My closet I shun  .  .  .
Little room we both lived in,
  .  .  .  Photos in boxes.

Birds painting the air,
Early light in the garden,
Waking with new sun.

All of my friends were there
and their friends, too
and the friends of my friends'
cousins and their dogs
and their all-seeing aunts crammed into
ill-fitting blouses with
their husbands in New York or L.A.
and their inbetweens sending them
***** texts and someone, I think it was
my mother, she said, Why don't you
lay in the river
And I said, Of course
The leaves fell
The birds sang a four-note phrase
and all my friends, the best ones,
they tossed half-empty packs
of gum, flower petals, quarters, pens--
anything they had in their pockets
As I passed by them I said, Remember
when we ate the poison berries and
said our goodbyes. Remember when
I played pitcher on our t-ball team.
Remember when Drew took the electric
fence to his crotch. Remember when
we threw Josh's library book into the rain.
Remember when I learned to ride a bike in
sixth grade. Remember when I kissed
you on the backseat of the school bus.

And they said, Yes. And they laughed.

Those were good times.

My brother, he was there too, he hopped
in the river and gave me a push, said,
I'll see you around the next bend.

Life number two, I said.

Life number two.

Without humility  .  .  .
Mobile devices flay all—                                                                                    
Blue screen blank as soul.

i still hold my breath when i hear you late at night

you're locked behind closed doors and you think no one can hear you, but i hear you
howling like a wolf in search for something in the night,
roaring with anger like a lion

i'd like to say that I'm not afraid of you anymore but I can't help but feel like a small child in the dark when you curse

maybe this is why I try so hard to please people like you
I'll swing a right hook at a woman before I'll do so much as raise my voice at a man and what the **** does that say about me?

take a shot if you were conditioned to keep men tame
pop a pill if you were raised to stay silent when your daddy yells
light one up if the lines have blurred between love and fear

i haven't been sober in years

Leave things better than you found them.

That's the only way
to make the Eden manifest
we've too long denied
ourselves and each other.

.


                                                    
                                                
                  f               f               f
                      a          a           a
                            r     r       r
              f     a      r     t    a    r     t    a  
                             a    a     a
                       r           r           r
                  t                 t               t
                                    a

I rode my bike, fat, bloated 4-inch
Tires un-skating across
Frosted ground.

A degree below
(You know what)
Not ice, or icy,
Exactly, but...
As if some mythical
Dude named...John?
Jorje? (****-hay)
Ok, Jack, then - breathed
Almost-frozen breadth
Over much of Downtown
Indianapolis.

The sun was diffuse, low
Easterly, barely a lighted
Presence, as I pedaled through
The little pathway that perimeters the
Zoo, the muffled cries of
The furry and wrinkly-
Skinned high above
And safely ensconced
Past huge limestone walls.

Shutter-flash
Dapples of light struck my
Eyes as I passed leaves who
Stubbornly refused to relinquish
Their stemmed hold onto
Mother and Father tree.

Past the little zooey pathway,
The big bridge leading to the
Downtown canal, ordinarily
Crowded, but only I crowded
This time and place and space.

Where the sun wanted to shine,
But was stubbornly blocked by
Such insubstantial things as
Bridge abutments and pillars;
Shadows outlined the muted
Rays of a bleak post-Christmas
Sun, contrasting
Outlining them in a
Frosty embrace.
All around that little ******
Of ground, the light of day
Melted and softened Jack's
Iron-like grip. But not
That little piece of ground.
Nope.

I stopped the bike and looked
At the squarish rectangle of
Frost that stubbornly refused to
Give up its hold from the
Relentless, though much less
Powerful sun.

The clockwork
Universe ticks and tocks,
And moves and shakes, and
This morning, snug in my many
Layers, I got to ride my bike
On top of a battle
I'd never witnessed before
Today.