallowed by midnight,
we are swallowed
together
by sound and the bass revving engine,
we could break down any second
but now we are singing straight ahead into the road
now
we are going
now
we are not gone.
We go,
and have left and are not the same.

Screaming fades to laughter, unpounded,
hands unclench and words begin.
We strain our eyes at deer-stained ditches
and soar, forgetful.
We will not hit the brakes but drive
as long as the cd plays,
hoping this time maybe it will not
stop.

Pack

coursing home through a buzzing night
spindly legs wavering like kites
our voices raised in song.
every corner a new farewell,
parting the moment brave as hell,
we are bold and clever.
even if we don't last for long
can't you see we've been young forever,
please don't ask us to stop,
please don't ask us to stop.

this town somehow passes by like
spinning spokes of summers rusty bike
we should have learned to ride.
streets and sidewalks know the tread of
unsteady friendly feet, dread of
waking alone at dawn.
matching each others easy stride
we love the moment already gone,
please don't ask us to stop,
please don't ask us to stop.

greeting sunrise, dairy queen,
making the setting but missing the scene
sleeping on the floor, don't stop anymore,
my tired family. (my tired family).

night will end before it's through, we
won't forget to leave our names here, see
this town was made for us.
time's the river we've got to cross
caulk and float now our party's lost
call me in twenty years.
this is the home we'll leave tomorrow
we'll forget but please
don't ask us to forget,
don't ask us to forget.

Don's Cafe

She had gotten up so early
to open the door at six,
turn the light on against the rain,
brew the coffee and tie her apron on.

They were already waiting,
the regulars, quiet men in seed company hats
who would want to eat eggs
and talk about the weather.
They knew her and would tip her
ten percent in quarters and well-worn dollar bills.

Two more were standing outside the doors,
two students with dripping hair,
sweaters that would soon seem to steam
in the greasy flourescent air.
Only lovers could smile so beatifically,
they were so marvellously tired,
smudgy with spring.
She took them in, gave them the small table
so their knees could touch.
They ordered without menus, giddy,
already shining with her cheer.

Thick food on clattering plates
balanced on her arm as she crowed, crooned, coaxed,
bustling away her sleep, filling cups,
watching her children eat.
She called them sweeties and they were sweet;
She called them honey and they bloomed.

When they finished, the boy and girl,
the rain had stopped, the streetlights had flipped off.
They paid her, tried to repay her,
they had been up all night in love
and she had filled them with warmth,
even the table was warm when she lifted their plates,
for a moment their hands pressed into the circle of heat she left behind.
She grinned, they smiled,
it was morning and they smiled.

For Emily, 2008

We
spent the last day of the year in tangle-town
eating the world bitter,
spitting out the pips.
All the brides of France
tore midnight into strips,
draped us in the sprawl of cities.
We
spent the whole night blind.
And sometime before the new year began,
we got in the car
shut the doors
drove away.

Ghost Arm (really short fiction)

She woke up curled on her side as usual, eyes heavy and hair tangled. The light through the curtains was dim like early morning or a cloudy afternoon, time had no meaning in the stringy moments before movement and memory. At once she became aware of the arm beside her in bed, a long tube of flesh lying along the length of her body. Her own arm, she knew, must be beneath her: thhis was not her arm. Carefully she turned her head on the rumpled pillow to see who else was in her bed. Had there been someone there when she had gone to sleep? Had someone joined her in the night? As usual, there was no one lying beside her in the single bed.
Finally she prodded the arm with her hand, watching the finger indent in the still skin. She felt nothing. Grasping the limb and levering it upward, she found it attached to her shoulder and felt the terrifying weight as it flopped back down, numb and dead. At last a rational thought crept into her mind: this was going to hurt. She rolled on to her back in her empty bed and closed her eyes, hoping to fall asleep before the prickling pain set in.

Decaf

You've always loved coffee,
late night coffee, dripped hot
from gaping plastic pots.
I watched you drink cup after cup

peeling back creamer lids,
emptying sugar packets
one by one so wild eyed,
unwilling to miss a single moment.

Around you I stayed wide awake without caffiene,
that thin brown dream,
desire the buzz unrecognized.
My hands kept stealing back to wrap around
the warm porcelain of your mug, how I wanted that sweetness

beside me, we watched night
peeling back into day.

I drink coffee now,
I want to be drinking it with you.

Teaching Poem

I want to learn to make coffee
and drive a stick-shift car,
see clouds without sunglasses
and make mashed potato volcanoes.

I want to tear bread with my teeth,
make snowflakes from scrap paper,
taking care to fall into bed each night
white-lipped with exhaustion and
filthy with freckles.

I want to gag on salt water because I am swimming in the sea.

Each day in the years since I learned to walk upright
I have forced my feet into shoes.
But I will not put away childish things.

Fish and Chips

Six senses and you could not see the net
that pulled you from the water.
What a waste of 450 million years.
You were perfected ambition before mammals birthed or
plants grew.
Those ampullae giving such sensitivity,
an ocean in each pocket of flesh,
a world of electricity
sliding through reefs of ancient nerves.
Smooth and toothful you have no use for words,
you are water, not air,
feeling those fields, fish flesh,
suspended in the sea.
Your slick oblivion is no match now for thumbs,
boats, bait, plastic and hunger:
how little you can see.

They fried you in vegetable oil.
You have no use for vegetables.

Dawn

dawn arrived
like an old cowboy dragging into town,
whip-thin and alone.
Asking Miss Kitty is this seat taken
before sliding in for another shot of whiskey.
Already the fog in the fields is gone,
the dew hanging on the first tomatoes is turning crimson.
The world has been set in motion,
the sun a tumbleweed on dusty streets,
that cowboy with his buckskin face
has checked each bullet in his gun.

North Campus

It is snowing
and the white, unbroken canvas of North Campus beckons to me.
Everyone I ask is too old to play in the snow, they give old excuses.
But you agree, we race outside, time stops in the cold.

We write a giant H in the shallow snow, frenzied and fast,
dragging our feet.
Smiles ricochet from your face to mine.
Next comes E. You lay out the lines and I follow,
as I always do, to reinforce your words.

I want to fill my mouth with thick snow like I did when I was young.
I want to throw snow at you until you laugh.
I want you to kiss me.

We move on the L, flakes melting on my hair and your flapping scarf.
Now P, the hardest one, a giant curve, chasing itself.
You are late for play practice but we persevere, limping madly:
Arctic hunchbacks, two crazy Tiny Tims chasing one another.
Then with the exclamation point finished, one last look and it is over.

Tomorrow morning everyone will look down from the third floor
and see what we have done.
Our work of art, the letters that can be read from space
though you can not read me from five feet away.
We have written HELP!
but no help comes.

2003

Snow or Sleep

Nearly five am

I say I’ll be in class in five hours,

You say you’ll be asleep

(curled in forest-green sheets-

tangled in a thicket of slumber)

Asleep, you say, and dreaming of me

(jolted awake into a world of white-

wet socks and textbooks)

You’ll send out a dream-thought to visit me

here…and you press a hand against the warm

ski-slope of my neck just below the ear…

In the winter-bright morning

(a fleece blanket of snow-

more beautiful than cold)

With an intake of clear air I feel the pressure of your dreams,

(a reminder of what you wish you could share-

but not exchange)

and I wonder who got the better deal.

Spinning

Arm in arm

we stride beneath the bright grey roof of an early winter sky

(cold enough to turn our cheeks red but

not cold enough to complain about).

Close together,

our long wool coats swirl, brushing together at the knee.

We move swiftly

until suddenly you stop and drag me around

once, twice,

two spinning stars linked by elbows.

We laugh, open-mouthed, at the thrill

of brisk air and sudden movement.

Jan 2005

Two Days

I went to your house the other day

(I got there early)

and made friends with the cats.

We laughed

and stayed up late

and watched a scary movie (that wasn’t very scary).

At 2 o’clock we went out to look at the sky.

We watched for shooting stars

(there were three).

There were no mosquitoes, that night,

the sky was an impossible black,

the grass was cold (and wet).

We didn’t want to go to sleep

and in the morning we didn’t want to get up

(but the sun made us).

2002

The Crocodile of Time

The crocodile of time

Eats a hand

and always comes back

for more.

One last cup of coffee

in the raining city

- an arm -

One more game of pool

- an eye -

Just five more minutes

on the plastic phone

-a leg –

All add up to an individual eternity

- a body -

The crocodile returns

but cannot crush

a flying soul,

free of time and place,

pick and choose

the pirate ship

- a life-

1998

Spanish Rose

I know you really like your brown-eyed Spanish rose
You’ve never been to Indiana, and man it really shows.
So what about the Germans, what about the Poles?
And way up north in Stockholm, those Swedes have got some soul!

You blew off south-east Asia, you skipped right by Peru
It didn’t count when you whistled at that girl from Timbuktu
You even had the balls to say that you weren’t missing much
And so I know it’s obvious you’ve never seen the Dutch!

You want exotic beauty? Well here’s the place to start,
Those of us with Irish blood have got some Irish heart!
They never made a song for me, they never even tried,
Cause they won’t believe that I’m a gypsy even if I lied.

You just lost out on Portugal in your pursuit of Spain;
If you don’t quite get it, the New Yorker says it plain,
Say goodbye to Egypt, yeah say goodbye to France
You’ve been singing to the wrong girls and now you’ve lost your chance!

5-5-03

Kit

Christopher Marlowe
Get out of bed
Put on your shirt
Soon you’ll be dead.

Christopher Marlowe
Pick up your pen
Write a few lines
You won’t read them again.

Christopher Marlowe
Out on the town
Live for your art
Die for the crown.

Losing Their Legs

They say that whales were pig-like creatures,

back in days of old.

And so I have to wonder,

what were the thoughts of that first pig-beast

that found itself so suddenly in among the waves,

alone, legless,

staring at it’s land-locked cousins.

Did it know it had escaped the frying pan,

the barbeque, the sausage egg mcmuffin

(but not the slaughter).

And if I lost my legs, suddenly

would I find a home in the ocean?

Becoming sleek and barnacle-encrusted,

huge and eerily grand.

Or better yet, what about all the veterans

who returned home from their foreign wars

wheelchair bound and crippled in this world,

Could they, already grizzled and far too wise,

grow smooth and hydrodynamic,

finally complete without their legs?

They say it was a gradual change, that primeval loss,

not a sharp shock of shrapnel,

But I still wonder about those ancient veterans of the land.

June

Once in a blue moon we find ourselves standing naked together.

Today, between the beach and high bluff, a grove of cottonwood
stands head-high, springy branches less cover than we choose to see
as we swap swimsuits,
struggling with sandy snaps, sunburn, secrecy.
Your tan limbs guard pale flesh,
yours and mine.
Sharp grass in the six inches between our feet,
breathless smiles reflected before we look away,
shocked by circumstance.

Of all the things, you say above the hush of waves,
laughing at the blue moon past when
your parents made us bathe together,
barely looking, adolescent and ashamed.
Remembering how we showered,

how we shampooed,

how we promised

to never tell.

For Caitlin, 2007

No Regrets Green Dress

Dancing like Elvis
in a green dress,
blue lipstick moves wildly.
I want to be the freckles on your skin
as you carve the edge of the desk
with the curve of your smile.
I want to see what you see,
to attend the party that never stops
and maybe hasn’t started yet,
feel the dance flow from my heart
to my hips to my knees,
looking great in a green dress.
I want to swim in your thoughts,
to laugh hysterically at one word,
tears flowing from starry eyes
and melting blue lipstick,
to dance like Elvis with no regrets.

For Caitlin, 1998