Twist and reconcile
Abort and capsize
An abundance of wishes
Sparkling on the water
and in the water
and inside the water.

Lay me down within the summer
Dress me up in fruit
Pink cheeks, plump legs, saturated skin, crimson mouth.

Did you know you can have winter and summer, together?
Icy eyes and warm weather
Did you know the branches stay at the top of the tree?
Out of reach of lustful limbs that long to swing.
(You may be an artful dodger but you can’t dodge this.)

Trees bear fruit in the summer
Fruit springs from shedded jeans and ripens and grows rosy.

The trees will droop and the fruit will be digested by the ground
When you have eaten too much and grown fat the winter will come.

The cold will bring only hunger and the crunch of your warm head in the snow.

when you stay
because you are afraid of losing what you had
you do not lose
the past
you lose
the future.

be brave.

A woman sits at a wooden table
Elbows on the trailing lace tablecloth
She takes a silver spoon
She mixes sugar into coffee
And glances at the plump yellow moon.

"Where is the snow?"
She asks a mouse
As it slides under her arthritic feet,
Disappearing between two floorboards.

There is a bundle of letters beside her.

With a sigh she selects a quill
From a deep desk drawer
And dips it in sloppy ink.
She writes:

The night spreads its cloak around my house
I have no use for the day
When the moon draws my feathers out
They sprout
From my skin
Gold-tipped and I always knew
I always knew they were there
I knew all along
You will miss the way my songs
Always ended in a whisper
My sleep always ended in a deep set chest pang
Your hand was soft at the back of my neck
And I no longer have use
For the skin
That keeps this rage in
That keeps this jealousy in
I will spit it into the snow
So the light inside me can grow
And you will see only
The resilient flutter of my wings
Outside your window.

It is the last letter.

With delicate, bony fingers
She pulls the strings about her envelopes
like a spider weaving a web

Glancing once more through the window
she smiles as the first graceful snowflakes
descend from the sky
takes her bundle outside
and tucks it away

In the morning a bird is seen
fluttering quietly out of sight;
it may have been a trick of the light.

Leaves rustle like paper
I saw his body lump
over a street heater
I heard his voice cutting through the air

Halfway from the crosswalk,
a warm section of sidewalk
The lopsided blanket, he said,
was the roof over his head

So I sat with them
late that night
while one finished his joint
and the street grew quiet

He said the obscenity
came from his culture
He said his life
was all past and no future

in our room
she watches beauty videos
sponsored by beauty sellers
there is so much you can put on your skin
while I hide you in the pages
of my schoolbooks
eat ahead
(chocolates behind paper doors)
and ponder
the back and forth motion of the life
the sea, the sun, the ***, the wind
the back and forth that has no end
and you are back
and my whole life is back
I wait for it all to come forward again

i wish
he would be my friend
again
but he does not call
and he will not answer
i wait
as the snow builds itself
into the pavement
i wait
while my mind ties itself in knots
don't want to spend
every moment
in your world
just want the option
not to be alone

I want fast
fast and all-in
and then completely over
like the trailer
of an action film
like the crash
of a jet plane
like a man
spearing a fish
in the belly
I want fast
like a dream
you are flung
into a canyon
flames on your skin
and you wake up
inches before you hit
you wake up
panting