Through the Bedroom Window

December Morning Poem

2010-02-20T10:41:00.003-06:00

Below a scarf of snow
the ground has ceased to shudder.
With a heartbeat slow as sunrise,
it sleeps as if beneath glass.
My breath ruffles solemnly
into the fishbowl air.

I tap
my feet,
the whole world rings.

Halves

2010-02-20T10:41:00.001-06:00

If Jack and Rose had spent less time kissing
they might have made it to a lifeboat.
They could have both survived. Nothing
keeps a sinking ship from going under.

It still feels unnatural to have breakfast alone,
to stop myself from thinking to grab two forks
and spreading hot sauce on what would have been your half.

Remember the night we missed three busses
in a row, the last lifeboats of the night, and we
were so cold and tired and you
were so mad, and then we met those people with the telescope
who showed us the moon.
In that dancing lens there hung an unbelievable
white city, frozen and old as a glacier.
I saw that teeth-white orb more clearly
than anything on earth.

If Romeo and Juliet had thought things through
they might have made it,
but at least Juliet never had to see that half-empty
bottle of hot sauce on the shelf
every single day.

Holes in the Prairie

2010-02-20T10:39:00.001-06:00

The night I watched you dance alone
the floor between us sank into a valley
of certain and impassible hours.
Your hands, as they patted the darkness so near,
flew far beyond my grasp,
even if I had stood and danced
we would not have been dancing together.

As children we ran through woods unafraid
of pathlessness,
with leaves like feathers against our faces.
We could not be lost, not in summer,
branches were made to hold us.
We must be as children again, soap-clean,
not touching,
and while I want you sleeping beside me
I do not want
to wake beside you naked anymore.

There are no songs of this particular regret,
of this one lonesomeness,
the knowing that our friends
must only be our friends.
Just as crows must eat the dead.

And prairies must be burned to bloom.

Things must be as they are.
We must walk in the dark,
I must watch you dance,
We must be as we have been,
ourselves, apart.
The certainty of this return
is a shudder of relief.

Borrowed Body

2009-09-10T23:33:00.002-05:00

All summer I rode on a borrowed bike

with a borrowed helmet and a borrowed lock.

My lungs gathered luminescence

and I grew lean around them,

riding long and light.

The wind blew in off the lake

in heaving hot and cold.

Miles out, lightning stung the water,

we lay down in the dark in the storm.

Your mouth was a thundercloud,

our bodies moved like the rain.

We left the beach with sand in our socks

as the fog drew strings around the moon.

With itchy breasts and damp tangled hair

I understood how it is to be a woman:

To pass through things, to be passed through,

To take what does not belong to me

and build it

into this body.

finally summer

2009-09-10T23:32:00.002-05:00

In the last hour of morning

everyone pretends to be asleep,

lying still and heavy as the rising heat.

Finally

your hand reaches from your sleeping bag,

finally

I feel your fingers on my shoulder blade,

they move like a mouse beneath drying leaves.

I am as patient as a seed.

Our eyelashes are the dark fringes

of ferns in the forest

as we pretend to be asleep.

The lake tosses, a fitful dreamer,

summer sprawls open-mouthed.

A cicada calls.

It is the pause in the air

before we kiss.

Cicada

2009-09-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

A cicada, newly risen, navigates my skin,

beneath the soft unhesitating touch

I too stretch my wings.

We have both lain for so long untouched,

now we unfurl knobbly and new,

fresh and unfolding.

Does the soil ache as cicadas are borne up bursting?

Summer is a weight on my thighs,

a soreness in my most hidden bones.

(sun)

2009-09-10T23:29:00.002-05:00

In the morning we shared a mango
as pulpy and yellow as the sun.
The world gleamed with a summer sheen
so we sat outside and let the leaves
cast shadows on our hangover eyes.
They cast shadows on themselves.
How self-contained, those trees,
how quietly they gather in the light.

We were pass-out-drunk the night before,
the drunk of scholars sick of words,
the drunk of getting lost, eating snakes,
falling down steep banks
where the railroad meets the river tracks.

And all those cups of coffee drunk from styrofoam,
what chemicals did they leave in our bodies?

My friend, you laughed
when I kissed the eyelid of your drunk left eye,
it fit on my lips like the lips of a bottle.
For once we did not speak,
and they found us asleep on the kitchen table,
lying side by side.

Vocabulary

2009-09-10T23:29:00.001-05:00

Is it platonic or plutonic? you ask, every time imprecise until I reply,

though really we are neither, how can we be,

our eyes half-closed, awake too long, poorly packed in tired skin,

improperly defined.

We lie on the porch, two lumpy cigarettes,

watching the ions of the air.

The snow is too slow for your patience, you say,

All other words plod off on peripatetic feet.

Each phrase floats face down,

silences pass like quicksilver suns.

Are we made of shadows or fire? Magma or perfection?

Really we are neither, here

on the penumbra of perception it is so late, here

your hand is on my sleeve.

I am cursed by your propinquity,

whatever that means.

Fire Alarm

2009-09-10T23:27:00.002-05:00

Certainly we had been up all night

filling our mouths with bread and cheese and cinnamon,

gargling with the stars.

And certainly we had made sure the stove was off,

the pilot light burning low

like a moon on the horizon.

But when our fingers touched

the fire alarm began to ring,

sprinklers sent the whole pajamed house

stumbling out to the sidewalk.

They stared incredulous at our

wild wakeful eyes.

spirits

2009-07-10T18:44:00.003-05:00

A cemetery full of mulberry trees near Wrigley field,
the fingers of the dead are stained purple.

Our lips are stained, too. I gaze at the tight confluence of your jaw
as we lie in the dapple-gray light.

Everyone that we love is the ghost
of a firefly once caught in some glass jar.

summer dreams

2009-07-10T18:43:00.001-05:00

I dreamed my sleeves were full of crabs.
I dreamed I went to the doctor
and she told me everything was wrong.
I dreamed that you got married.
The world is made of fragile wires,
I wonder how it holds together.

Springtime

2009-03-24T18:35:00.000-05:00

All colors are changing from gray-white to green
while springtime spins circles and drools as it cleans.
Ice frozen is melting an inch at a time,
froth rivers in gutters all gravel and grime.
All rivers are rushing: the first day of spring.

Our bodies now follow the course of the thaw,
a stretch in each hamstring, a yell in each jaw,
of bright words that break free like rivers unbound
from banks that were deafened from muting each sound.
All sounds are now singing: the first day of spring.

We sprawl on the front porch with arms opened wide
to gather the light as our atoms collide.
The sun crashes over with curious eyes,
our hearts buzzing softly like lazy houseflies.
All hearts beat together: the first day of spring.

As seeds all split open and leaves all twist loose
the season is jumbled, a tumbled-up truce.
Our feet pressed together, thin sole to thin sole,
a half of a half and a half of a whole.
All halves slam together: the first day of spring.

Interlude

2009-03-24T18:34:00.001-05:00

“I am so glad we live here together with our yam”

he said, putting hope in her hailstone heart.

They fluttered tiny wings, licked icicles,

fell sick, convalesced.

Through the betrayal of November, the knife-wound of January

they unfurled wings so small and gray.

Nearly invisible.

Beneath dull skin the flesh is bright.

In spring what else will come loose, break free,

take flight?

Love is a sweet potato. Love is a moth.

Illumination

2009-01-28T11:55:00.002-06:00

Finding text you took up ochre and iron,

etched the pale vellum of my mind with gold.

Illuminate this manuscript, these eyes.

Line words with woad and coal and images of birds,

fill with tumeric and lead what has been black and white.

Blank verse entwined with vines, my veins are verdigris

vessels in the workshop of your cinnabar smile.

Stiff spines stretch, a book opens,

plain pages disappear into an indigo night.

Freedom

2009-01-28T11:54:00.004-06:00

I hope that someone was thinking of me
at the exact moment that I,
thrashing the centerline of the dark highway
between Clovis and Roswell,
hit 100 miles per hour.

Everyone is always thinking of something else,
and I thought only of the death-shudder
of the steering wheel.

Life

2009-01-28T11:54:00.003-06:00

Life is complementary to life.

It is too many things not to match with itself:

The muscle-clench crunch of December snow,

fifteen minutes of afternoon sleep,

bank swallows darning the air.

In the morning we wrap lunch in wax paper,

go swimming in our clothes,

lie in the unleavened sunlight.

I would happily make sandwiches with you

until breast cancer finds and kills me.

Lemons

2009-01-28T11:52:00.003-06:00

She gave him lemons

that they squeezed over a floppy chicken,

then baked inside its soggy skin.

Later they ate the meet, their prying fingers

peeling off white strips for greasy mouths.

He gave her beer and wine and whisky,

coffee and tea,

hard bread and rough romano cheese.

They got high from a bud burning in a ballpoint pen.

At four am he took off her glasses,

uncovered eyes bare and bold.

Their faces wavered

but did not meet.

In the morning they woke curled head to foot,

sore and dry-mouthed on the couch.

He gave her a glass of water before she drove home,

thirsty for lemonade.

Shoplifted Cheese

2008-12-17T23:13:00.002-06:00

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

2008-11-18T16:49:00.001-06:00

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

2008-11-18T16:48:00.002-06:00

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)

2008-11-18T16:47:00.002-06:00

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

2008-11-10T16:38:00.002-06:00

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

2008-10-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

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

Hangover

2008-10-21T16:21:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-07T16:38:00.003-05:00

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

2008-10-07T16:36:00.002-05:00

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

2008-10-03T10:49:00.004-05:00

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

2008-10-03T09:53:00.002-05:00

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

2008-09-12T13:10:00.002-05:00

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

2008-08-19T17:29:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-24T14:05:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-24T14:03:00.001-05:00

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

2008-07-24T13:54:00.001-05:00

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

2008-06-21T17:32:00.002-05:00

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

2008-06-21T17:29:00.000-05:00

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

2008-06-21T17:14:00.002-05:00

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

2008-06-21T17:14:00.000-05:00

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

2008-06-09T19:44:00.000-05:00

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.

2008-05-15T17:39:00.000-05:00

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

2008-05-06T12:15:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-17T01:14:00.004-05:00

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

2008-04-17T01:13:00.000-05:00

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

2008-04-14T00:28:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-07T01:35:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-07T01:29:00.003-05:00

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

2008-04-07T00:57:00.002-05:00

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

2008-03-20T00:08:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-14T00:24:00.001-05:00

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

2008-03-12T02:05:00.001-05:00

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)

2008-02-27T01:22:00.002-06:00

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

2008-02-24T23:50:00.007-06:00

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

2008-02-18T00:09:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-24T23:43:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-24T23:37:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-12T01:04:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-12T01:03:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-12T00:59:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-10T22:57:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-10T22:55:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-10T22:51:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-07T23:02:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-07T23:02:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-07T22:59:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-07T22:54:00.000-06:00

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

Heritage

2007-12-29T13:23:00.000-06:00

Where is my name from?

She named him Samuel, after his father, and also after Mark Twain, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to have such an inspiration. With a name like Samuel Tennessee Cartwright he was going to be incredible anyway; he could be a great writer, or explorer, or railroad baron, or president. She called him Tennessee, or Ten, but he’d always have Samuel to fall back. His father went by his middle name, too, so maybe he’d never quite figure out who he was in casual conversation, or when he came to visit. She’d tell him if he asked, of course, she wasn’t going to give him a novel for a life; he’d have to earn one. Besides, kids were more likely to ask who their fathers were than where their names were from.

Where is my dad?

He wasn’t gone; but they weren’t together, they never really had been.

They had slept together, the only thing preceding it a certain electrical smile shared between them for the past month. They hadn’t been drunk, only foolish, only giddy: college students during exams week. He was gangly and she inexperienced, and afterwards they had managed to avoid each other for a week, until their mutual group of friends pulled them back together. The instant they had been back in the same room they realized that it wasn’t strange at all. And certainly she had appreciated that none of their friends had noticed anything. These people, their trusted, core people, had never seen or mentioned seeing anything between them. Accordingly, they had concealed it almost mirthfully; quietly joyful when no one had seen that touch, that glance, or felt a quiver in the air.

There was a kindness between the two of them, a satisfied and tender understanding that was not love, but was in fact the tender beginnings of it. The rushing fall that drives everyone mad, the first and sweetest bite of a peach, a door being suddenly opened by a gust of spring wind. They had slept together again, more cautiously this time; they had held hands; and then nothing after that. Awkwardness not being one of the many things that can destroy love, they were unworried, however, poor timing is the ruin of nearly everything else. It had never occurred to them not to move on with their plans in life; unencumbered they went separate ways with whispered promises to write, to keep in touch. She went to the city to work for a magazine; he went to Texas to Teach for America and start work on his Peace Corp application.

But they were encumbered, or at least she was, so deep down it was unrecognizable. She felt the first tremble of life in June. Disbelief, panic; but never anger and never fear. She imagined flying down to Texas to tell him; and he would pick her up and swing her around laughing. She imagined marrying him. It was not unpleasant, a little house with ferns and cucumbers in the summer; a dog, an office with old bottles in the window, his guitar in the living room. Dancing in the evenings, falling in love, getting older with someone warm at her back. She imagined ceding pieces of their lives for one another, then sinking into disappointment until the kid was having two Christmases and every-other-weekends. She imagined raising a child herself, in the city, with a hectic job and no life but parent conferences on her 30^th birthday.

When she told him, over the phone, she was greeted with silence, not cold but choked, and she knew he was imagining the same things, and she told him it was all right. They’d figure something out when he got back. She almost had an abortion.

What did you want to be when you grow up?

When he was a floppy-legged infant, she touched him constantly; greedily stroking his soft skin, his feathery hair, and gazing into his round, round eyes. She loved the way he looked at everything, the way his his tiny fingers closed around her own. She loved the way his lower lip hung like a squashy comma. Every time she went to touch him it was like a courtship, she was wooing him for the honor of having contact with something so beautiful. When he crawled to her and pushed himself up onto her lap, when he grabbed at her and smiled, she could feel her heart pounding. Each time it was a first kiss. He was so exquisite.

Can we get a dog?

They lived alone with each other, in an apartment, she was doing well at the magazine, they had given her maternity leave and had Fridays off; she knew it would be nice when he started school to have that day to herself. Now those days were just the two of them, going out around the city, or sometimes just lying together in the sun on her bed while he looked at everything for hours until he fell asleep. He loved sweet potatoes.

His father came to visit, more often now that he was back in the city after Teaching for America and before whatever else he was going to do. They had never talked about getting married but neither of them were seeing other people; both had tried on and off in the past two years but they were young.

Once they had almost slept together again but it had been strange, because they had really meant it that time. She imagined someday he’d visit and they’d finally sort it all out and, for once, it would make sense.

Once he had been there with other friends; and those who knew about him were angry later, angry at how she was just letting him go, that he wasn’t there for them. She knew he would be, and besides, it was her friends who were there, they helped her all the time. Samuel laughed around them, they held him and sang to him and she was so glad that they were not alone.

Why are girls different from boys?

When they were alone she would talk to him, all the time, even though he wouldn’t understand. She would read him poems or her articles, and he would stare at her, just stare and stare as if he knew everything. Or she would gossip with him, tell him what was happening at work or with her friends, who were stumbling through young adulthood in a world that seemed so far removed from her now.

She told him, “You’ll get old, Ten, and you’ll learn to ride a bike and write sonnets and you’ll fall in love with a girl who wears too much makeup and consider desperate things to be with her. You’ll hate me for a while, and you’ll color pictures, and lose your keys. You’ll fall off a horse and I’ll drive you to the hospital, you’ll go on picnics and learn about dinosaurs and get muddy and cold and eat marshmallows and love curry and be held close, so close, and you’ll feel loved.”

She said, “There will always be someone there for you even if you don’t know it.”

She said, “This world is insane, Samuel, and we’re insane too, and that makes us sane. We can’t see even an inch into the future but we don’t stop moving, our blindness never stops us from taking a step forward. If we could stop and go back we wouldn’t. There are all these stupid terrible things that we’d love to stop, we’d love to, but we won’t because we’d have to go backwards. It’s like riding a bike at night or sliding down a hill on a sled; you can’t stop and your voice streams out behind you and you can’t see where you’re going but you love it. We’re happy to be alive. We make mistakes, we’re sorry, but we don’t stop making mistakes. Even if you never make the same mistake twice your life will be full of them. We don’t see each other and we bump into people, we make each other road-kill and we trample on each other’s dreams and thoughts, we steal and cheat and lie and kick each other even if we don’t mean to.”

Where do babies come from?

She said, “People are cars without headlights.”

Another Life

2007-12-28T22:14:00.000-06:00

I wish I were a newsie with my cloth cap in my hand
I wish I were an immigrant sailing to a foreign land
I wish I wore a top hat and a gold watch on a chain
I wish I drove a wagon to settle on the plains

(Refrain) Cause I can’t be no one else, that’s right
No I can’t be no one else.
I can’t have another life this time,
So I’ll give it another try.

I wish I were a business man with a briefcase full of gold
I wish I were a maiden who never will grow old
I wish I were an actor who danced upon the stage
I wish I tamed the lions that live inside a cage

(Refrain)

I cannot be a doctor with healing in my bag
I cannot be a shoeshine cleaning with a rag
I’ll never be a lumberjack felling trees beneath my saw
I’ll never be the President and give my word as law.

(Refrain)

Instead I’ll be just myself singing you this song
Though the list of other lives is twice a million long
I look around at my life, at all I’ve got instead
And never wish for anything else until I wind up dead.

Cause I can’t be no one else, that’s right
No I can’t be no one else.
I can’t have another life this time,
So I’ll give this one a try.

August 29 2004

2007-12-28T22:12:00.000-06:00

A train comes churning through the sleepy town
its headlights rushing on through the thin midnight mist.

Songs in the darkness, and the flash of a cigarette tip outside
imitates the moon,
which lies in the sky like a cow, milky white and
spotted by dark skittering clouds.

We splay ourselves on the line of open conversation
rewarded by sleepy smudges beneath our eyes
and the bright half-circles of our smiles.

Poem to a Dead Mouse

2007-12-28T22:07:00.001-06:00

This morning you woke up in love,

scurried about the byways and corridors of your world

until you came upon the mousetrap

that closed on your head still quivering with the scent of bait.

You died in flight

as the trap sprang up and over

now your back legs lie askew

your front paw reaching for your crushed spine.

I found you there, grotesque, and wondered

where else you might have gone today

who else you might have loved

and if I would have been careful enough to avoid your fate.

That looks on Tempests

2007-12-28T22:07:00.000-06:00

All day the ocean is rushing at the unprotected shore,
wearing away sand,
drawing the earth out to sea.
It is dangerous, in waking hours, to recognize these tides,
the quiver of light on waves,
what might be love wearing on the corners of my mind.

But there is no logic in the dark.
Safely harbored we curl our hands together
and you ask me to stay
until you slip out into a truly pacific sleep.

Sink

2007-12-21T23:41:00.000-06:00

I knocked on the door again because I could hear her in there, I could hear her music and her feet bouncing on the floor.

“I need to pee.” I announced. The money saved by renting a one bathroom apartment had undoubtedly gone into groceries, specifically, the cranberry juice which was aggravating the current situation. Olivia would appreciate the irony.

“Pee in the sink” she warbled through the particle board of the bathroom door, and I briefly considered following her advice.

“Your dishes are in the sink. Let me in.”

“I’m shaving my legs” she replied. Woman things. I had strict rules against the mention of woman things, especially bathroom woman things, in my presence. Propriety should be foremost amongst roommates, and the tubes and bottles lining the bathtub were bad enough. Olivia, I have to admit, is better than most, and in return I keep my unsightly hair clippings and male hygiene products to myself. Olivia and I have been living in an Odd Couple’s bliss these past few months, a bliss somewhat impeded upon by the current pressure on my bladder.

“Can I please just come in?” If she really wanted her privacy, she would turn up the radio or mention one of the dreaded woman words that would have sent me scurrying to the nearest public bathrooms. I was fighting a winning battle, and we both knew it. I put my hand on the doorknob. “I’m coming in.”

She was in her underwear and a grey t-shirt, and had her foot up on the sink, her leg streaked with a few lines of lather. Her other leg, bent to support her, was jiggling up and down in time to the rock music from the tooth-paste spattered radio, and her unpolished toes fiercely curled against the damp carpet. I wondered at one point in life the human condition would become beautiful, at what age we became dignified.

“I’m not looking” she said, and I pretended she wasn’t there as I peed. Olivia and I have been friends for five years, and if we’re coexisting this disgustingly I wonder if it’s been too long. When does this sort of closeness become acceptable? If we renewed our lease in the fall, what might we become?
She hopped over to make room for me at the sink, and I looked at her smoothed leg as I rinsed my hands.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Does a girl need an occasion to shave her legs?”

“Yes.”

She snorted disapprovingly. I was using her own words against her, but Olivia has a great propensity for inconveniently misremembering past arguments.

“Well, I’m going swimming, anyway.”

“Why?” This was a new development, as Olivia generally abhors water sports. I suspected peer pressure.

“Swimming is good exercise. And it’s something I should be good at. So I can, I don’t know, learn to sail.”

“Are you planning on learning to sail?”

“I might be. Either way, you of all people should not be one to criticize attempts to better oneself.” Five years. Too long indeed.

“Fine. Thank you for your gracious accommodations in the bathroom.”

“Just one more service we offer at Chateau Olivia!” she proclaimed, holding her pink plastic razor above her head, with an accent reminiscent of her inspiration, the Statue of Liberty. Resisting the urge for further sarcasm, I instead decided to wash the dishes while Olivia pattered about, humming and gathering swimming accoutrements. If she was on an aggressive campaign of self-improvement, I might find myself out of a bathroom more often, and in need of the additional options.

When Olivia had left, come back in to grab something she had forgotten and left again, after I had watched her ride away on her bicycle, I returned to the bathroom. Standing in her empty, still damp spot, I shut off the radio and opened the medicine cabinet. I looked at the pill bottles on the top shelf and then lined them on the sink. I filled a glass of water, stared at the white flecks in the bottom, and poured it down the sink. I filled another glass and looked at the pill bottles. Celexa, ibuprofen, old prescriptions. The lethal doses all carefully tabulated in my head. Orange and white plastic that for Olivia had probably long since blended into the background of things she couldn’t reach.

I thought of Olivia coming home, exhausted and cheerful, and finding me on the bathroom floor. She’d smell the vomit I’d drowned in, drop her sopping suit and scream. She’d never go swimming again. Swimming is good exercise, and she would like to learn to sail. Maybe exercise is the answer. I thought about going swimming. About walking in and never coming out, like Odysseus’ mother. The newspaper obituary, if there was one, wouldn’t make the connection. I thought about taking a walk. About stepping in front of a car. Too messy, that might hurt someone else. I emptied the glass of water. I put all the pill bottles back onto the shelf and went into the kitchen for more cranberry juice.

“Fuck Hemingway.” I said it out loud and slammed the cup down onto the kitchen counter, but it was plastic and only hurt my hand. Suddenly it was very quiet in the kitchen. The clock tocked and the refrigerator shuddered off. Olivia’s ugly houseplant seemed sympathetic, leaning precariously in the corner. Perhaps it, too, wanted to die.

“Fuck you, Hemingway.” I threw the cup across the room, looked at it, and picked it up. I wiped four droplets of juice from the wall with my finger.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know”.

Jackie told me that, right after I started writing my senior paper about Hemingway. Most days, I wish she hadn’t ever shared with me her extensive collection of quotes. I thought about calling Jackie, trying to be casual about it. She’d tell me what she told me when we broke up, that, among other things, I wasn’t happy enough. Enough. As if it was quantifiable, acceptable only at certain standard levels, or as if she managed to be any happier at any given time. She should have said I wasn’t happy enough for her, I know that’s what she meant but I wish she’d have said it that way. Her relationship with words was so beautifully potent, I envied it and trusted it, so of course it hurt me. But she can’t be blamed for this, she can’t be blamed for anything but putting that stupid fucking quote into my head. My senior paper was shit, anyway, but I still passed. Of course I did. Olivia doesn’t let me talk about Hemingway anymore. She says it makes her sad. Really she just doesn’t like anger, it’s too different, it’s frightening. She’s used to my sadness.

I need to get a job. A better one than my last appointment, which was so monotonous I quit before I could be fired for poor job performance. Olivia’s happy because I stole a label-maker from the office, which is at the bottom of her closet now, out of tape after she labeled everything in our friend Riley’s apartment. I thought about calling Riley, going over there and staring at the label on his ceiling that says “ceiling”, but he’d be at work, 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday. Everyone is at work, except Olivia, who has Mondays off and is swimming. Why didn’t I just go swimming with her?

I got in my car and cranked up the radio, drowning my sorrows with the music of the 1990’s, which in itself is deeply depressing but always makes me feel better. It’s familiar, if nothing else, but the repetitive nonsensical lyrics, the grim drugged-up despair in the vocals, it means something; not like today’s sad music, which is self-consciously intricate and far too specific. Nineties music doesn’t make much sense, it just points to the painful core at my center, nods, and wipes its sweaty brow with a tattered flannel shirt.

There are a few bookstores in the area, some corporate and some locally owned. I’m a regular at those, but none of them are hiring, so I bitterly looked for applications at the big business bookstores. I hated the poshness of them, the hipster coffeehouses and over-decorated seasonal cheer. At least they’d pay the rent, the cell phone bill. Employee discount and old biscotti for Olivia. I went to the grocery store and got lettuce, soup, yogurt. Red grapes were on sale, the good crispy ones, as my enthusiastic roommate calls them, and I bought a bag for her. She’d be hungry from the exercise.

I was just sort of lying in my room when she called, but I didn’t pick up the phone. She called again almost exactly a minute later, so I answered it. Her voice on the other end was quiet, I could hear activity in the background.

“Can you come and get me?” she said.

“Don’t you have your bike?”

“Yes,” she said after a pause that suddenly sent a wave of adrenaline up my spine, “but could you come get me?”

“Yeah. I’ll be right there.” I couldn’t remember the last time I heard Olivia being that quiet on the phone. Not even when she called while she was off playing hide-and-seek and had gotten bored, not even for the sake of the game had she been quiet.

I pulled up by the pool, and she was waiting outside on a concrete bench, her bike and backpack beside her. She looked very small. I got her bike and she got into the front seat, but she didn’t look back as I tried to maneuver the clumsy machine into my back seat without impaling her or getting grease on the seats. We drove home in silence, the radio mostly chipper commercials.

Upstairs, Olivia dropped her stuff in her room and went into the kitchen, filled a saucepan with water and turned the burner on high. She got a chair to reach her tin of tea rather than asking me for help though I was leaning in the doorway watching her. Opening the fridge, she stared at the new bag of grapes with vague surprise, instead took out four pieces of bread and spread peanut butter over two of them, moving calmly, like she wasn’t there at all. Then she spooned strawberry jam onto one sandwich and apricot jelly on the second. She doesn’t eat apricot. Without thinking or asking, she had made a sandwich for me, too. The silence in the kitchen made me glance nervously at the wall, checking for spattered juice stains. The clock ticked and I found my courage, finally asking,

“What’s up?”

“I drowned” she said, staring at the sandwiches.

“You what?”

“I drowned. When I was swimming, I was tired and when I turned my head to the side to breathe, I breathed in some water, and started coughing, and I guess I stopped kicking, and I went under the water. It was in the deep end. I kind of came back up but I didn’t have any air because I had been coughing, and I couldn’t tell when I was at the surface, and I breathed in more water and went under again. I couldn’t tell. Which way was up. Or anything.”

I didn’t know what to say. What can you ever say?

“The lifeguard pulled me up. She saw me go under. She was really nice about it, too. She was like, sixteen.”

“How long were you underwater?”

“I don’t know!” Anger flashed in her eyes as she looked at me, but it faded again, and she just looked tired.

“I’m sorry.” I almost laughed at myself. “But you’re ok now, right? You should get some sleep.”

“I’d rather stay awake for a while, you know?”

She sat in the kitchen and made her tea. I looked at our movie collection for something that did not involve death, near-death experiences, or water. I was faced with a handful of Disney (except the one about the mermaid) and the few romantic comedies that had been gathering dust on a back shelf. Woman stuff. Even Olivia disdained them.

“Do you care what we watch?”

“No.”

I put in one of the movies, hoping for something that would leave my IQ and belief in humanity intact 107 minutes later, and flopped onto the couch. Olivia settled next to me, tucking her legs in under her. We are our sandwiches in silence, unwilling to provide a laugh track for the film. When the pop song rolled with the credits, I got up to stretch but she stayed put and asked me to put in another one, maybe a better one. Grabbing the first one from the stack, I threw it in the machine and settled back down. As if I had anything better to do than watch crappy movies. It wasn’t until halfway through until Olivia spoke again.

“You know how they say drowning is like going to sleep?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It kinda hurts.”

“Yeah.” I slid over and grabbed her shoulders, pulled her to me in the hug I finally realized she needed. Her hair smelled like chlorine.

“You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I saw?”

“What?”

“Nothing. My own arm. Blue pool water, then nothing. I didn’t have any air, and I didn’t have anything.” She abruptly broke off her sentence, unwilling to say that she had that she had taken water into her lungs and surrendered to that oblivion.

“No childhood memories or anything. And I’ve got some good ones.” She pushed in closer to me, and I pulled a blanket up around us. By the time the movie was over she was asleep on my lap. I thought about moving her, such a few short steps to her room, but by then my legs were asleep and I was halfway to joining them. She was breathing evenly, without thinking, as she had been in the pool earlier. I nearly shuddered, looking at her closed eyes, her pale skin. Her mouth was hanging open. The moment drool appeared, I swore to the grimly glowing VCR clock, I was done. I was moving out. No drool appeared as I stared at the blank blue television screen, buzzing blue rays into my tired eyes. Blue pool, then nothing. Olivia had seen the worst thing she could imagine. She had clawed at the air and the water and tried to pull herself back up, but then she had relented. Odysseus’s mother regretting her decision as she saw the sand swirling around her feet. Blue water, orange and white plastic, darkness. Slowly I shifted so we were lying down, Olivia only smacking her lips and sloppily tugging at the fleece blanket. I’d never be able to sleep, I can never sleep sardined with someone else, but Olivia was just there, needing something better than nothing.

She punched me in the shoulder to wake me, told me loudly that I was a pervert and threw the blanket over my head as she got up. I listened to her pouring cereal into a bowl in the kitchen, humming an obnoxious jingle. Cured, seemingly. Reborn and undefeatable each day, while I, so unlike a phoenix, had slept with my keys and cell phone gouging into my leg. Better than nothing. I got up and leaned on the doorframe of the kitchen, where Olivia was eating dry granola with a fork.

“I’m going to be late for work” she observed, smiling her beautiful child’s smile at me. “You’ve got pillow lines.”

I went into the bathroom and closed the door. I opened the medicine cabinet and looked at the neat line of pill bottles on the top shelf. I closed the medicine cabinet. I filled a glass of water and, without looking at the hard water flecks swirling at the bottom, drank the whole thing straight down.

(lies)

2007-12-21T22:47:00.000-06:00

It wasn’t your words,
it was what I thought you meant by them.
But your letters, pressed to my face
smell only of paper.

After I left
I thought about you fiercely for many days.
You said you missed me
because you knew what it would do:
Bring me back through the wires,
make me want you

like a cigarette.

Three Day Pass

2007-12-21T22:43:00.001-06:00

They landed at midnight, three days later
their last two dollars landed in the cardboard box of a panhandler,
water-drenched fire eater at the Pier.
Beer cost four and there’s a store on every corner here,
San Francisco, the richest port, each step thick with gold and light,
stink of onions and steeples and dogs with strange names.

Miguel, drooping curls, drooping mustache,
old skin and mouth of an economics professor,
Miguel you gave a handful of hash to the Minnesota girls
before you knew their names.
Green California skunk smell, high school’s satan,
they will fall off the edge of the continent but
they will not say no.

Where on the streets have you fallen, Miguel?
And besides, who else has tripped down these hills,
scraped their knees and vomited wine, unable to find themselves
at the beach, too far from the Greyhound station, too far from
anywhere. Anyway,
how different can one voyage be
when so many others have died here, lost their shoes here,
fell in love with the floors of a bookstore,
slept on a couch and woke feeling alive;
half-woke and wondered how long,
knew it was too good to last, threw youth to the pigeons,
broke their teeth, turned their tongues through cable wires,
smoked away summer in the shadow of the sea.
We justify so much.

We take the handful of weed, the bitter pill in the bathroom
that carries time like a sleeping child,
gently high in Washington square (as if DiMaggio still cares)
to pace the latitude line and find a place between grass and sky.
Where are you, Miguel, what paths have you traced to come so far
from Puerto Rico, you said it meant rich port,
you explained it all to those girls from Minnesota you’ll forget tomorrow.

They will ride to the end of the line, throw themselves
elbows first into the sand, sun worn, glad and tall,
a departing plane heavy on their eyelids.
Later that night they’ll stand on prairie’s edge.
But did they find it?
The pacific call that has drawn dreamers beneath red Chinese lanterns—
not smoke or wine but the ineffable promise
that the waves would welcome them in,
that the ships could take them further west than those
last crispy hopes, those last two dollars.

the blues

2007-12-19T02:11:00.000-06:00

Now I sing the oldest song:
my man done treat me wrong.
Where's the one to treat me right,
who won't drink or cheat or fight?
My man done treat me wrong,
owes me money and leads me along,
squeezed my heart until it bled.

But you bought me milk and bread,
you spent weeks writing me a song
that I listened to as I lay in bed.
We stayed up and talked all night,
now I don't know where you belong.
You held me close, you held me tight,
when we pitched headfirst off a sled.

The night you lit my hair on fire

2007-12-08T15:27:00.000-06:00

The night you lit my hair on fire

we fell asleep side by side,

three in a bed, holding hands.

Already wearing pajamas beneath our clothes,

we were soldiers in winter

shoulder to shoulder. Sister and brothers.

We went to bed, fell asleep, woke up,

our feet tangled. We got dressed, cross at consciousness,

angry at the dawn that would carry us apart.

History Lessons

2007-12-06T20:51:00.000-06:00

"They tell us, Sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when will we be stronger? Gentlemen may cry peace, peace- but there is no peace. I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."

I should have known I was in trouble when I first read your name,
Patrick Henry.
In your stubbornness I saw confidence,
in your arrogance, pride.
They tell me, sir, that I am weak
to love you charismatic fools,
when will I be stronger?

I would have loved you,
Patrick Henry,
a moth to your flame.
More showman than gentleman,
unwilling to compromise
no soft words will sway you, no soft arms will give you pause,
your most formidable adversary is yourself
and I could never save you.

When I first read your words, your brash ideals,
I did not know you were my type,
Patrick Henry,
but still your speeches stirred me;
my only course now to follow you fierce fighters, fiery actors,
my heart fed to fuel your passions.
I would cry peace, peace,
but there is no peace in being at your side.

Ribbon in your Hair (Sea Shanty 2)

2007-12-05T14:23:00.000-06:00

You asked me for a china dish
And silver from a fair
I brought you seashells from the shore
And a ribbon for your hair.
I cannot spare a copper
And gifts, they must be rare
But oh my love how fine you look
With that ribbon in your hair.

When I am drowned down in the sea
And in the ocean’s care
Will you wait for me upon the shore
With that ribbon in your hair?

Sea Shanty

2007-12-05T14:21:00.000-06:00

We’ve been a sail a month or two
it could be three or four,
and I’m just waiting for my eyes to light
upon the distant shore.
For fish and salt and lumbered wood
I’ll sail upon the sea,
For water and wool and sewing pins
I’ll sail away from thee.

My sweater’s bare, my hands are cold
its dark and black below,
the shifting ocean ‘neath my feet
is the only life I know.
Take me home, gentle waves,
Take me home, rushing tide
I’m drowning in the steady seas
For I’m not at your side.

My mates all talk of heaven,
lands of gold and green,
The setting sun upon the waves
the only gold I’ve seen.
For fish and salt and lumbered wood
I’ll sail upon the sea,
For water and wool and sewing pins
I’ll sail away from thee.

My brother booked a passage
down to New South Wales.
Instead he went to paradise,
drowned in November’s gales.
Take me home, gentle waves,
Take me home, rushing tide
I’m drowning in the steady seas
For I’m not at your side.

I have ridden the heaving waves
when the sea-borne air turns grey
there’s nothing left for the sailors then
but to hold the line and pray.
Take me home, gentle waves,
Take me home, rushing tide
I’m drowning in the steady seas
For I’m not at your side.

I'd mess up my hair for you

2007-12-05T14:11:00.000-06:00

The skin around your eyes is creased and greasy
no beauty commercial in your lack of sleep.
Like me you are no magazine,
I would hold your hand for all time.

December song

2007-12-05T14:10:00.000-06:00

In winter my skin cracks and bleeds
red and raw as the veins of my heart.
You made a scarf to wrap around my head,
warm and heavy as a sloth. Algae fur, long arms,
I can smell the rain forest on it's breath.
Your love is tropical darling
It's so cold but
your love is so tropical.

From "Long Night"

2007-11-08T18:04:00.000-06:00

So much had been lost. Memories, feelings, desires were packed away, buried down in the closed compartments inside him. Like the cities to the east, buried in ash with nothing left that was soft or pink or human. Just this, survival and the vague perplexity at his own existence. He didn't know what he wanted, but suddenly her eyes were before him, gleaming white, she was all smooth fire sparking against the night. He wanted to take her and fill her with everything he had, to say every word he knew and every word that had ever been, but she already had them all. Albatross, alacrity, temerity tuxedo murky volunteer the the a it she. Her. It was all inside her already and it would never be destroyed. He kissed her. "Shit" she said. Grammar, indigo, hurricane, her. He started to kiss her again, but stopped, tried to apologize.
"It's terribly cliche," she said, so close to him now.
"There aren't any other cliches left on Earth" he replied, and her peal of laughter fell like shining beads onto dark pavement. They rolled into him, lodged inside him and he pressed his face to hers and tried to remember everything.

Upon Waking, July 21, 2006

2007-11-08T17:57:00.000-06:00

Sick and fevered
I dreamt of you
sitting at a cafeteria table,
two books in one hand.
It is how I know you best.
As I sat down with my tray
you began to argue, good-natured stubbornness.
The dream ended.
I lay still for a moment
recollecting reality
and wondered
what you had been doing
as
I
woke.

Teacher's Beau

2007-11-08T17:54:00.000-06:00

Perhaps a century ago
we could not be seen together:
young man and schoolteacher.
Decorum reigns in your proper carriage, but
the sight of us would have scandalized young eyes.

This afternoon you surprise me, waiting at the door.
I fly to you,
open my mouth to laugh,
wave at my students
as you escort me home.

Eagan, we own the streets

2007-11-02T02:08:00.000-05:00

It is so good to get drunk with you,
to roam the town
and laugh without stopping.

(title currently forgotten)

2007-10-31T19:20:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-31T19:16:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-30T12:02:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-10-27T16:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-18T19:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-07T11:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-05T18:24:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-05T18:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

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...

no one writes about goofy people

2007-09-28T17:58:00.000-05:00

you've got thin wrists,
and a silly hat.
and a beard,
which is weird,
but ok I think.
why are love poems always so profound?

Driving Stick

2007-09-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

Two burritos
but you’re driving
so I juggle both
belly-sized bricks.
I peel back an inch of foil
barbacoa beef
ready for the request
of your silent hand
outstretched.
After a bite you
hold it out again,
dripping rice,
I snatch it up
immediately,
abandoning my own
so you can turn the wheel,
eyes straight ahead.
The sunroof is open,
music is blaring.
Salsa burns my lips
as I watch yours.

First gear! you shout
and I don’t know where first gear is but
I grab the stick and shove it
up and over
we slide to a stop at the red light.
My god I say but you say second gear,
straight back and I do it and we go,
we’re gone,
your burrito just a sticky end
I cradle into your palm.
When you say chip
I dip one in guacamole
and place it between your fingers;
I will always be here for you.

Fall

2007-09-25T14:28:00.001-05:00

The final day of August drooped over pastures, ditches, dry corn,

slats of old tree forts,

fields heavy with cicada song.

Noon still shimmered,

moonrise quaked,

stars telegraphed the dark.

The final day of August burned like lightning.

Two friends, drunk on mistakes,

made love in a narrow bed.

In the morning, September shuddered at the cold.

-

2007-09-20T18:52:00.001-05:00

Purity of experience:

We’ll never get to the moon but

maybe

black coffee

straight gin

5 am

barefoot in the rain.

Plight of the Troubador's Friend

2007-09-18T14:05:00.001-05:00

(for Billy Collins)

Your friend the troubadour
goes each evening to stand under some other woman’s window
You proofread his poems
and lay a sisterly hand on his head
when he returns each evening lovesick and disappointed.
He reads you his sonnets, asking
“Will they work?”
You do not tell him that they already have
and wonder what would happen
if he glanced up from his lute and into your eyes
or read through the poems that you pen late at night.
But you have long since decided
that you would rather hear him practice his songs on you
than never hear his voice at all.