would he love me
with a bounty on
my head, with two
six shooters and the
audacity to leave

would he love me
with scars scribbled
down my back, the
tacit agenda of every
one before, every thing
ever said,

would he love me
would he love me
with a bounty

can medleys
be self-aware
could i recognize
myself in all the
people i've met?

I ain't ever belonged to no one--
not even those that came before,

those frightened immigrants and spanish tangerines tumbling
below deck, toppling into the scattered bed rolls that still smell
like cumin and tarragon, sea and spiced salt seeping through the strong lungs of every youthful San Fermin boy in Pamplona
the raised voices in Seville singing San Jose and my mother's
maiden name--

i fumble in the dark for things to keep me rooted
the strong arms of working men and their weak hearts
barely beating
secondhand boys breathin' dollars an' truck exhaust
lookin' for their match, someone that'll fit
or do 'em just right
sharp things that'll sit pretty and
look good in lowlight,

and me with my tulip bulb heart
plantin' myself in wax, in muck,
in Utqiaġvik, Alaska
during the Polar Nights,
in my palms, beneath pillows, sproutin out the lungs of
those unassumin' who think i'm healin' them
of all the silly, misplaced  ideas

but they got me creepin' out the sides of their cheeks
hookin' these delicate stems
leaving thin perforations all along their sheets
gratin and sharpenin they's teeth--

used to think i was the sun
real pretty and smooth like them stones
you find down near the river
or leaves just 'bout to fall, clingin
to low hangin' branches
just askin to be plucked or swept away
but i'm not any of those things

just a girl
lord, the awful truth
just a girl.

there this old
zipliner who wheels
through town, you see'im
ery'where-- at Brother's
and on the corner of Kate's now
Neon's and up just about ev'ry
street in the middle of the night
long hair brushin' the back of his chair--
he's prolly in his late twenties maybe
but they say he came down from the line
and cracked his back on some big stones
near the gorge
an' now he's paralyzed
they say he don't like no one
pitying him, but neither would I, really.
sometimes when I drive past and it's around nine or so
I feel his anger press all 'gainst my doors
over his arms pumpin' up and down.

the construction
outside my bedroom window
finally stopped--a groaning
heaviness that rattled my
insides, made me feel like
there was air missin'--
a sound of normal i'd
lost

i turned over in bed
sure as the moon
that it was sunday
up at the dried sycamore seeds
still clinging to the tree
climbing the north facing
wall, twizzling down
against the double paned window

i imagine once all of this is over
that's what it will be like--
a sound of normal i'd
forgotten.

have you ever swam through the dark
and the lights switch haphazardly from on to off
whoever was on the shore has long since gone home
a pair of footprints sunk into the waves

and when you realized you were the villain
did the water become deeper? when he told you to be honest
did you feel every lie creep up your spine? not a shiver
but a steady climb,
each fib a hand dug into a thoracic foramen
squeezing into the spaces you hid your darkest self
a leak in the structure

you're crying give me love
from the bottom of sandy trenches
open palms that are only raging deserts
it's not a question but a statement of fact--
why love the things that still haven't learned
what they want? the weak kneed girls
that leave trails of broken bones and healed boys
slivers of metal wound in their hair
and just enough poison to really '
work it in
be honest he says

*on

when you learned to blow
on hot tea, when you realized
good love wasn't an old wivestale
when your body suddenly became the
least of things to keep a man
and your ego just a badly kept
garden full of weeds and
borers
when you became nothing
dust and bitters, people began to
ask you how you saw yourself
and where humble and quiet
used to stand in you found
an empty ship, wineless drums
everything now seemed alarmingly
true, maybe you weren't more than
the sum--and how long had that been so?
how long had you been tolerable,
how long had beauty been your stand in
for a personality, how long had your hips
spelled your name, gyrating to the
songs you only wished you could sing--


I have only now started to laugh aloud
or walk knowing what's ahead and not
every inch of gravel beneath my feet,
deep breaths are my saving grace
i have traded anxiety for faith
i started dreaming again,
I opened my mouth and
not a single word came out
but i had left port
laden with
more.