when mama left california--

when mama's leave with
their children, does a part
of him go with us,

I've spent a lot of time
looking for Leonard in
the kindred spirits of
other men,

men with bodies like the
damp forest, mulch and
peat moss,

what is a father and what is
a man, do they yell, do they
scream,  should he have when
she left, but

                 I was born a *******, left a *******
                  asking for someone to convince me
                  that girls like me can be whole--that
                  they don't need any help because i've
                  never had it anyway.

                  when mama left california, she said so.
                
                  don't need no help, she whispered.
                  don't need no help, I mimick.

The man at  the gas station
Regarded me suspiciously
When I asked if he was 24/7
im not loitering I just don't know
Where else to go
And he brings two milk crates from the
Back and stacks them in the corner
Between the case of donuts and
Oreos

Cautiously mops the tile and
Asks if I want something to drink--
I must look positively pathetic and demure
Dressed in all my flowers and points
Dusty jeans and soft black hair

Girls like me don't do this, I think.
If I am a girl like me, if this isn't what
Girls like that do, I wouldn't know
I've lost and found a lot of that lately
Off and on strong, on and on weak

trey is yelling at me from the backseat
but I've tuned him out, his tan hands
are chalky and skinny, I've stopped with
specifics, with millennial lingo, I tell him
if you don't
shut up I'll
pop you one

girls like me
i guess.

Everytime I caught
A glimpse of the rafters
I saw you leaning over
The matte black railings
With a red solo cup
Lanky arms folded
Staring down across
The floor,
But then it wasn't
Just you in the corner
You were in between every
stool, in your many forms
And I wondered if this
Is what it was--what it
Was when people say
They've seen a ghost
But you are so very
alive.

there was once a spider in
my bathroom who wove
a thin globe around itself
for who knows what reason--

I've felt it slide over me,
a thick film, it happens
the way something suddenly
becomes a scar, you're there
for every moment that it
is red and puckered but
one day you find that
your body has taken
aim and fixed itself.

i imagine this is how
people go blind, like
someone has etched filigree
over my lungs and now I
breathe a little easier--
but something has gone
missing, i've always seen
my thoughts as people
and she is no different,
swaddled and taken away

i don't think there is a word
for the process, just the faint
inclination that some things
never existed, or did in another
year, another place, i've always
found myself here,
healed over, maybe
the single tremolo
wavering over my
shoulders, wet out
of a monsoon
usually
box elder leaves
like schools of minnows
diving and plunging

me.

there.

quietly, in the mornings
with only your fingers
shades tilted in, the lapis
dawn that barely makes
it through, door ajar
studied, an open book quiz
unmentionables, spoken in
water drops
melted butter
shower steam
vanilla
milk
cinnamon.

before the sun
before breakfast
before the earth opens up like it does
take it with a grain of salt, with an ounce of optimism
the glass ain't even here, we have lakes
we have amber canopies, other hands that shield
lovers that reach for us mid-dream, us
they reach for us in sleep induced affection,
they may as well be reaching across continents
who knows how far away they dream,
fingers sliding across cello strings
they make beautiful music while
they are here, traveling limbos to find us
but we're here in the morning, in the quiet morning.



how to eat honeycomb.

we purge with ***
cut each other with
deserves and things
we know will hurt,

perform venesection
with our mouths, divide
and conquer with teeth
tear in instead of heal

wield our mistrust
because walls are dignified
no castle ever withstood a siege
without bloodletting.

we barricade ourselves
in because that is safe
but sometimes we need
to bleed, sometimes
I need to

bleed.

have all those anniversaries
saved in my phone, did saturday pass without regard?
and did you listen to merle to commemorate his death--

still in the habit of sharing the burden,
and it's all just a joke, i try to save
people from every possible pain
even in their absence

finally know why he had
a playlist called whiskey
'cause now I have one too

but if you care to know
I'm alright, still the same
me but the light still shines
in the kitchen and the dandelions
have taken over the yard,
planted lavender and spread
seeds out across Elm
the girls at work
asked why I keep the gold
things that are his
and all i could do was
pause and say
*'cause i'm drillin
for answers

I have always thought of home to be a place
have described myself within a myriad of
different protagonists, herbs and flaccid analogies
i have been birds nesting in rafters, wolves
and nothing more than a willowy spirit without a
body--

and i thought for a moment that people could be homes
too, the way you walk into hugs or are metaphorically
gathered, i watched him in the mirror sliding around
my waist, resting on my hips, smelling my hair, picking
me up to put in a vase, ridiculously pretty, you know that?

and it's not that I longed for more,  
that I have longed for where, for a here that
i am acutely aware of how i vacillate between empty
and overflowing, of my own thoughts, i have heard
you think too much and maybe I do-- maybe too much
of me lingers

In dreams I unzip and turn myself inside out
like a dress, fold my shoulders down and the mountains
reappear, i am all the grass of a former self, before the tides and winds and men, before my choices bent me back
and took a swiss army knife to whittle me away

i think i am longing to be clean
to be over to breathe and not feel the strings
the way my voice splits into a rank of pipes swelling into a hundred  voices and he only hears a few, i am many
longing to be one, he cannot twist the drawknob
because I am already filling the cathedral in the words of
Stravinsky, the
                                m onster never b r e a t h e s


and I feel like i never have
i am earnest to fill my lungs with air instead of water
join the present, but the Welsh knew me too well,
the portuguese, saudade and the Germans, sehnsucht
put a letter to the things that can only be described in paragraphs or tears or indeterminate intervals of time sitting on his bed while he showered, all the doors slammed, empty coffee cups,
clogged sinks, unswept floors, long drives,
shots of whiskey, withering glances held on tension and
te amo mouthed across the room--

we wonder, can we be reached?  wrought? touched.  found.
in our deepest hearts, wounded mysticism, an untapped sense of joy that can be lanced and spilled, I am wistful, anxiously waiting to be siphoned,

Hiraeth.

I realized why it was
you were whispering
that I'd be okay--that night
half awake when i felt your
cold fingers like a sobering
thought on my hips,

you said maybe I just get mean...apparently
but i can only remember you in
the things you said at night
the things said in the dark

you're gonna be okay
There it was. The night I was sick.
sleeping in the crook of your shoulder
like I have for the past four months, and
i started to cry because I'd never heard
that from someone like you,
You're gonna be okay, you've been telling me.
apart from all the bitter *******
and the things we've fought endlessly
about you were still
telling me
i am gonna
be okay.

and  i woke from a dream
from something more real
nothing but the smell of your
cologne *you're breathing funny,
breathe with me brooke, in and out.


that's right. in and out.

you're gonna be okay.

i'm not sure--
you once said
i touched you
like i was seein'
a  l  l  o  f   i  t
you'd prolly
say I didn't, now
the way things are--
i was tracin' my freckles
the other day wonderin'
the same thing 'bout myself
'cause it sounds silly but I
remember the texture of
his cuticles and the whiskers
around his lips
but will anyone have seen
me
that
way before gettin',
before losing, before
goin, before

before

I've always fallen in love in autumn
always to fall apart early spring--
call me deciduous, the abscission just happens,
I've considered my winter coats, my shields,
the neat places I've tucked myself away

were we to overwinter?
to hibernate until further notice?
the titles were frightening, impending and
ominous, each one a textbook on subjects
we had no knowledge of, dark leatherback novels
featuring versions of ourselves we never meant
to be or never knew we could --

wrapped in sleeping bags and white down duvets
best during the winter becase we were both
raging fires, flames licking at eachothers doors
stopping short of our naked toes, put out by the
here and there snow, but sometimes
we were embers, pulsing stones of coal
settling, wishing, waiting, kissing wounds
breathing secrets over bruises--

but migration comes suddenly,
i've been in and out dormant for years
a sputtering volcano rumbling and groaning--

were we to overwinter?
I lost the dream woke with a start,
the caldera gave way and sunk in
terrified I'd take you with,
but travelers don't pause for eruptions
or make their way through magma --

and volcanos don't plead
   for them to
       stay
       were we to    
                overwinter?

I've always talked so much
but by default i am so quiet
i've justified to the ends, desperately
craving a higher truth, an understanding
to be read like a book, like a definition,
strove to be transparent and faintly beautiful --

but i am like red lipstick, dark and
upendingly alive, made of fifteen different
blue pantones and a single swatch of yellow, you
can't explain colors as much as I can continue
to explain myself and

honesty, honestly, is sometimes better titled,
better left to a word, a note, a song or
nothing
   at all.

pinky promise

we've forgotten our mortality
our impulse to smile at *blooms
we've stared at childhood photographs
and wondered why we look so angry

the art of fault and denial are synonymous
we've stopped speaking in hopes that silence really does
speak volumes,
our bodies could fell, cracked down like oak and our voices
remain like cocoons, papery whispers swathed in duff,
still breathlessly prating, foolish and juvenile.

which goes to say-- our thoughts
far procede the vessel, would last beyond our
deaths and ancestry--

i once spoke about anger being passed down
through the blood of irishmen - who long held the
propensity to bar fight and brawl
long standing feuds poured from mouth to mouth
downriver, across the gap, occasionally skipping a generation
the woes of our fathers are dead languages that we keep--
tongues we deliver on our own

we lash out and are our mothers
or laugh and see our fathers
never quite our own until burgeoning, and not even that --
not all of us bloom, some of us violently tear away
break the root and toss ourselves among the rocks
wilted but brilliantly colored  
       desperate to
                   learn how to speak.

I've heard that my body is a temple.

that disciples once traveled through, they used my ribs
as stairsteps and slept sound in the soft
ventricles of my heart, I've said I used to be soft
and this is mostly true, mostly lies,

you can lay a  f i e l d  o f  c o t t o n  
over  concrete  or cover  granite  in
s  i  l  k  but that does not change the
consititution of what lies underneath
and I have been cold
a bear trap constantly reset, I have been a wolf masquerading
as a girl, slick bricks of ice wrapped in wool

there has been hell in this holy city
and I have been raging through the rooms
scattering caltrops in the halls, wrapping widowers
in smoke, steaking kisses, slamming doors, wreaking
havoc where there need not have been--

Have you seen me? call the troops, have you seen me? fists clenched
temple burning. A chest full burning brambles, hot marble walls.
there is hell in the holy city.


hell.

perhaps the reason
I cannot be still is because
light so often shifts, falls
scattered through blinds
refracted in mirrors, slipping
and bursting, drifting across
wood like a great yawn
tipped and toppled over
crevasses, sliding under doors
you've seen the way it reaches
in blithe slices,

perhaps I have been snuffed
out, i have probably trimmed my
own wick, or thrown duvets across
myself, spilled into black coffee to mix
with devils, see how good I really am
but found that you only flare up before
smoldering,

i've spent more time drunk in the past
month than any of the time before my 21st
woken up to trace the rafters in his room
and count the letters of an O'Neal jersey hung
on his closet, memorized the stitches on twelve
longsleeve shirts and changed the calendar from
March to April on a drunk, half-alive hour.

this isn't me, I'm whispering into his shoulder blades.
I'm so lost, matt. I say, but he no longer answers.
he no longer has things to say, he no longer has
the right to comfort me, that's been stolen away.
I have stolen that away, I am a light but I am a thief
too forward and impatient, hearty and loyal but incredibly
disconnected,

and don't be a ***** about it he remarks, getting into his truck.
I wanted to tell him, hold me like you used to.
maybe I deserve these things he says, I hardly know

anymore.


I hardly know.

one of the few things
I remember is standing
at the corner of his garage
pleading please, stop.
while he laughed, circled
the pool table, breaking
the billiards into two pockets
close and tight, that wide
grin spread across his
face before sprinting
through his front door
hoping i'd be too drunk
to remember him spitting
*get yourself home on your own

have you ever seen the closed door and
wondered what you left behind?
seen the shadows shuffle and gingerly
brushed the doorknob--hoping to find it unlocked but
you can't pull people like books off of shelves,
once read, there is no revisitation, no speculation,
people are finite, with many chapters of their own but
often so very few in ours

but doors are not the end and neither are people,
some things that are tied are knotted with love
as clasps keep the thieves out--
if you haven't noticced, fences define the property
but never the individual,
the world is big and we are limited to
so very few things, being as small and of varying strengths--
however,

the horizon is not a line,
sometimes we see ourselves as the end
and perhaps we are with such a short reach
but that does not mean we will never see the rest
that does not mean that every door will be closed.

step 1: don't.

we all know words are alcoholic,
they can burn and they can treat,
I've gotten drunk on a moment, on a kiss
on the thin waist of a working man--

there's no use in wishing, on changing substances,
you can't domesticate a bear and tell her not to hunt
hope water will disinfect,
treat with pages out of a book, stitch cuts with sentences,
we all know words wound as much as they heal
try cauterizing with ink or
bandaging with i love you
you'll quickly learn that you are not a healer, you are a bartender,
you serve the vices, flip the switch, change the songs, pick up the drunks,

turn water in whiskey? turn whiskey into water.
help a man, hold him close, wake up and make love
clear a table, clear a mind, open a door,
leave the glass.

if at once i began
the moment i was conceived--
when my mother told me she hear a bell-
a distinct ringing to communicate
the woman i should become

the road was paved before
i had the chance to choose, was i
wounded before the war,
did i travel here on a fearful prayer?

finding myself has been a echo location
at sea, sifting slivers in sand,
i thought I was a puzzle
but that is too friendly an analogy,
i am broken in a truly remarkable way
both a fine dust and momumental landscapes
risen and

           sunk.

unring the bell it it were spoken to soon,
make me whole before they bring me to ruin,
i'd rather be shattered if it meant I could heal,
don't take me back,
take me here,
take me hear.

you'd think i'd take corners a little slower
rub rouge across my cheeks with less vigor
i've exhausted my efforts with others because
they don't know a thing

they ask questions but I'm tired of tellin'
enough people have known me and
i'm done chasin'. i've run these bones
as far as they'll go and rubbed away
the worst parts with salt and a firm word

enough people have known, enough people
have seen, I gave myself after all that mad ****
talkin', didn't feel as bad as I thought I would
with mother's shadow off in the kitchen,
kept tellin you to go slower
i still don't know
i still don't
i still
were we both there?
drove myself into a 6 minute
mile the other day runnin'
from speculations, 'cause
I feel like i gave you something
huge, some part of me i'll never
get back and i guess
that's my fault too.

you speak of places as if they were
gifts, objects as if they had souls,
regarded them defensively
when I am there without you
like their permanence only
touched you--
but I have shared rooms,
empty spaces, i have stripped
the shutters from my soul
and cut open scars to show
you where I've been, maybe
i have a lack of material things
to present in lieu of everything that
has happened, maybe my wounds
were the sacred things I shared
and I won't close them off
from you as if you don't
deserve to know, because
you showed me that
you do.

I once asked him what it was like--
when  making love made sense
when it left you in a glow and
not like it had me, in coils of
skin and apple scented oil
sobbing on a mattress in Chelan--

I can't help but ask as a precautionary measure,
I'm sure, the way people ask was it good for you too?
did it mean anything? were you making love or having ***?
he says that's what breakups are. Not talking, letting go.
forging a bridge and then leaving it to decay,
I'll just become bitter with that long sideways glance
I've stopped memorizing his face because it's been sad
for a month,
i asked myself
if i traded a friendship
for a kiss at a cabin and
i wonder if he feels the same
because he let me in before
the promise of my body
and the sight of me as
a friend is too much
to handle.

**** near lost
it all tryin' to be
perfect, upped
my tolerance for
whiskey and now
I just use it when
i'm trying to think
about anything but
you, but i'll be dancin'
with some guy named
Mike and all i can see
is your face reflected
in the windows of
an Antlers hotel
'cause i think that
was the last morning
we were okay.

but lookin' back on it,
i kinda ruined it with a
kiss, we started fighting
when I started fallin' thinking
we needed to be more
but then you said you
loved me and
it wasn't just
me
anymore.

either way--
if there's no use crying
over spilled milk i've
been crying for weeks and
that milk's done and gone
you're spittin venom
and i'm soaking it
up with a dish rag
hopin' it'll turn to
water.

I've always held the propensity for
unbridled curiosity, i'd have thought
that was obvious--
how many questions have I asked you
in such a short time?
and I saw the things she said about you
and broke into a dozen white-hot pieces
against your skin, probably sunk through
your spine and landed in the bed of your truck
burned a hole through the casing and smoldered
into the dirt--
I didn't quite understand the hurt, I guess,
but i imagined your name leaving her lips
like a scowl, so few syllables wrapped in
an unwarranted viciousness, there is still so much
i don't understand, so many things I want to ask but--

your name could never be so wrong
if only defamed by such a girl
and I realized I couldn't make
that better as soon as you
said I'd dug up the past
but matthew I just want
you to know that

you're too beautiful for these things
too good for these people,
i've seen your heart, you
can lie, you can lie, you can
lie, you could never speak to
me again but i'd still know
the truth--
tougher than the rest
come out swingin'
bare your teeth
hold your breath
you're still
softer than them.

it's hard sayin'
if those I love you's
were true, because
you try to do the
right thing for
yourself and
people
can't stand
it anymore
the wind picks
up and takes them
away, you're alone
'cause you're still
the only one standing
in the foreground, there's
this cement beneath your
feet, and you're still a little
weak, you got a little drunk
and he held your face,
kept askin' if you were okay--
'cause no you ain't
'cause no you ain't
he says you're good
at pretending but that's
not true

just good at deflecting
and actin' like it's fine,
he always talked about defenses
but never asked about mine
and I tend to lose people no matter what
by choice or not

so i guess i just figured that's what love meant
stickin' it out, holding it in,
but i guess it really is as easy as that,
if he's not for me, and i am for him.

well dear sweetheart
i know so far// how we got here//
and i'm sorry this all got so
confusing// well i've heard i'm a mess
but I've always thought of that //
as the opinion of many,//
'cause broken see as broken do

and darling
I have much to say for the state of our hearts//
and maybe mine was gentle acoustic cover the
the rugged twang of yours// and in the midst of
fightin' words, you caught me while turnin'
a fish off deck, a wingless bird--

but life has always spoken to me in feelings
allegories 'bout wolves and fields and men
and i'm used to fightin battles on the wrong
side, for mother's sake or father's winsome smile

and i've turned a door or two into a forest
made a **** a hundred nettles in my heel
ive heard that I may blow things out of proportion
with father njord inside my soul with bags of air

i'm begging for my own answers, for a revival
for a straight path, and I was hoping, I would
that you would, that I would, that you would
and i'm sorry I took something good and twisted it up
that i apologized for being me, and I know you said it
so long ago--not to be sorry and that you wouldn't leave

cause i'm still in your corner, just trying to breathe.
trying to breathe, trying to breathe.

i've always sanded down
the edges 'cause i'm sharp
as your mama's wit and just
as fast,

sometimes the words all fall to
the side like marbles in a bag
but they're all tourmaline and jade
just like the old wives tale
there have never been snakes here,

run the faucets, run the faucets
the tile has no room for all the light
there are fawns beneath the sink
and kudzu spreading across
my skin,

the blue granite in the kitchen
looks like ocean, ive opened the
windows and the birds have made
their home, the sky has
crept in, the clouds are in the
mud room,

it's raining here but the sun is out
i tried the desert once but it was
no good, there are sand flowers
but I am not
one

and if I am, I take the water
feed the ground, the joy has
always settled but i was never
meant for flight, I've always
come up from the earth
wound around the grape
vine, stood too long
and the long grass
takes
me
but

the blue granite tile
run the faucets, flood the gates
I was not made to reap no-thing.

when does your family stop being
your family, when you decided they
don't need to know your whereabouts
or who you're kissin',
when mama interferred
for the last time and you
drove the lonely 12 minutes
from his house to yours wishing
you made more sense, wishing
you didn't hurt so much over
every **** thing, so you're
tellin' god no more ultimatums
no more dark drives where you're
cursin and profanin his name

but when do you draw the line
when their home ain't your own
and your house big as empty feels
always warm but filled with you
and you're always far too much
too much thought, too much
water, not enough wood
he says you immediately told
your mom and i did, which got
me thinkin' about whether families
are comprised of just one, and if
I could be my own, if you need
two, if a dog counts
if there are rules
or just a hand on my back
if God's a good lead then
i'm pushing right back

did you ever want to shake out the skies
to watch the stars fall, catch one and fix
it on a ring with kudzu
did you ever think that fear
is just a gate without locks,
driven into the yard with father's strong arms--
so I dream about the day the man
died on highway 50, the road up to salida
away from Kansas City
saying thank you to the cadence of mississippi *******
star-watching till the early cold 1 am

i've been a little too ******* my soul
a vice on a child that don't know where else to go
and she ain't even physical, just an analogy for heart
but I whisper that, we can't keep holdin' on that way,
like there's no where else to hold,
cause that bridge has fingerprints set in stone
the places where god tried to take me home
and i dug in between the bricks to go no further.

but there's no difference in where I am,
runnin' up the sides of mosaic canyons
settin' fire to the brush, with matchstick palms
walking the line to hell on white hot sand,
widowbird feathers streamin' in my hair
drilling post holes with heels that can't stay above ground
on the backslide with promises hanging off my lips
gold drillbit tassels swinging against my hips
and he's close there behind me
waiting for the right misstep
'cause god don't catch but is one for reachin'
and i'm tired of tellin' him i'm ****** about his mercy
the way things are, the way i am, the things I can't
change without his help
anymore, the loneliness at local bars
when i'm sittin' by myself up
in the stands watchin' bulls
as honest as the colorado weather
throwin weak men off their backs
looking for the real challenge
prolly the way he seeks me out
to wear me down till all i can
do is stop and look back
away from the gates
kick off the mud
stop buckin', tossin'
sleepin' on the watch.

I permanently imprinted
the image of you sleeping
to torture me on a good day
sweden filling out your lips
and long dark lashes rippling
back and forth, we have always
woken up mid-dawn when everything
is still soft and paisley blue, so I can't
remember you in any other way
than dark and lovely, the morning
light always spilling over you like
you were born to be in the daylight
with picks of orange in your eyes
just the way I like them, oak brown
like fresh soil, moss and maple tree sap
looking at me like i'm the only person
who will
ever
look
back.

well he's back from the rig he says,
heels up in dragon's blood
crept through denver at an easy pace, left his soul
on the toolcase, packed up with the coveralls
said there's never room for that--

and he sleeps while he's wide awake, said he
left his love up there, said he'll be by, but he ain't coming back
where back is home or here or me, he's spinnin'
i'm grounded, i'm looking for his strings,
he's unwound, divided and callin' my name--

used to kneel by my bedside, hold my hand around 10 at night
smelled like pine and cold wind, but you'd never tell him that
and I wonder about the longevity of his trust
the miles left in those long legs,
If I've all but said too much
to keep him runnin' from me

well he's stained by the deaths of many
and I've them locked away, makin' sure there's no anniversary
where he'll drink the funerals away,
we're both troubled by the other's demons
but his don't scare me much,
just play things and shadows all rearin' their heads
his own chorus of voices tellin' him it should have been him


and he sleeps while he's wide awake, said he
left his love up there, said he'll be by, but he ain't coming back
where back is home or here or me, he's spinnin'
i'm grounded, i'm looking for his strings,
he's windin', drawing fangs and ready to flee
to show me how fast he can run away, and he can
probably will, out of spite, out of fear--

and if timing is everything like he fancies it is
i'll be here waiting like i promised i would
'cause he'd hold my hand at ten at night
before i'd wait for the sound of that engine
pullin' up,
him whispering pretty girl
to wake me up,
hey, pretty girl

hey pretty girl


hey, pretty girl.

I can't get that out of my head--
the image of you still as a buck
in your recliner, bringing up
that old flame like i knew you
would, said you saw her out
in Florence, on the street, at the
bar, I can't be sure she doesn't
haunt you in other ways too,

i only meant i couldn't compete
with the memory, with the pull
with the drive for warmth, but
you should know that I've seen
your softness, your genial self,
the talkative little boy, you can't
lie to me about your pain but you
can lie to her
so

I won't try and argue the specifics
about time, or save you from going
around the mountainside, you fancy
yourself a dog man, born and bred out
of the cheyenne wilderness so if you're
gonna fight, then fight against the women
who are no good, 'cause I know you
feel it in your heart, darlin, I know you
feel it in your soul, cowboy, I know you
saw it briefly in a girl like me, matt.

there's the space by
the blue door where
he'd drop his boots--
actually he'd put them
anywhere, but I noticed
the lack of them this morning
and felt the weight of the roof
and Orion and that constellation
shaped like an M--so i pressed the
roses into chapter 31 of The Count of
Monte Cristo and curled an old shirt
beneath my sheets because I have to
keep him somehow.

he jokes about tuscaloosa
and being buried in dixie
shot in his truck near the border
or set on fire for a better purpose
had gone down in a tomato fight
somewhere in texas,

and when he's mad he dredges up
all the things he secretly hates about me
but'll ne'er admit, 'cause sometimes he doesn't
even know what he's feeling, has got all his
spirit out in ten arms searching for the best
way to put down one sentence--

he's pretty scary when he's angry
looks like might just lash out or
shoot through my redwood patio
'specially with the threat of his truck
runnin' in the background, rumbling
in the driveway ready to take him away--

he used all my favorite things to get inside
but starts to take them away one by one
I tell my mom same, same cause it's
the same story, different page, different chapter
same book, same shelf, same dust

he once said I was what he was tryin' to get back to
told me he was takin' his mom to church
once brought up the Lord in a dim light
but now he don't see the point
I'll tell you what,


I'll tell you *what

How could she
Have been more
In all her sordidness
Was it the way her
Body bucked and
Lifted?

we were out on the porch
on an abnormally warm december night
with little glow florence off to the west
and he hadn't said much of what was there
because when he says nothing he is, with
his words laid out beneath pearl snaps
scrawled down his stomach--I would know,
i've seen his the tyrades plow, resentment
run thick, angry words rampant in his veins--

so he says nothing, and I know.

often times he is an open door and
i am the wind, in billows or gasps, rattling
hinges, finding holes, peeling paint or gathering dust
a spool of thread wrapped around stonehenge to remember
curls of foilage, svelte figureheads on galleons, I tell him

that I want to be with him and he says nothing. won't even look at me,
he's somewhere far away, drawn into penrose like a soul sunk in the
dirt, I say it again, and he tells me we should go inside


so i want to ask if that is all i am,
if that is what this is, if i am only good
for one night or two hours, in bits and pieces
limbs and moisture, if as a whole i am too much
but still lacking, if the warmth of my hips is
all that's needed but the grand luminance of a soul is out of the question?


But I say none of that, just follow him inside.
A hundred questions trickling down my spine, gathering in my femur, my calves, gusting into my lungs, I don't know how to be more than this and less, I'm opening up the cavity of my chest and pleading this

this is all there is.
I am all that I can be

He stands like William Stanley Moore
a mugshot of an old gangster I saw once
in sepia, stony, strangely clarified, endowed
immortalized in caramel marble
glassy eyes and all--

he plowed ahead that night
fingers twitching, only to turn
around outside of the light
once we'd gone through
the doors and I'd fled down
the stairs in his wake
to clip his heels

I've been chasing his shadow
tying my lead to his bow
far away from my own
dock, a sailboat piping
behind a cottonclad warship

I am small and timid
soft and malleable, unwild
unwoven, strips of silk in the foyer
running through his fingers
sheets sliding down his back
I cannot give what other girls
have given, the way they
dive and plead and swarm
I can only coat, can only
rinse, only lather, I can only
run over--

I am standing at his bookshelf
running a finger over the spines
gingerly closing the cabinet or
slipping into his bed, tucked
away like a porcelain doll
I try
i try
i try

but there's been so many
different ways to love since
then, and they've never been
as gentle as I dreamed

and ever since then, near everything
has been a threat, a reminder that
As myself is not enough, this girl
These hands, these surly smiles
The way I dance, my naked wiles
I've willed myself to adjust
To fit what locks I can unlock

I melted down and poured me out
Filled the holes around the house,
Into votives in the halls, Mount me
Up along the walls, lined the porch
Out in the night beside your boots
I've flickered bright---

But that is not enough.


That is not enough.

ran myself up on the land
chasin' the dark black storm
cracked my rudders straight in half
fightin' them waves off shore,

i's up in the early morning hours
makin' sure the house not burnin
down, 20 minutes there and back to
try and prove something more

no sleep for a week 'cause i'm worried
'bout a question, the one that no one
wants to answer an' drives the nail in
could love a girl to pieces but she
ain't nothin more than the warmth
she gives an' the way she consoles

i've wrapped around him tired and sore
but i've been here, i've been here
just bones and shreds offerin' up myself
in as many ways as I can before
that just ain't enough anymore

and it never is,  the heart and soul

it never is.