I'm in love with someone's daughter
living in the shards of a broken home
Cutting herself on two year-old letters
These are moments she can't fake;
reasons to feel alone
So used to abuse, her tears start to shake
I hold her close as her head starts to ache
"I love you too much,
so I can't let your heart break."
She said, "I know you love me,
but you've made a mistake."

I never meant for anyone to be my pulse.
I promise not to step on your feet
if you teach me how to waltz.

Little boy, fussing in my arms
Why won't you sleep?
Baby boy,
Do you know who you are?
What kinda things will you dream?
Mommy's little man, growing up before my eyes
I remember when you were born,
The smallest of my three
I thought your sisters were tiny
Then I saw your precious little feet
Now I hear those feet running through the house
With everyone you meet, you look to me and smile
I can see that mischief in your eyes
Oh baby boy, how I love to hold you tight
Whisper how things will all be alright
Even now as you fuss and squirm
I can see you slowly drift off
I imagine what you will dream
The last thing you see
Is me smiling at you
As you finally go to sleep

She jumps up when my key turns,
Leaving her sofa;
Greeting me like a puppy would
Its owner after

Twenty one dog-days.
I drop my bag and guitar,
Swimming in the scent of
Woman straight

From shower. All is home with
This girl. No palace of gold, no
City in the clouds,
No exotic boat ride on

Green waters, no top of any
Mountain, no bar, casino or
Cabin in the world where I'd
Rather be than here.

After we've sat -nearly on top
Of each other- for a while, she
Asks what I'd like to do now.
Anything that includes my

Girlfriend, I reply, and she hugs
Me for the seventeenth time in
As many minutes.
Can't stop touching each other.  

Her hair is a unicorn's mane
Against my hands, skin like a baby's
Tummy, hands like those of a young
Mother's upon anything she

Loves; all with the honest affection  
Of one.
I am home, I sigh to myself, and
She looks at me as if thinking

He is home, leaving me so
Happy for us both that I just
Want to lean down over our relationship
And pat it lovingly behind its ear.

The tree of life grows in a graveyard-
With my hands around the air,
I imagine you over there-
Sitting under the branches,
inhaling abuse
and
exhaling cursive.

only real way 'cause
thick up down:
******* ,



               i'm


sorry                 'cause


                i'm


gonna hurt)hurt you

a lot


                  (tonight

That old man working the fields outside
His old, windworn house.

His granddaughter in her light blue dress
On the swing in the garden,

Cotton flowing behind her like some tail
Tracing a comet of innocence.

Her dog, only twice the size of the
Two squirrels climbing the trunk

Of the tree her swing swings from,
Yapping at her, either for attention

Or in appreciation of the love she
Must, must feel for it.

Two seconds, and they're gone.
Driving on.

My girl inflating her yoga ball
On the living room floor, throwing

Her hair back and smiling, dizzy from
Oxygen spent.

She passes it to me, you do the rest,
But I'm too busy writing about her.

She laughs with her whole self.
Stares back at me when she catches

Me staring first. What? she'll giggle, and
As she stands up and moves towards me,

Still
Staring,

I see that this poem is ending. Two
Seconds.

She's still
Here.

such things as my own body i have been:

                 (the grass

                   the sun

                   the moon

                   the sea        )

and felt the big violent urge up
of the whole world's thigh
each stupid flens of men:

their hands that go out from them
and come back into them–making and destroying;

(who have i been my own hands amongst such things?

making much

destroying much?



                                                                  they
                                                             go
                                                     out

                                                             come

                                                                        back

                                                                                    IN

and they are so heavy
with nothing
even the grass
that will become them
cannot grow in such
a dark place                                                                                                       )