You hide yourself in the corners
Of your desk, the soft bits tucked away
Behind your vest—
A downy, growling thing—
At five, your heart is stuttering
Towards the door
And the contours of your eyes
Are something close to opening.
Feb 5, 2017
Feb 5, 2017 at 9:07 PM UTC
It's summer number twenty-one
and suburbia is slow roasting,
the days turning dreamily
over the spit, as I try
not to set the sheets on fire.
Each night I drench them with
a viscous sweat, wrapping myself
in the smell of conquering Montmartre,
a rush-hour ride on the no. 3 metro line,
close calls with morning joggers
coming from the Parc Monceau.
Every morning,
lacher is collecting in my damp palms,
and quitter runs in beads down my back.
You must have tasted non plus and
confus beneath my lower lip,
je suis désolé pooling in the dip
of my collarbone, because
You were gone
three days ahead of schedule
in spite of every word held back
in spite of the afternoon drives
and the late night talks, Scott Pilgrim
forgotten on the flat screen, the raspberries
that temporarily stained our fingertips.
Slick truth seeped out somehow, through
their perfect Golden Ratio,
these invincible, nautilus spiral prints
forensically seared to my tongue.
It’s summer number twenty-one.
I will my pores to open up, for floods
of pain jardin lune fleurs printemps
to soak the linen and swallow the words
you left behind, smelling decidedly
American, popped caps of Mexican Coke
and regret.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 8:38 PM UTC
Somewhere--between the last time I smelled rain
and now--are the clanging voices of angels
resounding without love, like rusted brass gongs
ringing on, pushing us into one another's arms.
We all have our false idols molded from gold,
forever confusing the priest with the God.
Right here--between the baritone of the first spring storm
and the last keen of winter--is the silence. Keep the hair
you cut while I slept on. Those were the lies I washed
with false faith, strands catching in my mouth.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
Her tongue in cotton,
a crack
between her jaws:
A boy left the scar on her chin
slick and gleaming,
shriveling like a moth on fire
in the burn of those words
he lit that night
e.e. cummings was on *****
windows, blurred,
and everywhere he went she found
hope
Her heart a scoop
in a honey jar,
something thick and sweet
to toss onto breaking waves,
only to end up back at her feet.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
our bodies are slack
lines of rope
thrown up to the sky
kidneys and lungs afloat
somewhere between just one drink
and this playground
we dare this swing set
to break
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 2:54 PM UTC
What keeps you sharp,
hardening your bones against
the soft dark, between
I will never have good *** or
The apocalypse is in process, and
My cat will die of liver disease.
Every evening I will eat alone.
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
Who was my mother before
she met my father and learned to scream?
Did she wear her hair long and loose,
the thick sheets of burnt oak wheat curled
habitually between her young piano fingers?
Did she stop singing Sam Cooke when people
came in the room? Did cigarets find their home
between her smiles, were curses running
like bitter saliva through her teeth?
Most importantly: Did she come home one day
--to Pa folded in his armchair, hands tucked tight
against his sides, whiskey to his right, Ma fixing
dinner with an eye on her dead sons's picture,
Franny working the late shift down at the tracks,--
and know that every night would be shorter than the next
until she was the ghost walking the bright foreign halls
of married life.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 12:01 PM UTC
Eternity:
I am seven and forbidden
a book. If I look down I'll puke.
The house:
Blue with roses ascending
up the side. Insides smell like
Pa before he died:
Cat, cotton, paper.
My hands: cold and stained red.
At the cemetary:
my stiff fingers, pale sun, I don’t like
the carved out space I know waits under me
while I pray
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 11:39 AM UTC
I met someone all stretched out
with kindness and life experience
minus a college degree. One year
younger and shameless love for
every band I socially deny.
He is dangerous and confides in me
glibly that two girls still love him.
He probably has a propensity for cruelty
and girls whose hips fit extra small
in his cello hands, his piano key hands,
Lord forgive me, his wonderful hands.
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
I have seen the teahouses
carved into cerulean arches
that make a delicate reach
for the sky. From within,
smoke traces the same path
from the ends of cigars and the
infinite "oh" of many mouths.
The rafters converge in beams
of light, the tiles are etched
in holy words, the wrist of a girl
bends a perfect curve-
Another arch within arches,
hands, wrists, windows, doors,
mouths and words,
the sky.
And your cup lip dips into
a tenuous moment: a question
only form can ask, into an answer
you've known forever
Jan 19, 2014
Jan 19, 2014 at 9:01 PM UTC