my skeleton is
made from the stuff
as sensitive teeth:

it can't take
much cold

instead of a shiver,
there is a stiffening
freeze, and

cavities make them
slip from their folds

I **** like a fairy
on funghi:

If a fun guy could happen
to *** by briny waves
ridden turned wastewater
that only perverts could swallow,
and turn rough like a flagellant

Beating against being submerged,
with wings going like mad, and hurt
charting pain like a map on the
body as it lay gasping, oars
grasping for dry land.

My luck lies fairly
on the one guy

I've heard
words

that herd
words:

a shepherd's dog and
his sheep--

"I love you"
corrals an
"I love you too"

with a few frantic barks,
and fast feet

I lost a will:
to write,
to life

it's gone like
an unimportant
memory

misplaced
or erased?

what made
a clean slate?

brain bleached like
whites in laundry

Music is the incunabula
-the first traces- of poetry

an attempt to put the sound into word,
not in the lyrical sense: some set rhythm and
rhyme and words, no,
in a biblical sense

in the shape and form:
in a transcription of
minor and major lifts
and dips

Afterwords, I stuff
myself back
within myself--

pleated coils bending
like knees,
with ease,
like they've been on
tippy toes too long--

A too flexible and
overly sensitive
jack in a box:

One whose chest gets too
excited at the turn
of a handlefull of gears
until the lid
pops off

Poetry in translation
is a shower in
another home.

This shower is
not my own-
it is not
familiar and
may have a different
structure.
There

may be a difference
in tub size or water
pressure, or in finicky
temperatures, however:
the water is water,
the knobs twist,
it turns hot or cold.

Foreign words form
and provide the same
function as native words
when you learn things like:
agua is water is eau, and
frio is cold is froid.

Language is a
pantomime of itself,
it mimics itself.
There is a likeness
akin to sameness.

I try to avoid
writing about you:

I consult with
deep sleep and music
instead, but

They lack what
poems have:
a permanent place
in performative space,

A sight full shape: like
the scent of your name exhaled
from the back of my throat.

I admit: time did not
properly permit love to
become anything more than
a thing that could have been done,
But

I've missed you,
                              -somehow-
I missed you,
                         -there are times, still-
I miss you

Water is
so filling

up fruits and
bodies of oceans
like people

You make me feel
an unwashed mouth:

A fuzzy little tonguing
familiar stale taste,

some temporary state:
a place meant to be erased
after waking, before lunchtime

A reinforced complex:
A ***** might ****
with, but doesn't
necessarily want

Me: a common
denominator that
stirs interest, but

Not much else

Is my body an
expensive house:

Should I be careful?
Lock my doors?

Better is better, but
not necessarily good:

Do I deserve better
or goodness?

Why can I not
tell the difference?

There are men
with loud voices

I've been taught
to fear since birth.

If the intermittence
of skin flashing between
two articles of clothing is
where seduction occurs

then where is the
****** gaping cloth
of a yell?

Is it in the cavernous tongueless space
of parted lips: in some silent inky
strident echoing taste
or
in the tightness of vocal
chords pulled taut, the strain of
raised forehead and neck veins?

There's a weight in
my chest like a weight
in his bed, heavy and
unsatisfied and
thinly veiled.

I think somehow
the look on my face
must be a pleasing design:

a familiar retraceable
state: a reminder that
I don't mind him,

I know my place:
in a small, quiet space,
in his arms when its late,
on the drip of the spit on the tip of
his tongue: a flash of flesh over pale teeth:
a site of intermittence: in a hesitation

a fearful hesitation

The **** is
more expensive
here.

In conservation
I bathed in the sun
and danced around
a mushroom

to **** some time.

Well, what now?
What else is
there to do?

I could **** my
self, but then
I might die

I only listen
to K and J or
City pop
as of late.

I suppose even
the ears can change
its taste,

refine and become
a picky eater of what
it wants to ingest:

a palatable beat
with round sounding
words, the occasional english;

something lit,
a bop

I daydream:

which pieces of
cutlery you and I
could ever be.

A little spoon
bent at the neck
to a whim or will,

a parlor trick.

My muse:
where is all the
poetry on periods?

Where is the modern Shakespeare's
"Shall I compare thee to an
Always pad or Kotex?

So absorbent of my
love and ****** fluids."

What tender hands
and lovely finger pads
thumbing cloth and
phone screens:

If tender buttons can
be pushed through
a buttonhole then

a rigid zipper
might also
bend and sigh

Need a love language
be translated and transcribed
for the masses?

My heart warms
in the same fashion
as when it listens
to music,

From a source of
friction or energy,
not harsh like the sun:

I'm drawn to
the rhythm and space
up or down between
three or four and seven
or eight notes

I don't speak Korean
or Japanese but I
still like the music.

I whistle harmonies
and melodies to
fulfill the satisfaction
of resolved equations,

I can sing along if
given the words.

My heart sings in
the same fashion as
when it listens to music:

a sway, a pause and lull,
a yearning pulled to the surface,
a smiling utterance of sound.

A *** bubbles
up and under
the shaky lid
clamped shut.

As a child,
my mother would
chide me for

lifting the lid
of rice and
stirring too early.

I was letting
out all the
steam.

But the bubbles
sticky white and
bursting over begged

to be released.

For a time,
my body was
not my own.

I boiled,
simmered,
then cooled.

Lifted the lid,
scraped the sides,
and stirred.

I joke about
being dead,

and it's funny
because it's true

You said you had
some choice words
for me, even though

I said we wouldn't
speak again.

You asked what if
you gave up on your
hopes and dreams
and aspirations or

What if I gave
up mine or what
if we could compromise?

But I've let you
go already. We cycled
too many times:

I needed all of your
love, and you only
wanted some of mine.

"Still... I wonder," you said.
But for me days and nights of
wondering had long been dead

I want you to be happy,
but it's not with me.

As time goes by,
I find myself content
with the leftover love for you:

It doesn't mind at all
that I'm happy with another

When I think of us
now, it reminds me of my
old religion:

a devout Catholic Christian.

My hands pressed together
--begging--
with my knees on the floor

for attention.

The light of your glory
hid under a bevy of bushels
--where it's most protected--

at a safe and
comfortable distance;

as the giving of a glow
diminishes its flame,
and the hunger pains for fire
enough to ***** it away.

When I think of us
now, I think of my
new religion:

I sit with palms
open and ask softly:
to be kind and beside me.

I smolder in embers
within a phoenix pyre;

it keeps me warm
and fed and requires
very little:

some feathers, some ash,
my happiness

I can see myself
falling for you,

and in that voyeuristic  
pleasure, I feel it-- falling
for you--

and I must look away

like an embarrassing
scene on TV or a
train wreck,

but I can't look away

I saw him
for the last time
I'll see him
in awhile.

He's late by a day
and three hours and
on his phone reading
sports articles in french

with me tucked up
under his arm like
a football, cookies

in the oven for
his long drive.

He kisses me more
than usual and says
he'll miss me and that
we'll be fine, just fine
and I believe him.

He leaves, but
forgets his treats
and returns,

then turns and
leaves again.

Can a poem crunch
like a carrot in toddlers
teeth, chewed up quickly?

A pair of young palms: one
bends to kiss the other
in the passengers seat.

A young she at the time
leans like a tree: only in
the extremities, while

palm fronds flick and flutter
shirt hems and tongue tips,

Wait, stop--

Words in haste laid
to wait against the force
of a singular intent to
bend a tree trunk.

Words are less
convincing than
demonstration,

are ineffective against
strength and conviction

His lips touch
mine for the
first time, yet

they seem familiar:
like his fingers mindlessly
making mine some about to
turn page corner of a book

read again;
but I don't
mind it

I will put you
first
--which tends to
be the fatal flaw--

He doesn't know I will
write poems about him,

since I've stopped writing
and have stopped writing poetry:

and what is a writer that
doesn't write? a scribbler,
a note taken and thrown away.

He doesn't know I'll write
poetry for him,

and my mother and grandmother's
voices chorus warning in my ears:

don't be the one who
loves more

A moon princess
prepares
for her coronation:

She wakes early
every morning to
chant ancient songs,

remains a light turned
on, a bright good morning
from winter to spring;

leaves offerings of her
tears and laughter
at the alter with care;

fasted, washed her face
and hair and danced naked
in the stream from day to night.

After turning away from
herself she turns
back with rosy cheeks:

A moon princess
prepares
for her crown:

she wears the webbed
melody of singing
stars strung together,

she hums and resonates
her body begins to harmonize
her voice turns to gravity:

she can speak
she can think
she can hear;

her hand outstretched
to the people, her
love refined

Avoid force with
such tender bodies

Bound board by
board of senses  
and sensations
mek it set like cold
to snow

So be tender
with sensitive skin:

A coat keeps
warm in winter wet,
Stay singing and soft,
jovial in Springsun

You were once
a grand influx of air:

fluffing up lungs,
puffed with oxygen.

But the inhale has
quickly become
a held breath

Pools filled
with pennies

drowned out wishes

Children splashing
in the shallows

Soft spots mark up
the body and spark

plugged up: an implosion

syrup sweet weeps sticky substances
like love, chuunibyou, and other delusions

dreamed: in language strange
spoked, soaked in sulphur

a beautiful man without mercy hath thee in thrall

The microwave heats
but leaves a cold seep in the
middle of the meat

You and me
are like red
and green:

Good for
Christmas

But what
about the rest
of the year

I was once a classically trained pianist:

My nails cut weekly down to the bit
and internal tongue ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-tee-tee
ta-ta, tom tuned to the metronome.

Daily hours meant:
bent stick straight up
scales and etudes then
sonatas and scherzos and waltzes and nocturnes and preludes and arias

and movements memorized
by fingers that knew the way
and weight of adjusted arms.

What is the value of
a wrong note alone

or amongst many,

of memory incapable
and fingers fallible?

Who am I naked for?
Truth be cold and so

shrivels the little member
with a whimper and perks up

******* ****** dry in
the night because the benefit
of co-bedding is not having
to wake to feed

a cry-- a simple sing-song slur

What's not
torn down

by whatever
forces decide
to destroy:

The nails
worn with
yellow gloves

yes, and the
walloping water
that wicks wet,

is the same
sharp dry bursts
that blows up

cupcake confetti
through Pinkie's
party canon

Time's not real
but our energy is

waning and
unsubstantial

despite the waxy
substance sticking
stringing us together.

A touch of sun,
a lick of flame

melt away,
dissipate

"Regular Sized Rudy?
Why do they call you that?"
"Just look at me."

Yes, look at me. Are
the laces of my corset
tied tight enough?

Do I deserve lust
if ******* show
in this underbust?

Is my masculinity
compliant and
where it needs to be?

I was
raised Catholic
after all,
which means:

I've been
tenderly pruned
by the

Shears of
Catholic Guilt

She say baby hurry over
so I tell her okie doke

She got fiya and dank earthy buds
I call that oakey dope

Smoke and chillin netflix playin
Hoping I can hokey poke

Hello lone star,
not too far

I was you once
you were me

See there,
other star

I was you once
you were me

I've not been
writing lately.

I've chosen in
its stead to take
up wanting:

I want pastel
waist length curly
wigs, and acrylic length
nails filed not cut, crystals
galore, herbs, flowers, moss

And a poem to write
and publish itself to
earn some money;

at least enough
to afford a wig.

A *** puts
a lid on its
big mouth

to shut it up
and keep that good
hot stuff in.

There's a time
and place for
heat and steam:

Facials and saunas
and geysers but

nowhere else

I wanted to make
you happy and feel like life
Bright like mine, not yours

How precious death
and senseless life

when wives should
lie not for her man in
pleasure but in duty

dies giving birth
to his children

who will make more

Sea or broom
the meaning

runs out of room
to have legs to move--
and like the self

(in love) and useless debris
tends to get swept away