Briar rose, ****** red,
Why do you dream of tangled
vines with thorns?
Briar rose, ****** red,
Why do you dream of the fair
maiden that mourns?
As pearls of winter fall upon you,
-How cruel is this season,
to inflict melancholy just by
freezing your petals in the
eternal swirl of time...

I am halfway to becoming an artist,
someone who will have the power
to weave beauty at her fingertips
into true masterpieces.
However, the journey
is no longer one I can enjoy
as it has become a race;
I am halfway to becoming destroyed
and what scares me most
is I feel as if the killing
will happen sooner than the awakening.

It's obvious, isn't it?
When two similar planets pass by
each other
and get caught in
each other's
gravity.
It's obvious what must happen here.
The words not said
scream loud enough to
bridge the hundreds of miles,
and we still don't
say them.
Not yet.
It's obvious we haven't been here before.
Into uncharted waters,
we move so
very
slowly,
careful not to create waves
before we meet in the center,
careful not to misstep,
so that we can
do things right
for once.
It's obvious.

one-night stand conversations
are probably
all
we'll ever
be

Eroding brick wall
all that remains
refracted, fading
fishermen shadow
red dawn’s early light

brackish still water
shocked violent green
seeps from the desert
to be subsumed
by an unrelenting sea

restless dreamers rise
muscle sturdy pangas
into the churning tide
seeking quicksilver
at the continental edges

returning boats ride low
the shrinking horizon
race to safe harbor
cold beer on ice
under palm palapas

in the restaurant
a young man
shows off tuna
half as tall as he is
to admiring tourists

like me, seeking
the deep, slow burn
salt, jalapeno, lime
a fitting end to this
unraveling dream

Pueblo Mágico
of “no bad days”
walls of contention
in a fractured land
will never separate us

one margarita, two
another raised in defiance
of those who would try
to confine and define
free-range spirits

the Pacific touches
this contiguous shore
from equator to pole
we could catch
a clockwise current

follow Polaris up North
arrive transformed
magnetically charged
disparate souls fused
together bound

Nine years and still
we cradle our grief
carefully close,
like groceries
in paper bags.

Eventually the milk
will make its way
into the refrigerator;
the canned goods
will find their home
on pantry shelves.

Most things find
their proper place.

Eventually the hummingbirds
will ricochet against scorched air,
their delicate beaks stabbing
like needles into the feeder filled
with red nectar on the back porch.

Eventually our child
will make her way
back to us. Perhaps.

But I’ve heard
that shooting
****** feels
like being
buried under
an avalanche
of cotton *****.

For now it’s another
week, another month,
another trip to Safeway.

We drive home and wonder
why it is always snowing.
Behind a curtain of snow,
brake lights pulse, turning
the color of cotton candy,
dissolving into ghosts.

And with each turn,
the groceries shift
in the seat behind us.
From the spot where
our daughter used to sit,
there is a rustling sound—

a murmur of words
crossed off yet another list,
a language we’ve budgeted
for but cannot afford to hear.