How sick I was (and lost)
when brought to suffering
by the smell of coconut
on someone else's
freckled skin.

Until now, my best work yet: a boat, a love, the Leonids.
Quite beautiful as heartbreaks go, a near miss on a midnight
lake, with wishes dropping left and right. I laughed at that,
said take me back, and until then, I thought I meant
to shore. Nice story; camera fixed on Indian Point, boat exits
left 'neath fireworks, sponsored by the Galaxy, brought to you
by Tunnelvision. Cue piano, pretentious fin, but then
you – a star: hotter than those meteors, colder than those
miles of lake. I wrote you in, rough draft, known as
the man who loved this woman best, but take your bow;
you've been recast: the man who loved this woman last.

May gave us tall grass.
Clumsy hands pressed my clean hair
into the cool mud.

I think of August:
strawberry sundae cups
and squash blossoms.

My love was like a playful kitten,
curious and quickly smitten –
maraud the house to see what's in it,
intrigued by all the things forbidden.

Your love was like a lazy hound,
content to dig the same old ground –  
or better yet, to go lay down;
a nuisance, having me around.

This is what he promised me:
August, and berries that fell
right into my hands; he
promised me handstands. He
promised me bees, he said
the nights would smell sweet
and wet flower petals would
stick to my toes. He said I'd
just know. He promised me
sparrows, and switchgrass that
crept past the hem of my skirt.
He promised me clean dirt, and
hard work. He promised an
August that I'd always remember,
then stayed 'til November.

I remember you like accidental
photographs: sun flare, skin,
the tops of trees. Knees. Your shirt-
sleeves in a dove grey breeze. (I arrange
the photos like a slow striptease.)

My mother washed potatoes
one by one while my father
went carousing with his
favorite gun; I dragged sticks
through dusty gravel while
I watched it all unravel,
wondering what to make of
such an ugly thing as love.

I caught my mother crying once,
at the kitchen table, face in one hand
dishtowel in the other,
real crying, out loud crying;

I wanted to be anywhere else,
and would have run
had she not heard me,
had she not pressed the dishtowel to her eyes
and said

“I'm just so tired of walking on eggshells.”
like an eight year old would understand,
but I did,
kind of.

temporarily unavailable

My words, defiant, deny me;
they speak in low voices
on dark porches, lose me
in strange cities;

they forget the warmth
of my mouth.

Eyeing me suspiciously,
smug with voweled virtue,
they dismiss my attempts
at reconciliation, saying only

We don't even know who you are *anymore.

To your can't, I say won't,
and that's fine, love. That's fine.
To your try, I say don't,
and that's fine, love. That's fine.
To each failed attempt,
I say wasted ambition.
To your look of confusion,
I say you wouldn't listen.
To your heartfelt regret,
I say no need, it's fine.
I felt loved for a while
and that's mine, love. That's mine.

Tonight, I'll bake bread
because I need 
good smells 
and warm hands 
and a sense of purpose.

You were in your forties then, lived upstairs with your
old man, gave the neighborhood someone to feel better
than. I was maybe nine or ten, and Franny, oh! I could
have cried when he blacked your pretty gypsy eye and
Franny, oh! my restored hope when I saw Joe, his lip laid
open; Franny, you could throw a punch. So here's to right
hooks, Franny. Here's to gin before lunch. Here's to street
smarts and cunning hearts. I didn't end up like you. I got
out of the neighborhood. I'm my own woman; that's our
slogan, but you know, Franny, sometimes even that 
makes me feel like I'm swinging my fists in a third floor flat.

i.
In Toronto, we could lean out the kitchen window
and steal pears from the neighbor's tree.

ii.
It was the first time I had seen my sister in years.
We climbed a hill to pick wild plums.

iii.
He said I'll eat one if you do.
We laughed around our crabapple kisses.

What I wouldn't give
to know the comet tails of thought
obscured by your  ellipses …

Your absence has drawn
fractions on my belly. It's
bisected the axis of my
heart; it has split me apart.
I am charts and statistics.
I'm percents. You were sharp.
So was I; when I left, I cut
those halves into fourths.
I left one in your bed, now
I'm three quarters saved
and one quarter spent.

Out of work muse
seeks out of words poet.

Must love grammar,
discord, whole days lost
to plotting coups through bitten lips

and safe words drawn with fingertips;

should know to not break my heart
at night, when there are still
hours of emptiness to fill up with sorrow.

Available evenings, starting tomorrow.

Unassuming, at best– no
tempting minx, I confess,
but this I would bet (speaking
humbly): give me paper and
ink, half an hour to think– I might
just convince you to love me.

Before the rain falls,
the leaves turn their pale bellies 
skyward, playfully.
She is staring at the sky.
He thinks *I should kiss her now.

flicker-interference-frequency* (broadcast nightly)
static-soundbites-satellite (fading slightly)

but nothing of the woman
who chooses words with such precision
to lead your eyes to only pretty frames;
a portrayal of desire, sensuality,
a provocative anomaly—
who lights up every time you say her name.

I didn't know your name back then.
I practiced love with other men.
I burned my lips on words like yes.
I didn't know your name back then.

I practiced love with other men—
a reckless, shipwrecked malcontent;
a willing, waiting queen undressed,

I burned my lips on words like yes.
I warmly, weakly acquiesced
and woke to wonder if I'd dreamt.

I didn't know your name back then.
I studied sin with other men
and broke my heart on words like when.

O useless sky – you disappoint,
brood mutely as I weep and curse;
you've had eternities to meditate, yet
I think of all the answers first.

Please, when you come, bring me news of the world –
not foreign wars or epic storms or the Queen's upcoming
Jubilee, but things that only you can tell – like this morning
smelled like mulch and mud; the slate was wet, and you thought of me.

When I was younger,
a moment of existential
panic would have my
buttons coming undone
for boys who didn't care why
but sure loved how.

I'm more beautiful now,
less given to panic, and I
undress for you like this:
one story at a time –  a
metaphoric bump and grind.
I shimmy out of all my lies.

Between us, tangled wilds, and through that, a deep ravine – each standing on a
mossy bank with river in between; I say “It's early morning and
the world is wet and green – I'd like nothing any better than
for you to bathe with me. I'll meet you in the middle, like I've met
you in my dreams, and either you'll get ***** or I'll finally come clean.”

You are my former palace,
my walled city,
the cradle of my  disinhibition.

You are my intricate
system of roadways.
(I know you by heart)

You incite rebellions
in my sleepy villages
and send me postcards
from dangerous places.

You are my lost transcripts;
we know each other the way river
knows sky—  a cosmic nod,
a reflection of always.

From wind and stone, sand.
From faith and prophets, temple.
From beast and hunter, blood.
From my heart and your heart, monsoon.

We drifted like snow.
There will be more cold mornings,
the sharp tap of sleet—
but my legs will not find yours
beneath the warm mess of sheets.

that's always the first thing I think
                    love
when lofty           begins to
                                              sink.

I only wanted to learn love; the unknown was unbearable.
Like a child plucking flimsy wings
from pretty little dying things,
I'm innocent, and terrible.

A last incinerating kiss, then
the exponential loss of  bliss–
take my heart and divide by
you; leave me with poems and
warm anecdotes that I'll store
away like Marie Curie's notes:
still hot, still toxic, still true.

When I had nothing to mourn, I did anyway, 
not knowing the difference;

it was just autumn wail—
an old wives' tale, 

and you were indelible,
but I was 

forgettable.

A gentle tempest stormed my lawn; it stood
me still and then was gone. Anchored,
awestruck in my place by beauty and euphoric
grace, I thought of Spinoza's God, infinity's
precise design, the perfect math of Everything –
our love, a quotient of Divine.

i

Love wears red boots.
They click faster on the sidewalk
as I  hurry to catch up.
I just want to ask her something.
She gives me that look that says
I'm sorry, but I can't help you:
smile tight to the teeth, sad eyes.
She looks uncomfortable
and a little bit afraid of me,
so I thank her for her time
and pretend I just remembered
there's somewhere else I need to be.

ii

Love is a crone
sitting at a sticky table,
cigarette in one hand
stained mug in the other, saying
And the whole time, she thought it was me!
to a round of ugly laughter.

Translations frequently differ;
sometimes it means
you feel good tonight.

Cue our story halfway through,
without the benefit or detriment of history—
affinity, no past attached;
you don't know me, I don't know you,
but yet, we do.

Forgiveness as a chosen way's
like bringing home a cagey stray;
it may bite, despite good will,
but tend your wounds, and feed it still.

Perhaps not love – at least akin,
this shatterbelt of sheets and limbs.
Our hearts break for the smallest things,

but if we're just two burning bees
in a forest full of cardboard trees,
I wish for drought, dry leaves, a breeze.

Riley wants to build a robot.
With all the eagerness of
a five year old
who has been told
that she is brilliant, and beautiful, and kind,
she presents me with her shopping list:

METAL
CLEAN WHEELS
ROBOT FOOD

She tells me that the wheels need to be clean
so they don't mess up Mama's floor.
Of course, I say,
and kiss the top of
her brilliant, and beautiful, and kind head,
reflecting for a moment, with my eyes closed
and Riley chattering happily,
on why a child's hopefulness
always makes me
just a little sad.

I would bring you lunch just to watch you walk
across the field; you reminded me, then,
of a young Fidel Castro. I had just
read his prison letters, and was feeling like
maybe we didn't set enough things on fire.

At night, we played games; I would call you
Comandante and undress you, trying
not to smile when I spoke of the uprising,
but I always did. Some nights, my mouth on
your skin and all of those fires not lit

and all of those things  left standing
made the world seem too big and my torch seem
too small; I could never be brave enough.
On those nights, you kept my heart in my chest
with your grenade-throwing arm, tenderly.

I can't write about miles of sown fields
or the absence of rain
or silver minnows in a cold creek

without also imagining
how the sky would look from underneath you.

I can't write about sugaring season
or my grandmother's barn on a foggy morning
or the thrum of an August day

without also imagining
kissing each one of your berry-stained fingers.

Little more than listless guests,
we play the game I-need-you-less.


Discord, missed turn, second guess;
things are different. Bitter? Yes.


Weary, naked– I'll confess;
you drew your hooked line through my chest


so meet me in your battledress
and if your blade finds  tender flesh,


I swear that with my dying breath
I'll say * "I won. I need you less."

June evening, mid-sigh,
she holds a finger to her
lips, then to the sky;
pools of sundown flood the fields.
She trusts the breeze to find him.

I saw a photo
of a plain little farmhouse;
I imagined us
kissing in the bright kitchen
and lilacs in jelly jars.

In the minutes before sleep last night,
through stellar static, astral snow,
a poem, half dreamt, was born
and died; I drifted off and let it go.

Just one line survived the night;
that line will have to be enough.
I wrote it down before it faded:
sometimes we were good at love.