wash me clean
let me be free
all the debts i owe
you thinkers, powers, men
gone for years
gone in silence
gone.

I'm still here
and, ****, it's loud.

it's hot and it's foul
the air is wet and it sticks
the fog rolls in relentlessly
when i look out i do not strain to see
crimes against humanity
clad in rosy words reminiscent
of ghosts and ghosts and ghosts.

helicopter heart
strikes me and tells me to look!
are you not afraid?

here we are, honey
we’re in westfield again
where the wind mercilessly
fills us with bark, with salt.

here, the ice stabs and bruises
my digging fingers unearthing
the lake’s collection of trinkets.
she’s waited since last february,
pleading that i come find them.
they’re aching to be seen.

she’d forgotten this one,
this teeny terracotta
offered up who knows when.
my indigo cutie, one of her favorites.
she’s been searching fiercely.
i throw that one back to her
for safekeeping.

i’m coming back inside to you, baby
wait for me
keep warm
i want to feel it
i know you know it, too
we’ve loved here before.

please never stop raining.
stay over me,
be around me
as I ache for water,
sweet water,
in cool droplets
on my cracked skin
then,
my sandpaper veins.
my eyes are upturned
and my lips parted for you.
please never stop raining.

the sky is gray
the clouds are blinding
until a soft crack!
of pink lightning shows me, rosily,
the plane passing overhead.

in my mind there’s a woman onboard,
wet-lipped and radiant,
savoring a medium-sweet wine,
flying through the storm.

she’ll be somewhere
in a ballroom tonight.
she is there,
I am here.
I am home.

she passes over me
deep blue sky overtakes gray
and we are elated
in streams of our own

Don't speak harshly,
Your words will form swords in me

Touch my cheek; speak gently,
And they will form worlds in me

the stubborn string of pearls
perched on my windowsill
browns and shrivels,
then drinks to drowning,
but never does it quite give up.

i have to stay,
for it will surely
be waiting for me
tomorrow.