I wanted him strolling through
the lightnings.
Leftover lessons ones I didn't feel
like teaching.
Ones you pick up on the way home,
at Gerrard & Church,
         Streambank & Lornewood.
"Is he gonna be the one
made for you,
         or are you gonna build him."
I never studied architecture.
I never liked small talk
         about overcast weather.
and I never thought love was built

                                    only gathered.

Not have been my saviour
without socks -
and off white shirts.
Maybe cause of her pasta stains,
or overwork.

Thin brown locks, and
thick hard words.
Cross off your lists and
dot your T's. Life might
**** us over. But it
won't take her
sharp wits. Blunt
force for intelligence,
lovely soft kindness,
mistaken for
fatal generosities.

You saw no reflection
good enough for telling
your greatest story.
The way a story
"ought to be told".

That's why you had a daughter,
who became a writer. Cause
it always ends up good enough
for both of us,
when a pen's involved.

I am made of wilted spinach,
soaking in my grandmothers cast iron.
I am craving the hot and heavy words
they feed me.

I am not your songbird,
floating high among the daisy beds.
I am jersey sheets, thick Croatian prayers,
the sharp steady edelweiss
lasting.

I am my Dante Mary’s willowed secrets.
Soft and pillowed – my voice cranked,
trying to reach further than they told me.
I am my grandmother’s angel,
but I am down on earth

crusted.

Rich rigid bricks,
your sheen green cat eyes.
Your mom’s huevos rancheros -
spilling into noons.

Fireplaces off the window panes,
crisping open a warm chest
for a bed of new delights.
Dozing in my ice sheet hands -
I was meant to be bitten,
then bitter.

Lips pushed their forgetful illusions,
His rememberable forehead lines -
tasking away at lost minutes
of too many 14 hour days.

Here between long firm legs
lying in your large white cottons,
over collections of moles,
and forests of scars.

Wondering if she hurt you
in the same ways
that he hurt me.

chocolate godiva hair
          plush pinks
curving
          more than I could
heaven vanillas
          must have tasted
like the almonds
          her skins olive
oiled up for summer
          tasteful photos
you're there too
          in the pools
          reflection
i wish i could
have been        her
selling my sanity
          for an IG
or a glass half empty

Asphalte - nothing more sinister
than black wicks and
melted British Columbia coniferous'

Beige pavement - sleeping legs,
the hum of traffic, and
grey-toned depressions

Chalked up - memories,
scrawled out on blanks,
video tapes, and Air Max 97's

Smoothed by the grace of your thumbs
on my temple -
like a thimble to a sharpened needle
curving about the wandering dark silk.

King West vendours and spinning sugars
left untraced.
Woven into cracks of heated chemicals and gun smoke -
summer is not walking the plank,
only splinters.
Chilled Apothic California reds,
and sweet almond tarts.

I took you for a working fool,
only to find you
a soothing villain.