crisp from the core
cut in half and a bore.

I want some more sand!
I'm tired of cement beneath
the slabs of meat I call feet,
the movement doesn't beat
the heat:
it fuels it.
burning
on my way uphill, the stretch
is between my thighs. Sweat!
this weather is no good for fancy clothes,
I've got pit stains up these hills.
I'd say I'm looking on the bright side, but
it's more of a stare, or perhaps it's the light
that's stalking me, because I can't seem to
escape it!
burning!
this soul is melting through this flesh which
can't let go of winters breath, what once was
afraid to freeze to death wants nothing more
than a cloud or four, to shade their skin from
sinking in.
the rays,
the haze,
the heat begins.

Summer is no enemy,  
Winter is no friend,
all I want is Fall again!
The spring is here,
my nose is nose,
the seeping of color shall spread
ahead,
down and all places around,
it'll push and shove as
my body is covered
in the guilt of not taking
the time to properly supply myself
with sun screen.

He was out the door, slammed shut in 2004
and he couldn't get back in even if he wanted to
because the lock broke after he moved out to Hadar
the arm pit of Haifa, and wouldn't tell me where he was
as a punishment for my banishing him.

A friend saw him on Masada street.
In the end that proved to be his street
oh, the time I had for friends, in the hot Mediterranean sun
dinners in cramped living rooms with laughter and wine and always
houmus.  You can't eat a meal without it, and prints of art on the wall
and the cement floor, and the too many cats

So he'd crash in, do something that had to be done, insult me, and leave
and this was it
I sat in that big apartment with he fancy black cement floors and smoked
cigarettes and took the bus to the cat shelter to clean 25 cat boxes in a cold water
bath tub and set them out to dry in the sun
and hang discarded clothes on a fold out clothes rack, each cat got a shirt to lie on
and instant coffee and chocolate at 4:45 PM and cigarettes as cats walked around in the
sunset

But at home, sometimes I'd try to get him back, if I could
But he could always be so much more mean, poking at the tender spots
without remorse and I learned, not to fight back
Just to collapse and cry as the door slammed or he said something
and then stormed out, absolutely not caring

There were my friends, here I have no time for friends,
and I talked to him and prepared for a time when I'd go back and
have no time for friends again
Everything would be work, work, get yourself back on track
you've lost so much time

But here, too, the losses are deep and I sit in my own apartment, with
carpet and a dishwasher, that I could only have dreamed of having then
and my own car in the parking lot,  and

People make me cry.  
People where I work, people I mistook for friends
and it's better now, I now, if I can only follow through
to seek no revenge
but just to mourn
Because the world can be more cruel and cold and uncaring
than I can ever imagine
there's no competing
it's better to sit and cry here, too

The warp of time,
a memory so refined
and pigmented
that it sits naked

and parboiled;
cradled in your mind.
My baby, you cry
‘oh, what is this division

that has cast us so apart?’
Time. Time and tremors
and the absence of lusture
in our lives.

I kiss the scars of our past.

The heady punch of whiskey,
and the overspill
from your father’s ice machine.
I remember it well.

And, my friend;
the cigarettes in the park,
the first time we split
and cut school together.

I remember it well.

Sat cross-legged
in the supermarket aisles
or else
mistaken for lovers

by the strangers on the streets.
Half-right and half-witted
we fell into the role
with a bumbling

grace. Bless yourself
with the compliments
you know I have for you.
Remember them well

whilst I kiss the scars of our past.

A friend I am not
I do not know how to mask desire with faithfulness
To falsely turn my cheek for the sake of another

No friends have I sought
But only intricate details of a lover
Held up in brilliant contrast to the sun
Until their affections I have won
Which subdue me for a while or so
But a friend I am not, so off they must go

As sidewalks are laced with tiny delicacy in blue
They say to me, 'I will not forget you'
But what is forgotten, if remembered without meaning?
Ah, and the blue laced flowers waver, unsure
As if to remember is to abhor

how lonely sits
the city says
lamentations

guess this mouse has what you americans call post traumatic
stress disorder,
think of it more like
a path for the
eyes.

one where eyes are finally forced away
from the works of hands
by the knock knock
knocking on
heaven's door,
everybody's saying,
hodi hapa? something's
wrong if no one's answering; tonight.

my neighbor whose
name is eej (for
real) came to
the hut with
his friend.

i said do you
have siblings
he said
i did

oh

said i

you are living
my worst nightmare
one thing about an african

childhood, they say fatalism, you say you
would think about death too
and who knows

what you'd
look
like

tonight by the bagel van i said bunkle
i gotta problem
what's your problem said he
well i think i'm not wearing enough colors
no said he you're missing a bright splash in the orange red family

who knows what we all look like
inside the infinite space
of our souls

wonder if
blue means purity or
green means beauty
or red means strength
or love
or love

well
we all look
pretty much
the same asleep

hatred doesn't look
different in one
eye or another

but why does
it have to
be in the
eyes of
anyone

this mouse has
been asking
since
child
hood

why
why
why.

the cruelty

but
yet
still
and
for
ever

(you always did care for me yeah
you always did share with me yeah)

you always make me laugh, still

the book of jonah makes me
think of sea legs
and just everything,
you know all
the palm trees
huts, nonvoices
of our lives

the blessings rain down
an ocean sunsetting
on an Ocean sky.

siblings

be strong the
good kind of
dangerous

is
the



fire

You BLAME Him for being JEALOUS
of all of the other guys you talk to? You
could tell Him they're all just friends, but
yet, He still worries & He's still afraid  
to lose you because he cares .
Do you wonder why?
Because don't forget, you & Him started out being 'just friends' too & look where you both
are now, together as a couple. You both
became more than friends after being just
friends so in His mind, it's possible for
another 'friend' to come along and you
might start liking that friend the same way you started liking your Man now! So
understand your Man is jealousy.
Yes he might be over protective
Yet he cares

For sixteen years now I've been haunted by your death,
you'd have been 27 today.
I was only 7 when it happened; when you drew your last breath,
your 'little shadow' lost something deep inside herself that day.
you were the only one who cared about me then,
alone and scared in the hospital; you were my only friend.
You helped me cope; taught me how to unleash my pen,
if I couldn't deal with it; you'd help me mend.
I thought you were fine; we'd just spoke on the phone,
making plans to go to the movies the next day.
Your voice never betrayed the 'secret' your face would have shown,
last words I heard are "I'll see you tommorrow Jenni, I promise." you say.
you never came; I knew something was off,
then that gut wrenching phone call...
my mother hung up and told me you'd died; her voice all quiet and soft.
I remember my head spinning,
I black out and fall.
It was several months after; that I found out what happened,
why you'd gone.
Your own demon won over as your depression deepened,
you hung yourself; leaving me here alone and undone.
Why did you have to go,
why must I stay all by myself?
As an adult I now understand; I know,
but it still eats me up inside; my broken innerself.
Sixteen years later; I still have that damn note you left me,
it's the only thing I've got left of you;
it reads:


"Tell Jenni I'm so sorry,
and that I love her.
Elizabeth"