I want conversation and car rides,
long nights of green eyes.

I want pastries with whipped cream,
text messages that make me kiss the screen.

I want belted Frank Sinatra,
followed by Moonlight Sonata.

I want gifts I can't afford
that you bought when you were bored.

I want to be calmed and collected,
defended and protected.

I want knowledgeable open-minds,
loquacious words to be defined.

I want my hands to be called soft
and looked at more often

I want my neck to be smelled
then my face to be held.

I want impressed parents,
please share your organic carrots.

I want admiring looks
over the top of Ayn Rand's books.

I want a loss of words
over a song that you just heard.

I want minor disputes
over ideas that don't compute.

I want you to continue to listen
when I question your decisions.

I want button-ups and bowties
that make you different from most guys.

I want time to freeze
and for you to always need me.

I want envious stares
from people who shouldn't care.

I want effortless chemistry
to attract me helplessly.

I want tension filled days,
say you want me with a gaze.

I want my back to be a painting so scandalous
you brush your lips up and down the canvas.

I want clean, boring sheets
to be livened with heat

that I provided.

I want you to be excited

when I come around.

Words are ****.
They make me want to rip a pillow with my teeth
Or marinate in a sensuous heat.
Where you'll be, sitting there.
Waiting to kiss my spine and touch my hair.
Tell me regaling tales of what you think.
Of what is rational or obsolete.
Worlds like Suggestive, Sarcastic.
Forlorn and Bombastic.
Makes my skin melt and heart palpitate.
I will no longer settle for those who are adequate.
I need substance. I need someone (you) to say.
That you're enamored and beg me to stay.
I want that learned passion that only we
could portray.

Go to sleep, ****, ****, ****.
**** and sleep. Bleed and weep.

Stop.
Examine yourself.
Am I safe?
If yes, ****.
If no, yes.
Change positions.
Am I safe enough right now?

Check on that thought. Is it ok? Can it live here? Will it **** me?
No? No. No...

No...

Say alive. Say it.
Stay astride giant tantamounts of muse, Icarus flew too soon.

Silence freak. The silence freak.
Science, cheap talk, pseudospirituality.
Shut up that mouth, babbling on and on and off.
Off. Offal in the pig soup broth.

Charm her. Charm her. What else?
Charmed her. What else? Shut up, that's all.
Shut up and enjoy life fully, be abundant, free, intelligent, silent.
Keep it in the pants. Keep inside your ******* pants.

Feel the need to breed. The need to spill obscenities. You breathe in every other scream, to **** in dry, **** and dry, blow out all the seeds.

Aw **** my eye. Right in my eye. 1st contact. Claimed. In the Name.
Oh his Father, His Son, His Holy Zeitgeist.


Bigger words make a happy family. Tipping urns spill the trappings of the elite. Learn from our mistakes. Do not mistake taste. For feeling unafraid.

Goodbye, goodbye, I'm off the **** and sleep. The dose was too high, got right in my eyes, and several bars later the rhythm has faded and no tears are left with which to weep.

Roses are Red
Violets are blue-





I got nothin'.

I used to write

like if I said it enough
found the right way
suddenly someone would grasp
understand, untie me

as if, in naming my fears
they would stay in plain sight
not in shadows
dancing on the wall

like if my tongue
could blunder through
the brambles in my throat
I would stay
awake
aware
afloat

Cats cry as classical music plays
and furniture floats in some box far off
We hold our heads low, only hands move
to roll down windows while leaving
a place we never called home.

California, did you feel me reach for you
between heaving breaths as father
passes Main Street toward the highway?
and mama smiles, cringes, throws her
chest forward
Merge for incoming traffic but there
isn’t anyone else on the highway
headphones like blindness or alternate
realities where mama and I are not just an expense.

Pennsylvania and Super 8 Motel
Where we rush in carrying the cats
in towels to make them look like laundry
not having enough to pay the pet deposit
red brown bed covers- bad blood
between mother and father
as they cannot agree on a tv station
miles to go and
everyone sighs and sips at their excitement

Stop at an exit toward a hotel without a pool
in Nebraska
where people take their drink dry
or ***** or depressed
mama and papa get one on the rocks
with stares and snots from men wearing
cowboy hats and desperately fat belt buckles
papa imitates a gay man
mama is confused
dust for $85 a night
two travelers, one to return
headed for gold
but not for good

States run by with motive unknow
Dog rests her head on my lap as
we cross the line and I ask to
stand by the sign
both agree it is too dangerous
I weep and wish to open the doors
we do, and the air is different, like taking off a mask
I wanted to embrace the ground we now
walked on, with feverish kisses meant for the trees

Papa leaves and drives all the way back
with promises on his shoulders
while mama and I unpack boxes
silverware, bedsheets, posters
with the expectation of a return
that never happens

We collapse the boxes labeled fragile
open the shades, and stop waiting for
a man who isn’t traveling,
a place,
a destination.

(Prelude)
They told me that before I walked, I climbed like ivy
on the backs of those old enough to know what it
felt like to support something.
I hope you’re tall enough to climb
because staying close to the ground
won’t get either of us anything but
fleshy fingers and pale legs that haven’t
felt the embrace of branches.


The Manzanita grove sits squat and clustered,
heavy grandparents, gossiping about which child had
the best education.
Strips of light- spilling through oval and jade leaves
spread out like dough between four branches.
“Well, my girl has got the legs to be a dancer”
“Mine has roots that lead right back to the Queen of England”
They fall asleep midday, the chatter having
made their red bark peel.
Try to tip toe between the trunks or they will
wake and keep you around to fatten you up
with a combination of *** roast and home grown herbs
slightly wilted from too much time in the sun.



greedy fool who should bite his tongue and try
climbing an oak for a change in perspective.
Stradling the trunk with slender legs
bark scraping the unscathed skin.
Pulling upward for filtered light always
partial always
half the story.

(the first time I accepted a cigarette, he had rolled it
himself, smiling gap-toothed and weary eyed,
naked on the porch.)

tomorrow, a homeless man downtown will *** a smoke
from a lonely drunk fellow who burned his divorce papers
the night before.

(I didn’t want to cough
but it hit like history
biased and bruised.)

thirty years ago my grandfather sat at a typewriter
surrounded in blue vapor waving my young mother in
to ask her what life was like and how he hoped she
wasn’t smoking.

(We wanted to look like a 40’s black and white film, but
there’s nothing
romantic about burnt fingers)

the homeless man chuckles as the drunk fellow
tells his story of burnt agreements and
the way the smoke smelled like his wife’s perfume
on another man’s jacket.
they sing the smokey song
inhale, exhale, laugh. inhale, exhale, sigh.
they shake hands, part ways.

(he laughs when I need
a full cup of water
to rid the webs from my lungs)

mama leans back in her chair
pulls a pack from her pocket
one left.
her father breathes and then it’s time to
sing the smokey song.
inhale, exhale, laugh.  inhale, exhale, sigh.

(I walk to the kitchen
worrying about splinters, black tar
oblivious to passing cars, fathers, the future.
Reach for incense so mother won’t know I’ve been singing the
smoky song, the one where breath resembles
gray satin ribbons,
the one where I
inhale, exhale, laugh. inhale, exhale, sigh.)

I wish I could go back and
change what I said
You are so much more than
unique
with bright eyes returning from the battle.
You keep waking up.
I once knew how to breathe air that wasn’t filled
with my own need.
But this isn’t about me.
Mia. Mine.
I want to give you tight squeezes to my chest
keep you from the pain
that I never could have recovered from.
So on this day, remember what you felt,
what you will never stop feeling.

Fists closed, cheeks turned upward
tongue out.
Rain feels like moonlit kisses and you want
nothing more than to drown
in their sweet caresses
Fall asleep to the sound of mandolin,
baby, you’re miles from here.
You daydream of dolphins and glasses
unbroken
baby you’ve got work to do here.
Dig toes into half wet sand
salty silences grace each curve of your
hands as you want to
pray
instead, you smile
laugh like you’ve just seen the Queen
dip her chipped tea cup into the
ocean before you.
You grow.
Look in the mirror and notice
hair, body, face
recognize your little rebellions as you make
mistake after beautiful mistake
Feel the weight of the last day of
moving away
remember what safe sounds like.
Ride boats in the night
take the wheel and
you’re flying you
always have been.
Return to the shore
hope to flop your belly to the land
hold it close not
drift away
never go back the way the water went.
Taste pasta smooth as that man you once met
on Maple St.
You devour the coyote calls and dark halls
bit by bit
baby, you’re moving alone here.
Feel your own baby
feel his little breath and puckered
toes.
Kiss his nose and weep like
Mother Mary must have. Like
every mother must have.
Catch him as he runs from you
swing him round and read aloud
“the end” watch him say
again again
Move aside as he grows tall
You work long shifts now
tips taste like new shoes for
Chase good food a day
out of the house.
Feel your mother around you and she
has to go
“traveling”
she might have said.
You take father’s ashes you take
the basket with a story
dedicated to you.

You can’t go back now
You face forward, hand plates to the hungry
hope to hand them your own doubt
You dance to
Dave Matthew’s Band
you didn’t think too much of it.
Touch the fuzz on her head
feel grateful she has all of her fingers.
Let your bones rest
let them be.
You watch them grow.
Too quickly to pause but
take in every second before they
can fly too.
You are sick but
you keep waking up.
Move happily from sand to water
take in laughter from the other side.
Grow, grow as you drive
2,736.5 miles to a new home where
Maddie will bring you raspberries
and talk of smelly ghosts in the next room.
Where you’re son will nearly die and live
again. Bringing what light he can.
drive away sea air again the water is
darker somehow. Feel the pull of California
you are coming home.
Unpack boxes filled with past treasures
beam at memory and intended scrapbooks
keep on keepin on
scream with joy as
September plays
baby, you’re 16 again
hips sway and pain fades away.
There’s more to taste, so much more from
this day.