Smiling, she glances in the mirror
her skirts falling gently into place.
There are her feminine riches,
simple in their daily splendor;
waving from the settling lace.

They, it doesn’t matter who,
could search the endless layers
and never truly see her;
though she hides within the bluish
fabric’s seams and tender tapers

Like legs or lips, she’ll never
part from her sweet sanities
for any sort of ‘gentleman’.
So rich she stays in clever
garbs, seen only in her vanity

Hot, tempered glass shakes peeling paint from
the paneled siding of our house.
Flecks of muted blue drift softly away,
some slipping between cracks in our deck.
My mother grabs and hurls another cup,
Framed neatly in the kitchen window,
she's a furious vision in floral and sweat.

Dew seeps through my jeans,  
and a sweet chill runs up the back of my knees,
leaving my fingers tingling.
I knot and unknot strands of grass.
I see her anger and I let the birds dub kinder words.
Turning my eyes directly to the sun,
I wait for thoughts to burn to ash.

I sit outside and hide in the open air,
loving the quiet moments between the shush-
ing of the trees and the swollen beats of my heart.  
Such small perfections we all passively observe.
The chatter of windblown petals, the noise
a moving snail makes; they comfort me today.
Tomorrow it’s our big, obnoxious chimes.

Still, I sip nicotine clouds;
this calls for calming calculation.
I wave my scythe, slashing though shrouds.
Still I sip nicotine clouds.
Hardly buzzed, I flick at fish flies.
She gladly drifts through prostration.
Still…I sip nicotine clouds
that call for calming calculation.

Waiting depths to rock me closer,
barely breathing surface air.
I’m death’s beautiful composer,
waiting depths to rock me closer.
Mom said, “No one would choose her.”
I’m infected, why should I care?
Wait for depths to rock me closer,
barely breathing surface air.

What I wouldn't give
to lay with you again.
To feel the push and pull of you
against my bends and bumps again;
and meet in soft and solid places,
your sweet urgency,
as it demands my perfect patience
with burning subtlety.

I long to know your length again
Along the length of me,
and measure quiet patterns
soft and slow and endlessly,
to feel the aching shivers
in the shallows of your spine,
where shaking palms just can't resist,
resting for a time.

Please breathe me in again,
and whisper truths about my body,
with your hands and with your hips,
as if I’m everything and nothing,
wilder than the limits of my skin.
A human Aphrodite,
simply lying there beside you
inhibitions slowly dying

But that is all we ever were
Two bodies close and buzzing
Lost in silent revelry
Of touching without falling.

O Lovely Lady, tell me what’s thy sign?
I swear to thee I’ve seen thy face before,
Most truthfully I say my heart is thine.

Thou must be badly bruised,oh tasty one,
To fall from heaven to the floor.
O Aching Angel, tell me what’s thy sign?

If the alphabet t’were mine to rearrange,
U and I would be its core.
Most happily I say my heart is thine.

Thy father must have been a baker fine,
For thy buns have me wishing more.
O Perfect Pastry, tell me what’s thy sign?

Lend me a map, I’ve little time,
your darkest shoreline to explore.
Most willingly I say my heart thine.

I have no place to live or dine,
Be merciful and take me through thy door.
O Hasty Hostess, tell me what’s thy sign?
Most insistently I say thy bed is mine.

Clear, gushing currents make their way through moss-
y boulders; frosts chilly fingers past broken shores.
My toes kiss dancing pebbles, where the water lusts
for land. Accosted by the water’s eager
pull, my feet explore the slickness. The cold
attacking pure white limbs as I extend
and press into the ebb. The river moves
to grab my shivering leg, threatening with
seductive ease to rip me past
the surface, into dark, aggressive depths.
Anchored only by tingling toes, I’ll fall
if tiring muscles fail. Breathing, standing,
I feel the aching rush of currents. Then a simple
slap from a passing trout condemns
me to the murk that’s crying past. Stop.
Endure the numbness. My body
deserves to drown, for letting curious limbs
betray. I dream one day, I’ll delve
past new and pulsing streams to
a shore with both legs firmly
planted, closed, and clean.