We are talking about poetry

He is restricted to a black stroller
counting cheetos with
cheese-dust coated fingers
humming numbers, while
his papa leans on
his own crossed arms
eyes closing for too long
to be considered blinking

Seven cheetos

Let’s return to the poem
on page 238 in the book

now six cheetos
and five and his father
starts snoring

chai tea
French film
two breathing bundles of orange fur
cold hardwood floor
cracked vanilla-scented candle
unwashed carrot
lounge pants
dry lips

comfortable solitude
interrupted

with the
terrifying desire
for his
presence

If you come in the summer
do not leave
the moment the leaves begin
to abandon their trees
do not leave me
with your memory darkening
like an unfortunate tan line

If you come in the fall
do not leave
shades of red and yellow
embedded in my palms
do not leave me
contorting each syllable of your name
in search of warmth

If you come in the winter
do not leave
shaping me like a snow angel
born beneath your absence
do not leave me
heavy with guilt about
my inability to melt

If you come in the spring
do not leave
letting me bloom
under the artificial light
of your promises
do not leave me
thawing at your touch

If you come
do not leave
when the seasons change
do not leave me
pining for reason
do not leave me
do not come at all

I love the idea
of rainy days

When it rained last year
and last Tuesday
and then again today
I wore the same rain boots
each time

I love the idea
of being in love
with that one last year
and then you today
I love with my shameful heart
each time – feeling just the same

A different day whenever it rains
in love, a different name

The morning I found the box
of photo albums in the attic
I learned that
the sun would have risen
even if I hadn't

Daylight is not necessarily
a good metaphor
for life

There you were
ten years earlier
having a picnic on the kitchen floor
despite the rain storm
visible through the foggy window behind you

You can make sandwiches
in any type of weather
but seeing the photos
loaned me understanding of why
you don't eat rye bread anymore

When I went back down stairs
I took our bread box outside to the birds
and made you soup
in silence.

On road trips
we would use each other
as pillows

Brother to window
sister to shoulder
brother to shoulder
sister to window
Are we there yet?

I mean,
Are we grown up yet?

Brother to work
sister to rehab
brother to work
sister to school

No matter the pattern
we all appear
leaning on love
and blood

She knows
concrete – not the soft earth
of late April, finally thawing

She knows
the carefully groomed trees
decorating the sidewalk - not
a garden tousled with wind
savoring its first sip of sun

She knows not
fresh air or quiet - but
when the clouds
become heavy and burst

her bones ache
her bones know

Jorrah has been coloring
all day long sitting in
the grass – He brings me his
sheets of paper says he
has drawn all of his family members

On the papers are one hundred hearts
constructed with wobbly four-year-old hands
all the same color despite his
sixty-four crayons

I spent six years playing padiddle
with the shine in your eye
each time you winked.

Now I am falling asleep
beneath a blanket of sweat
imagining how few seasons are left
before the honeybee
is only able to live in captivity.

I would never touch you with angry hands.
Apparently I could never touch you
with the right words either.

“It is hard to hate a broken thing.”
Even harder sometimes
to accept some things
are broken.

You set the table
making sure we both have
a napkin, two forks
and a knife

I spend hours
preparing a meal
that might be enough
to satisfy both of our appetites

we sit across from each other
I ask you to hand me the bowl

it is already empty
you are already full

You
always content
to leave me
starving

That night it snowed
so hard
I melt you between my lips
like an ice cube

Each time I touched your ribs
I was trying to let my love echo
through my fingertips

I fell half asleep on your bare chest
as you repeatedly said
“I love waking up to you”

I love:
waking up
you

Three years ago
I was given
my first cactus plant
I named her Esperanza

Today I threw her away
in the kitchen trashcan –
the things we love don’t always get a funeral
when they rot
when we overwater, over love
          accidentally

I keep her red ***
on the windowsill
          empty
the garbage and walk it to the street
thinking of her green thorny throat
turning yellow and soft
when I still thought
exposure to the sun would heal her

Through a window I see
a dim living room, brown couch, teal walls
I imagine it is our couch
we must be doing dishes
after dinner – your hands
on my waist, I always forget
to take my rings off
until I have already started
scrubbing the plates

I take away your hands
leave on the rings
let the plates air dry

Let Esperanza grow
black spots and mold
and worry only about
the next plant
her red *** will hold

The night exhales
loud, ***** coated breath and
on an inhale pulls me like
the tug of a cigarette filter

through flashing neons
pressed against a navy blue
ceiling
          floor
                  wall and
                              button up shirt
of a Welsh boy

named Adam, who offers
a rib disguised as a dance and
out on Wind Street I stumble
the Eve of Swansea

with my American accent
the apple already tucked in my throat

There are many different ways
to eat dark chocolate

I like to let each square
make it's home on my tongue
like to let it's home flood
with coffee and muffled
"oh my godddds"

When trying to decide
whether or not something is worth
crying or apologizing for
I try to scale myself
to the rest of the galaxy
try to remind myself that
having a black hole for a heart
is not courageous

But smiling with chocolate covered teeth
or kissing coffee stained lips

that's pretty brave

clouds grace the mountain
look like rising mist
trying to find space to fit
between the trees and bare ski slopes
waiting for snow

Out of all the seasons it knows
the north seems only to remember
winter

When we go hiking
my aunt reminds me to remember
the weather changes rapidly
while the mountain remains still

Having a sturdy mindset
cannot keep away feeling

From the balcony
rain falls five stories down
today I decide
not to fall with it

I want somebody
to dance with me
so that I may stop fumbling
between the shaky hands
of your memory

on another note
I want to wake up

stained with your kisses
engulfed by your scent
safe in your tired arms

I want to comb my fingers through
your nearly blonde stubble

watching your eyes open
adjusting to my delicate touch

Holding hands around
                       a table
the rim of the toilet seat

Listening  to
                 mommom recite prayer
the voice in my head

Passing
                 food around the table
on second servings

text message to make me laugh
hot and sticky outside
I walk you to your work truck
you kiss me
the sun rises

hazelnut coffee
the leaves are changing
so is your mind
we share a bottle of beer
you kiss me
hung-over
the sun rises
so you close the blinds

hazelnut coffee
he adds sugar and cream
I think about calling you
instead I tell him
I just like to be alone
the sun rises
a little later than usual

hazelnut coffee
my bra is the only ornament
on your Christmas tree
I am thinking
about how good your hands are
at unwrapping
the sun rises
reflecting off the snow

hazelnut coffee
January like a blanket
I drive to find your arms
we watch too much TV
but I never think
to say I hate TV
and I love you
remembering that I like
hazelnut coffee and sun rises

You may think I don't remember
what my soul knows of
your coming and leaving, of
our hurting and forgiving

so that when I walk along
what might have been our place
in some distant life,
I shake hands with the hills,
offer a tired hug to the shore

and they know me and kiss my heels.
They ask me where you are, and
forgive me for admitting
you won't let me know

They tell me to go home
and love you anyway
which is what I do
content with my morning coffee
alone.

my lips try to hold
the lingering taste

of your
love you, love you, farewell

cactus holding water
from a rainfall

that happens only once
each year

I am thinking Arizona

when you suggest
we start seeing other horizons

tumbleweeds where words should be

sandy tongue apologies

dehydrated and hallucinating

I mistook you for an oasis

I had a heart
that was concrete like sidewalk
you had a voice like chalk

I swore I was going to
memorize your laugh
try to photograph
the way it would add color
to the grey gaps
where not even weeds would
dare to grow

it is too bad
chalk succumbs so easily
to rain.

of tossing the chevron throw pillow
from my bed to the floor
even on nights I’m sleeping alone

I stretch across the entire Queen size mattress
press my body against the cool white of my other pillow
pretending it could be some body, your body
perhaps, sometimes finding myself

thankful that it is not. In my mind
we have already dated –
showered together, read books, cooked dinner.
I’ve eaten macaroons with your mother
taught your sister how to knit.

In my mind I’ve already imagined
you let my dogs leash drag on the ground,
I get jealous of your best friend,
you think Bukowski was a feminist.


We’ve broken up, blocked each other’s numbers.
I already made a spotify playlist of heart break,
have already tired of the songs.

So when you come after midnight,
and toss my throw pillow to make room for yourself on the bed
I already know where it will land on the floor beneath my window.
I’ve already practiced picking it up
to place it back on the bed in the morning.

Downstairs my brother
quietly plays the keyboard
its voice dances
through the floorboards
into my bed, where it
pushes me from slumber

An unexpected nap
I wake up with a novel
held to me like a baby, suddenly
remembering how my eyes became
too heavy to finish the chapter -
even accidentally I become exhausted
closing things before I finish them

I have tried asking my anger
to give back my ability
to be open and to love -
she guards them more

she pushes them into
the lacuna that is my heart -
that space that accepts only
my blood and breath
and even still, rhythmically spits them out

I've been listening
to a recording of rain
when I try to fall
asleep


I've been learning
to share the space
on the bed
with myself


to let my dreams occupy
the places made
cool and empty


I fall asleep to rain
and wake up in my own arms -
that will never stop

wanting
to hold me

A door slams next door
and I hear my neighbor crying

I do not know her name
only the sound of her grief as it seeps through our walls

We are the only ones home
alone in our separate houses

so to save her shame
I decide to take a walk

my dog stops to mark
each abandoned Christmas tree
that has found its grave
on the sidewalk of Keswick Road

Tonight I am walking in boots with laces
instead of a Velcro post-surgery shoe
Each step echoes an ache
that cannot ever fully heal

Half of the porches in Baltimore
are adorned with holiday lights
others with pumpkins, forgotten

The fruit bowl in my kitchen still holds
fruit given months ago by a sympathetic neighbor
Some spots on the apples from Ari
are finally becoming
soft and brown – I eat around the rot

My torso and arms are strewn
with black and blue kisses,
the result of weeks on crutches
My bruised ribs confess:
the real hurt was under here

Tonight I am walking
with a swollen foot, a swollen heart
but no longer broken

It is Thursday
when you go to the store
declaring your identity in the world again
You have always been hungry
now your stomach is too

The store is flooded
with white light, except the produce section
which has dim yellow lights
wood floors and black tables
where you squeeze each pear

              Remember that Sunday
               your bed was an island
               you thought about
               calling out from work,
               thought about the boy
               next to you, still holding
               your hand while he was sleeping

The green pears
only come in organic
cost a little more and
probably taste the same as

               Two weeks later he picks you up
                 to wander around that big apple like worms
                drinking coffee and talking about
                how useless is the penny
                how you both never need change

The brown pears
that are much cheaper
because they aren’t as bright
but they must be just as juicy as

               Drinking ***** infused with mint and cherry
                 in the theatre parking lot – you
                complain about missing the previews
                 laugh about how you would have
                 kissed through them anyway

Canned pears
that never rot
floating in their tin coffin
with their skin already peeled

               You take down every photo
                 t-shirt, sticker, love-letter
                 but not the driftwood
                 he found and gave to you
                during that first walk together

You don’t pick the green, brown, or
canned – deciding you want
any other fruit

There she is
kneeling in the only temple
she believes worthy of her prayers -
with snakeroot as white
as her hands, pulling at the Earth
to make space for fall -
where it matters most
where everything matters most
to her, in the garden

I came into the world early
spitting, screaming, clinging
already growing hair from
a blush colored birthmark on my scalp

my hair grows and I do too.
Outside I scrape my knee and
**** the blood from it, hoping
that will take the hurt away

I find the hurt years later
in front of a bar where a
handsome demon is offering
a whiskey, promising beauty and goodness

if I only drink his blood. Wait.
I've been here before. This is
my mother's dream. She drops
her spatula at the stove

when I tell her of it
in waking hours. Did you drink
it this time? Did you drink it?
She begs.

Yes mother - I drank his blood
then I came here and
went to bed.

The word trying
stumbles from your mouth
I wonder how long it has been rotting
on the back of your tongue

In the next sentence
the word sorry
tiptoes across your lips
tries to find sympathy
in my gaze

I am choking
just as you are
finally learning to speak

Trying
Sorry
No

Laurie says that in high school
people used to call her ocean
everything she did came in waves

she tells me that she never crashes in the right places
I want to tell her to crash on me
that my heart will be
nothing short of the perfect shore

I know that my beaches are covered in rocks
that have not yet softened to sand
so instead I warn her
I am too afraid to swim

Mommom pours peroxide
on the shirt covered in
kisses from the grass
at my cousin's football game

she says
"this is how you remove stains
from clothes"

Grandma puts the last clean dish
on the drying rack
opens a fourth can of beer
from a fridge dressed in magnets

she says
"this is how you remove stains
from your memory"

Mommom shows me how
I should paint my nails
tells me men like girls
with soft hands

Grandma shows me how
to knit
tells me to make sure
I keep myself warm

Mommom is hanging picture frames on the wall
Grandma is watering her herbs
miles apart
they both sigh
and brush their hands on their skirts

I left you suspended in the air
as a single thought expelled
from a Southwest flight back from Oregon

Everything is suspended in the air –
the New York woman rushing through her beef sandwich to my left
the woman at the window seat writing
love letters to the woman who will pick her up at the airport

and the way I imagined landing on the same runway as you
back home, realizing sometimes
turbulence remains even after landing

realizing there is a reason we had the same destination
but flew at different times. So much so that
the New York woman next to me could be you
and I her beef sandwich – chewed quietly, regrettably

He stares out the smudged window
nose nearly kissing the glass
gaze committed to the tawny rabbit
who sits idly by the shed

He whimpers
fur rising on his back
turns his pleading eyes to me
as if to say

*Mama, I want to play
who cares that it’s raining?

Breathing in deep
where I am
on an exhale
I find myself
in warrior pose

but I am thinking
about us
shavasana
on your new carpet

I wish I was
flexible enough to play limbo
with your past and win

Instead I struggle
for balance so
when the instructor calls for
warrior three

I collapse into child’s pose
I collapse into your memory

Knead your problems into dough
none of them can survive
at 375 degrees Fahrenheit

When you wake up late
add one chocolate chip
for every minute of morning you missed
take out one chocolate chip
for every time you are unkind

A teaspoon of sugar
for every crumb
that he left on your eggshell heart
a tablespoon of salt
for each time you’ve missed the way
his callused hands felt on your voice box

Drift away on clouds of flour
float down rivers of vanilla extract
a dozen cookies for every time you’ve flinched
at the sound of your own breath

On your knees
burn your throat
watch the cookies resurrect
flush to decompose.

How lovely
the gardener thought, planting
the rose and the daisy
next to each other

So they grew
spring to summer - shared
the sun and the rain

The rose kept distance, aware
of the damage her thorns could bring
The daisy kept distance, hiding
her petals love and love-me-not fortunes

Came the autumn with its breeze
the flowers intertwined roots
to keep warm - with no distance
now they struggled to share
the sun and the rain

So an agreement became
the rose basked in the sun
the daisy drank the rain

Came spring, parched or drowned
neither was able to grow again

beneath a small robin blue club house
with a deck leading to a robin blue slide
and a wooden beam holding

three swings - that held
both of us, a baby doll
and many innocent summers

Now, the sandbox lid is left off,
its insides sacrificed to rain, the
club house adopted by wasps

the metal of the swings has rusted
the baby doll eternally tied to one
and the robin blue slide now

sun bleached in some spots
and cloaked with moss in others
is the only place

our adult bodies still fit

For best happiness:
wine and the passenger seat
mid-May
together

For best loving:
wine and a sunroom
mid August
together

For best heartbreak:
wine and a sidewalk
right now
alone

From downstairs there are heavy sobs –
from my bed arms length away,
hushed purrs

Before he goes
to sleep, he kneads the blankets –
I lie still, watching perfect
little paws making
their way to comfort but
            -- there is no way

to apologize
for scruffing his neck
scolding him for the death
of a snake who was only
hiding in its cage

to forgive
him for tearing apart
countless carpets, posters,
skin from the back of my hands
and now the heart of that woman downstairs
               --there is no way

to say cancer
or goodbye
without cringing

Sixteen brave years later
I am still getting paint
on the carpet - of course
a different carpet, newer paints
my hands no longer my only paint brush
my hands still not always clean

Twelve tranquil years later
the walls of my bedroom are still
dressed up in paintings and photos -
not all of their subjects
still living

Somewhere in my parents basement is
a box full of kindergarten stories
bubbly letters, chewed crayons, innocence -
somewhere in their basement, but
everything down there is covered in dust

The kitchen is quiet
dust visibly swims
in the sunlight

I pour a cup of coffee
and start constructing
a to-do list for the day

I finish my cup of coffee
in the bottom of the mug
a dead silverfish

The only time capsule
I ever buried
is decomposing
in the bottom of my belly

filled with the different ways
I have not been able to
cope with loss

It resurrects names
remembers faces
who are changing
and living in different states
while I am still trying to digest
their absence

It looks for the bundle of fur
that once modeled a now
empty, worn collar
unable to comprehend
only one set of brown eyes
gazing up from the floor
during Sunday morning coffee

It is learning to accept its reflection
could just as easily be
a shadow

There is so much grief
between the four of us
that we drive to the clinic
in two separate cars

When we get there
my parents struggle
to lift the golden bundle of childhood
from the backseat

Her paws hit the pavement
and she is staggering
towards the little white dog
across the parking lot

She stops to breathe
             heavy breaths
             full of effort

Dad is the first to cry
holding her leash while
the rest of us hold our breath

We are crammed into a room
too small to comfortably support
all the woe between us

I am holding front paws
face pressed to fur
and the doctor asks me
if this is my first time
as if to imply

death gets easier
if you let loss become routine

she asks if we want to burn the bandana too

she uses two needles

Dad leaves the room
Trevor swears he can still see her chest moving
Mom's eyes red like embers
head heavy on my arms

When I get home
I use an entire bottle of shampoo
on Russell but

the white fur on his chin
doesn't wash away

At the grocery store
each aisle becomes
an obstacle:
will-power
             control
                     weakness


When I reach the
chips-cookies-crackers
I hold my breath
      walk fast
                     eyes down


and escape to the produce section
unscathed -but I never
stop  thinking about
red velvet or
       peanut butter
                            Oreos


Finally check out
"is this all today, ma'm"
a tomato
            yogurt
                      asparagus


"no, I forgot something"
run for the oreos
       trade in dignitity
                     eating in the car

worth it.

You are not what I am looking for
not the flashlight in a power outage
not my mother’s hand when crossing a busy street
not a glass of wine in the middle of a stressful week.

You are not kind or creative
you are not clever or desirable
you are not unique.

You are drunk
pulling on my skirt
pleading for permission that I’m too weak to deny

I am trying to blend in with the walls
as I watch you stumble down the hall to grab my waist
You are not what I am looking for.

You are bored and pessimistic
you are "I love you" one night
you are “I don’t want you” the next day
either way you are hovering over my chest
your fingers laced with my flesh
you are not what I am looking for.

You are a broken promise
you are the winter tree who refuses to grow leaves again the spring
you don’t believe in seasons
you are resistant to any change.

You are “I’ll stop” but never when you should
you are leaving me before I have the chance to leave you
running down the stairs screaming “catch me if you can”
unaware that I am anchored to my stance.
you are not what I am looking for.


You are a text that I usually leave blank
you are the shot of whiskey that finally leaves me drunk in the passenger seat of your car
you are playing really awful music
really loud.

You are “please, just this once” until 4 a.m.
I say “then will you let me sleep”
you smile as you steal opportunity from my heavy eyelids
you are an empty coffee cup and an awkward silence
the following morning
you are not what I am looking for.

You are “What if I never fall in love”
you are “I don’t want to be alone”
you are chain smoking  after an argument
you are using me
you are uncertainty
you are not what I am looking for.