I've got no pre-planned preparations
Hidden in my purse

That silly thing
I called a dream
Swayed to the point
Of extinction

And collections I once had -
Of where to be and why
To be there

Were nothing but clouds
Like every other thought
Now dust in the wind
Of all things ever sought.

You haven't broken me
yet
but try again,
I'd like to see.

I am a very impatient person, which is why you are mute and kind. I only wish to speak without being interrupted or countered. I only wish to stare into your clearly good eyes, empty yet full and know that in them lies truth, and so it is truth, then, that I will use.

Your eyes, I imagine, are taken from a dog. Specifically, my German Shepherd, who, one night, told me all of her secrets so that, of course, and politely, I told her mine. "It's just that . . . I'm not very good at singing," I said, and she stared back, almost dumb-struck, almost all-knowing, those eyes revealing nothing that I could judge myself on.

And so I say to those eyes, now your eyes,
I wish I was a fish. Or a summer tree.

One evening I was sitting at my kitchen table and it was storming and grey and all that comes. And the window to my left was covered by a short sheer curtain except for one sliver at the top which allowed me to peek outside. What I saw was a tree being blown side to side, leaves smacking erratically and happy about it, too, and I whispered to its root and stem,
"I wish I was you."

To stare at her was to be frozen at once and then suddenly, necessarily, heated from the inside by the magic of her beauty.

Green eyes are great, but what about a softer blue?

Straight hair is soft, but can it curl too?

Who is she or will ever be if not everything I could ever need.
And she's gone like a breeze.

The moon? Like a spotlight through the empty lines of
my bedroom blinds.
An orange dog below and snoring
with a black nose.
Shoes beside him, a flower purse, a brown backpack, and a white bear
with a red bow.
In a mug I picked myself, a cactus, low sand, and pebbles of SanDiego-beside upright and laid down books atop a chest of knobs made to look like a Christmas tree.
TODAY, the calendar says.
TOMORROW, the calendar says.
Where's TONIGHT? I ask.