Put a child lock
on the liquor cabinets,
and fasten me
to your kitchen sink.

Watch me drift slowly down the drain.

Watch shattered wine glass
stick between fragments of me
in the garbage disposal blades.

Watch broken sentences
arch over our faulty plumbing lines.

Watch pieces of you stick strictly to silver spoons.

Take the skin of your Cuban
and roll a noose around my neck
to yank the blaze from my throat
into the bile of my slip-ups
that pool on the kitchen floor
from an unattached pipe
that just can’t seem to keep
her pretty little mouth shut.

Penetrate my thoughts from behind
and throw plates at the walls
of my shoulder blades
when you need to hear the question again
because it doesn’t matter what she thinks
if her face is nothing but
a cracked serving platter.

Force your hands
onto the authority of my hipbones.

Pierce your wedding ring
through my belly button for safekeeping.

Decorate my body
with super glue
so your words can stick to me.

Sort me in
with the pots and pans
so your voice
doesn’t have to clang against
my eardrums anymore.

Reorganize me
again and again
until you can’t wash the stain
out of my bottom lip anymore.

Pour me a drink
while I drip Taps into the sink
because when I realize
water isn’t strong enough
to make me forget how blood
runs so much thicker over my skin,
tears begin to slip so easily off my eyelashes.

Let my death
be a pail
brimmed with ex-lovers’
cries for attention.

Let me kick the bucket
this time
when they begin to drown out
the sound of my own.

Let me be a reminder
that not all channels
you lose yourself down
have to be man made.

A convoy of trucks crossing the desert ...
dust ...
& a constant passing
in the moonlight,

dead parrots in a flowing stream,
jewels ...
in the palm of the hand,

white women
wearing long dresses,
whales ...
in the deepest, deepest
part of the ocean,

smooth fingers
caressing her thigh ...
dark hair ...
twisting in the wind.

Amidst the forest
& fields of lush, lush green
the ladies dance
in their red,
their yellow
& their blue,
while the studious men
watch from afar ...

what dreams!

In the library,
the woman walks,
cane in hand,
bundled in a red coat,
green scarf over her shoulders,
her husband beside her,
in his slate coat and cap,
a checkered scarf
tied at his neck.
She pushes her white hair off
her forehead and peers up
at the paintings on the wall,
splotched and messy and bright,
the work of elementary students.
Paused at the paintings
they think of times when
they were that young too,
under the open sky--
her leaving clothes on the line
him chasing his dog back home.
They didn’t know each other then,
or maybe they did.
The details slip away
like summer into fall.
It doesn’t matter now,
but there was a time when she
held his hand on their walks
instead of a cane.
Oh, the watercolors
look like
ones Dan and Janie made,
Oh Dan,
he’d said he’d call,
or did Janie?
They can’t remember and think
of disintegrating paper
and blue drips on the table.
Instead, they finish their stroll
and both agree--
Lovely, wasn’t it?

Half a life
Half a love
Undivided submission;

Half-hearted
I am utterly devoted
To lesser moments.

Between the sheets
The mind drifts
In search of atonement;

Part-time wrong
Entirely yours
An inevitable outcome.

It is living half a life
Accepting half love
Full-time;

My light,
Take me out of the dark

The courage within to say goodbye.

There's more honesty
in the dance
of the
Hare Krishna's
than in the
whole recorded
unexpurgated
output
of that shallow
vicious
son of a gun
Rush Limbaugh.

There's more honesty
in the Indian practice
of cleaning
your ***
with water
than there is
in the fearful
paranoid
lunacies
of that *******
Wayne Lapierre.

There's more honesty
in the corridors
of the insane asylum
just west
of town
than from the chattering
smart suited
short-skirted
well combed
anchors
of that
infamous TV station
for 68 year old
and upward
aging
white men.

There's more honesty
in the chirrup
of a cricket
or the crows
caw
than in the
dismal distractions
of this
chattering culture,
which daily
deceive
&
distract
us,

oh yes.