the redhead
with matching pants
practiced violin beneath the bridge

moments away

behind the museum
the amphitheatre hummed
with the song of birds

Strong waters weep
& pull plains into valleys.
Grey skies pooling in the lane.

Strange fungus sprouts
over an eager head
and delight splashes from dancing toes.

Damp airs paint brighter hues
before our eyes
and gleaming we proclaim

There's nothing like a rain sustaining
to remind us
how th'roughly we are streaked with art.

Not even the sun
reflected fully in the river's course.
Bit and spark,
it fought to frame
this solitary ray.

On a none-too-distant shore
bobbed the sun
moored like unvoiced hope
waiting for its chance to swim.

26 blocks from my new home, the world ends in a celebration of cliffs and waves and the glory of new edges. Tucked behind a marvel of architecture is a place I'll come to when the desire to seek meets with the need to hide.

The world's largest camera.

Behind saloon doors, costing less than a cup of coffee at the cafe above, the world's end waits to be observed. Admired. Held at a distance.

I want to share it with you. This near and dear distance. Revel in its focus. Become the unseen eye, serene in the water's tumult.

Did you ever see it?

Are you seeing it now?

rosemary wilts, my darling,
and so do memories
in stubborn wooden jagged scraps
and breathless little leaves.

Sitting in the solitude of your chance-made garden,
you watch the wind
dancing the leaves
of the tallest trees.

In this moment,
the last thing you want
is for the streams to descend the lengthy limbs,
sliding ever closer
to your carefully set self.

But you and he
and them and the air
can never stay still
for long.

You nipped my lip the first time. No skin broken open, but hearts were. Baseball caps and coffee breaths sent flying and ragged with possibility. Some mornings I still wish we had never left the sunroom. Or the alley. I miss the burns our walls gave us when two skinny kids pressed against them and into each other. You were my first great love.

Would I know passion so well without you?

You were my friend first. Though we both wanted more. And when more didn’t happen immediately, I assumed it never would. But you stayed or, at least, came back when I called. We never put up fences, so when we found ourselves on the other side it was better for being connected. But now, both fields have gone to seed. You were someone I could lean on who still made me feel like I stood on my own two feet.

Would I recognize support if it wasn’t for you?

We met just over the fence from my parents’ house. Our best friends fell for each other, so it seemed possible for us too. You came over the fence a year and a half later and met my parents. And held my nephew. You were late, but you wore real shoes. Charlie loved you. I did too. I loved that you saw a future with me--a house with a tree we planted and a family we made. That image will hang in the walls of my memory, reminding me I’m someone to see a future with.

Would I be even more stuck without you?

There were others in between. Their losses make me pause like trying to remember the beginning of a song as the melody plays on. But it is our anniversaries which take my day. At your graves, I have made my waiting rooms.
For too long, I have listened for a pulse. Too often, I have mistaken my heart beating for yours returning. Too quickly, I have seen our memories as signs of an impending resurrection. But you, too, have buried me.

I hope only that--should you visit my graveside--you think kindly of me too.

Forgiveness smells
like the first drops of rain
hitting hot cement.

Could it feel like steam released
when warm words pour
from cooler lips?

When I see pictures of where I’ve been,
it still feels like home in a way.
I think of entryways I have stopped entering
Still sparing a spot for my slippers.

We may be a place that I never go again
but in the negative spaces of this photograph,
you’re still mine
to claim as a home.

“What’s the common denominator?”

A simply posed question bubbling from friendly lips. Mathematic in phrasing and hinting at an even-keeled logic, a levelness she wasn’t sure a present heart could possess. But then, isn’t cause always clearer when witnessed from effect?

What was the common denominator of her past partners? Her coterie of used-to-bes? Off-the-cuff, she had said she admired their noses. But hours later, as she lay on the carpet--though the bed was long-cleared of her friends and their coats--she remembered how she felt ever-so-slightly uncontrolled each time. A fall in the most achingly obvious of ways, stopped only by the catch in her throat.

Who was the first? The start of the be? The introduction to was?

It seemed an occurrence out of time, but then they all did in a way. A warm flannel-peaked castle on a dark November afternoon. Two future lieges playing at world-building. A sudden mash of lips--a marriage of nations--soundtracked by muffled mutant turtles. Then the bliss of childhood returned. That bliss bordered and bound her for thirteen years, routinely perforated by pop culture and muted midnight movies. After fourteen, it shattered. Broken like the night sky during a meteor shower.

Her lips still remembered--in lonely moments--the hook of his teeth catching her before she realized she had fallen. She didn’t know him then, but she didn’t claim to. His middle name was enough, mumbled as his head bowed and her eyes crossed trying to hold his smiling gaze in her sight. A secret to share. The first of many, she hoped…
Far too many, she now knew.

But that’s the problem with falling, isn’t it? Too often, you mistake it for flight.

They saw each other at a holiday party. She’d gone every year with her family, feeling more at home with the adults than in the den of popular peers occupying the pink bedroom. He was a regular on a different schedule. His father was a minister serving hope at the midnight mass, but not that year. So he, his brother who she knew better, and their parents basked in the champagne glow of the Christmas Eve court.

He was still in school. She was in her first capital-j Job. That night, he asked what she loved about it and she talked about pottery, the edges and effort that people put into everyday objects to bring beauty and meaning to the necessary. And he laughed and let her. They exchanged numbers. While he hunted in Texas, he sent a happy new year to her in Chicago. Her ex’s auld lang syne arrived first, but his meant more.

He came to New Orleans for the weekend to see his brother, but spent every wakeful hour with her. They walked and laughed, admiring the butts and brushwork on display at the park museum. When he walked her home at night, she tucked her hand in his elbow and he held it tight.

She got a job interview in Baton Rouge. They met at a coffeehouse after and he followed her to trivia. She moved to Baton Rouge to save money, to give a coworker a new place to live...and to be closer to him, though she wouldn't admit it yet. They had lunch on Valentine’s Day. She made brownies. He paid. No one called it a date. She got the job, put in her notice, and then the job fell away. But her family was there. He was there. A life could still be there for her.  So she went to more interviews and got another job. She got an apartment. They still didn’t go on dates.

She got a boyfriend and her first solo apartment. They talked less for a while. He disappeared into school, she into work. They resurfaced. They met for coffee and went on long walks around the lakes. She made a mistake one night. Not knowing what they could still mean, she left him at a bar and went home with someone else. He forgave her (she thought). They went on walks. He talked about wanting something more. She did too. She didn’t want to be nice, but she hoped she was kind. He made her feel like she was.

For her birthday, she had dinner with friends. He came. When the friends left, he walked her under the overpass to his favorite martini bar. They played at playing pool to a soundtrack of '90s hits. They held decaf in giddy hands and sat in the garden of their coffee shop trying to find stars above the streetlights. He walked her home. It wasn’t a date.

She went to Iceland with her best friend. He told her he’d pick her up. Her flight was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. Wandering the lengths of the Atlanta airport, she gave him an out. When her flight finally landed, her bag wasn’t in sight. And then it was. And he was there when she turned around. She fell into him. He hugged her, drove her home, and made sure there weren’t any monsters hiding under her sink.

He made her feel funny. She mentioned an open mic and let the weeks pass. He remembered the next one, drove her so she couldn’t chicken out, and made her feel like the best person of the night. He recorded her. He called her “the one. The only.”

She felt brighter around him. She liked how she seemed to tuck right into his warm chest when they hugged. They went for dinner and long walks.  They danced and laughed. Nobody called these nights dates.

One year, four months, and nineteen days had passed since they met in the warm glow of that winter evening. She had been offered a job she could care about. In Massachusetts. No one was more excited than he was. He graduated. They went out to celebrate each other, to drink, and to dance. A friend from the open mic asked what they were. Friends(?). The friend asked why. They didn’t know.

That night, he drove her home again. She didn’t get out of the car immediately. He asked.

Why didn’t we?
I was waiting on you..
Well, better late than never.

They kissed.

They both came home that night.

She can’t remember now if it was that night or the next morning, but he gave her a gift she still carries with her. A gift he had carried in his car’s trunk, not knowing how to give. An album she mentioned because it made her feel connected to the grandfather she couldn’t always remember and the father she couldn’t always understand.

They went on dates. For two weeks, they went on many dates.

And then she moved. Like they knew she would. And he thought about moving. And she thought about it too.

He got a job in Baton Rouge. They celebrated. She sent him silly socks. He sent her a blanket poncho.

She called him on her walks home. He woke her up with beautiful messages.

She helped him look for apartments, sending him craigslist ad after ad. He asked if they were places she'd want to spend the night. She couldn't stop smiling that day.

He visited her once. A hot weekend in July spent on the third floor of a New England house with every box fan angled to suit.

She got a job in Vermont.

He was her date to a wedding in their hometown. The flights were too early and she hadn’t planned well. She should’ve flown in the night before. She was exhausted. Not the person she wanted to be. He was ecstatic. She fell asleep with a baby in her lap, but woke up to kiss him good night. He pulled away.

At least, she thought he did.

They went to dinner with her friends before she left. Then they walked around the neighborhood at night. He pushed her on a swing.

She moved. He responded less.

She didn’t wake up to his messages anymore.

She got lonely and started downloading avenues to companionship.

She saw him holding hands with a hotdog in a friend's snapped story.

She deleted snapchat.

She knew he was pulling away. Pushing toward something new.

She clung.

She had never known what they were to each other, but nothing had never seemed possible.

In February, they went for coffee and walked around their lake. He didn't mention the hotdog. She didn't ask.

In April, he told her over a text. She called. He didn’t pick up.

He stopped picking up.

It’ll be three years tomorrow (the day after if you want to get technical) since they found better later.

It’s been over a year since she started considering the never.

She always offered more than she could give. He always gave more than she could offer. Perhaps she could finally give him exactly what he asked. Space.

The album will always have a place on her shelf, though it’s not displayed like it used to be.

She’ll always hope for his reply.

But these days, she thinks three times and doesn’t hit send.

Pardon me, while I pull
The stomach from my throat,
Take a look across the sea
And realize that it’s a moat

That I dug
And I filled
And I fed.

Now I sit upon the shore
Brittle tree among the reeds
And I wonder how I came to this,
Locked in sand up to my knees

I wonder if I’ll grow in this
And I wonder if I’ll leave
And all the while I’m wondering
The winds begin to seize

On joins and bends and brave young growth
And pull it from my form
Cast down across the waters storming
Unceasing til I’m shorn.

I gaze with straining vertebrae
Atlas’ burden at my neck
Upon my whorls and twisted limbs
Interrupted in reflect

As calming winds bolster
Such debris across the moat
I feel unburdened in acknowledging
Only strong wood floats.

She once loved a boy.
With him, every moment was a movie.
And when he held her, it felt like home.

But that home was not built
on stable ground.

Swept up in fierce winds,
Dorothy darling.
Kansas couldn't be farther.

Love languages are meant to be understood. But with no dictionary, no encyclopedia, and a map only written by chance and time, understanding is an act of fate.

And who are you to fight fate?

Envision:
A boy & girl--more than children but not by half--moving ever closer. Swaying. Pulsing. Knowing each other's middle names but no more, they connected. Pressing. Clasping. Grasping.

Know more.

Curled like an ampersand
around a telephone
that never rings in time
with the words that sing in her ears,
She waits again.

Her hands and lips
cold-blooded mercenaries
that ****** what she can’t quite hold
with silence and questions.
with ellipses and time.

So she pushes again
seeking definition.

But finding the horizon has never been so hard.
Her vision so thoroughly blurred.
And the sunsets force her closer to a Something
she can’t quite believe in.

So she pulls what she knows
into herself,
rolls into a familiar shape and waits
for a phone that has always been ringing,
A voice she isn’t ready
to hear.

Ceiling quaking.
Flaking asphalt, falling
stars--cement breaking.

Murdered by hope
under stained promises
presently forsaken.

You're (barely) living
under the overpass

Their existence was
an improbability.
an extravagance of fortune.

They were
spider-woven
and fragile--
each breath pulsing them
closer to oblivion.

Nothing about them
was built to last.
In the blinding imminence
of destruction

they were ******* beautiful.

He nipped
her lip the first time.
Back against the brick wall.
Bottles warming,
soon forgotten at their feet.

There was something
so urgent
in the way they fell--
limbs tangling on
or against
any surface that
could hold them.

But those surfaces were edged
in pasts long hidden
and razor-sharp,
wrapped in caution tape.

And they remembered their fragility.

So they tucked
in their elbows and
side-stepped each other.
Trading bitten lips
for shattering glances,
they told themselves
No.

But sometimes,
in quiet moments,
the Yes still breaks through.

Here’s to the days
when getting out of bed
is a game of Russian roulette.
When the you that exists
above the sink
seems the more realistic
of the two.

When your pen is filled
with disappearing ink and
your face is covered
in quick-drying lead paint.
When the salt that shakes
from every orifice
coats your failing tongue,  
and you’re more likely
to bust your ***
than a move.

Here’s to those days—
let them be few and far between!
But if you crack that paint
and see the words before they fade,
you find all your possibilities.

Here’s to those self-same days
when you discover yourself.

I'm a coffee ***;
you're in the mood for tea.

They were two minds
in contention.
Spinning--always slightly
out of sync.

But they freed themselves
from the constant clashing.
Orbiting at each's own volition.  

As they explored
these different frequencies,
their thoughts became gusts
of unrelenting wind,
spanning silently
the chasm
of their own creation.

So,
without touching
or even knowing,
each shaped the other.
Eroding and weathering
until all that was left
were two hopes coursing
in near harmony.

On the precipice of something great
they stood--or, rather,
sat--weaving hopes
into their palms and throwing shadows
just to find the ground.
Whatever they never were
fell from the soles
of their swinging feet and clattered
as it struck
the sides of history.

For a moment,
they let the madness
of memories
overwhelm their senses.
They could've gone so astray.
They could've been so static.
A half-written screenplay.
A near-forgotten attic.

But they had escaped
the ever-churning wheel,
the silicon bubble of this reality,
and burst brusquely and permanently
into possibility.

And they were exhausted.

So the rainbow-chasing was left
for another day.
A fervently promised tomorrow.
For tonight
they collapsed side-by-side
back into the present darkness.

My memories of you are wires
crossed with the stories
I’ve so often heard.
Dates and certain traits
are now blurred
and faded.
I can’t remember your voice.
It’s been years since I could,
but I remember
how it rumbled.

I do remember your arms—stalwart
and freckled so deeply they looked
tanned—the same arms that gave blood
in the name of each
of your grandchildren.
Your arms were my first charitable act.

When I would wake at four
and stumble sleepily into the living room
to find you watching the news
on mute
in that old battered recliner,
your arms were my rocking chair.

When you marshaled your parade
of capped grandchildren
across the street
to the park that will forever be yours,
your arms were a force of nature,
sending multiple swings soaring
into the air
in a complex rhythm
only you
could comprehend.

I remember your chest—barrel-shaped
and strong—creating a whistle
more powerful than I could fathom.
I still think of you
each time
I manage to carry a tune.

I remember your hands
picking me up and dusting me off
when I jumped
too soon.
The selfsame hands
that gathered up all the caps we strew
carelessly in the grass and mulch
balancing them one by one
atop your head
when the sun was setting
and it was time to leave.

I can remember
that lovely rumble
leading one final rendition
of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
as you marched us
safely home.

When I open my hands
revealing the worlds smeared
across them, I’m not terrified
of what you’ll see,
but, rather,
what I don’t.

Barbed fingertips and dwindling
paths—this fortune’s not charted
for the faint of heart.
I’m mapless
and hesitating.

Reality is vanquished
by the utter darkness.
The world is constantly
shifting--a pendulum
swinging across the sky.

But with no evidence,
this phenomenon can't claim you.
It remains obstinately
theoretical and the fugue
triumphs.

Only landing
can prove you ever
took off.

My words are mirages
of satisfaction
when thoughts desert me.