my eyes opened to find
the thin lizard dawn gleaming
after the gutter drank its' fill
of the moon last night
the tambourine
buried in my lungs still
vibrating like these walls
papered with cheap roses

last night i found comfort the
only way i know how
in situations like this
beside a girl wearing
a pretty ribbon
twisted around her waist
pomegranate lipstick
wet clay & tragic glitter
smeared across her eyelids

we spent the night
roped together by
half-removed clothing
& my fingers third
knuckle deep
counting the pulse
of the heart
of the universe

while the wild fox
barked on the hill outside
& the mockingbirds
played riffs in the lilac bushes
her ******* ran tight
around her shins &
she sputtered the dark
lyricism of bees
twisting her tongue
backwards around
itself in my ear

our bare bellies
slapped together as
my tongue found her
tooth enamel &
the trees formed
a tight center loop to
harness the sky
for us & i
held my breath
waiting for her
to breathe first

i can feel her chest
& plump **** now
quietly throbbing
against the tight young
flesh of my back but when
i roll over & see her
eyes darting
green like a thin
ocean laser avoiding
my dynamic gaze &
her pouty mouth emitting
a pink yawn i can tell
she's unhappy & ashamed
of me

i tried to run
my fingers through
the butterscotch tumbleweed
of her hair but she just
popped her gum
& sent me
high stepping through
the soft warm mud
& chest high cattails
of her driveway
callow under the clouds
stuck like gnats to
the fly paper sky

if i was a mystic
if i had strong magic
if i were born inside a star
& you weren't already
my older sister's best friend
i would trap time forever
inside the hourglass of
your green-eyed memory
holding a skinny ultra can
shoulders deep brown from
catching two sunsets in a row
standing chest deep in
a clear water river
with the ***** bottle coozy
& your torn-up shorts rolled
halfway down

i was a six-foot-something anxious baby with
wavy blond hair and blue eyes when
you gave me a triumphant pinch inside my ribcage
under the table at dinner one night
my chest still tremors when i remember &
when the brave sunlight touched my knees
& bony nose after a long night with you
paralyzed for ten hours tangled
nestled so tight together
the nerves in my fingertips
& eyelids went numb
like waking up in the middle of a first kiss

i remember our
fun-drunk voices echoing flatly
off the popcorn ceiling of your apartment
when you giggled & told me
i'm better than all the ballcap guys
in all the dusty saloons you've tried
sloshing free ones across the bar at you
or bouncing their farmer's tans against you
& off of you on the wooden dance floor
i grabbed your waist tight & whispered
you're better than all the girls in
all the hash houses & hookah bars i've seen
absentmindedly holding a ukulele on their hips
smoking & yelling over the boys swarming around them

i want to catch every warm
slow second of the sun or your lips on mine
i want to taste the dawn &
your sweet skin fresh like rain
i want to smell the dew being burned
off the st augustine grass outside
& when my forehead glows sharp
like feverish red sunlight
you will press whatever part
of you is coolest there &
all the muscles of my body will
relax & sing to you

it was dawn when you
mounted me for the third time
wearing $600 cowboy boots & nothing else
except the red lipstick you found
under your messy bed
naturally you practiced
spurring me with the heels
& hollering like a wild bird in the
big open fields of america
as the colors bled through & into
my forced closed eyelids
turning them pink like
the inside of a curved seashell
or the curtains of your bedroom
your daughter came in
rubbing her eyes with tiny fists
& a healthy smile her cheeks
rosy with warm sleep & sunshine kisses
you dismounted quickly & swung
a shirt over your shoulders

i stand stretch to yawn & scratch my chest
as you both run away screaming
about sausages & pancakes
i'm left there feeling like a heart transplant
you swore we'd never stop dancing
& there you are sure enough
boot-scootin' around the kitchen
in just my workshirt & your lace *******
checking the cabinets for champagne
to sift over the last bit
of florida's natural o-jay

but you really are
my older sister's best friend
so i should just forget it because
you like to scoff at me
& make half-jokes
that you have terrible taste in men
or i couldn't afford
you anyway

if it were left up to me
this whole poem could be worshiping
the shiny puddle of silver light the stars stained
onto your heaving collarbone when
we made love & connected souls first
under the third eye pyramid tapestry then
on a rough bed of flat canyon orange dirt
in summertime georgia

but it's not & can't ever be
because people don't know you
like i do for example they aren't aware
that you dance with a summer breeze
like the lighthearted yellow butterfly
i can never catch in a net or
that you're the reason
i became a writer to begin with

they probably aren't prone
to remember the october morning
you found me huddled just before dawn
in a half-lit safeway parking lot
burning my clothes & yellow wooden pencils for fuel
chewing the pink bubblegum erasers or when
you said i have a beautiful pristine voice &
i melted giddy into your wet violet
hair as the wind whipped it
i was around nine & in the third grade
so i sat patiently crosslegged & camouflaged
a lizard with my tongue out savoring
that moment like an unexpected
rainshower in the pre-puberty desert
listening to the rhythms of your salty blood
pump waves of breath out of your lungs

& they still don't know about
later on when i was walking home
shoulder bones barreled against the long fog
you picked me up again in the
immaculate rust wagon your brother left the keys in
you bought me firewood at a gas station got me
happy drunk on hot kisses & so paranoid ******
listening to thin lizzy on tape in your garage
you laughed hyena hard
when i asked you to marry me
that starless purple night on your daddy's farm
& so did he but he never really said no
& neither did your eyes they just glistened
like they were floating in olive oil as
you ascended the stairs to your bedroom alone
covered in magic enormous light

our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed

that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy

sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger

sometimes on rainy days we stayed in
chugged cheap red wine out of a bag
that stained our teeth
& i made you listen to
old jazz saxophone records or
you forced me to dance with you
to really awful dubstep tracks
you used to like to poke my skinny ribs
laugh & say i danced like an alien as you
pulled me with your small hands
to read my palm by the window where
the sky water trickled down the glass
spilling over from the gutter
& when it comes to your natural perfume
that damp fragrance of sagebrush cloaked in dew
i'm still a recovering addict
& sometimes i relapse
baby i'm asking to relapse

i haven't seen you since the garden on my 21st
with the thick sound of crickets squealing in the trees
& big dogs barking way off in
someone's backyard across the river
that starry september night you read my cards sitting
on the dusty trunk of my car while your best friend
rolled slick blunts in the backseat but i was drunk
& ***** we got distracted i bent you over
weaponizing the leverage of my body to
put your face near the pretty sunflower bed
with a tall can of bud still in your hand
& the muscles of your thighs glowing by moonlight
outside that almost abandoned house we found
with my birthday party blooming by a bonfire not far away

now i'm wondering
since i've got another birthday coming up
& a little more meat on my bones
if you'd be willing to try it again
because i'm working hard to change my future
by itching at the old scars left on my shoulders
until they open & bleed again
only i won't drink so much this time around
& you can try to not smoke ****
i'll let you steal & wreck my car again &
i'll stop chewing my fingernails or
you can still practice your happy ending massage
techniques on me when i'm stretched out & tired
i'll re-twist your sloppy dreads
with careful fingers
like tiny insects crawling over your scalp
because i never wanted to touch them before
& you can maybe try to not
flip-flop **** my best friend
as much or at all

talent --
that double edged sword or
sleepless dove with derringer wings
the ability to break yourself open
let others look inside your chest
and find the notorious self-doubt
pimpled succulent you keep fertilizing
because old habits never actually die
and the huge romantic idealism
of the old farmhouse heart
with crooked creaking screendoor
white paint chipped windowsill
the enduring softness of eyelashes left there
flies gorging themselves growing fat
from the dishes in the sink and
prickly leg hair still clutching the drain
sentimental tractor asleep in the barn
next to the weak ego rusted crowbar
the ivy-moss growing thick out there
perfect nostalgia really misplaced for
sepia tone memories i was never part of
a heart full of tongues and cute thighs
and backs of knees that i've never seen
lungs under clavicles filled with patient
lovers breaths never breathed
digging deeper with small fingers
for smooth freckled scapula flesh
that has never found warm pink rest
inside my cheap cotton sheets
-- i know that i have some