we made home-made bread
yesterday, with tomatoes the
size of softballs,
in the kitchen where you
watched the sun rise like
dough; ambling along morning
in the company of the past—
mischief buried in our
bones—
while you harvested memories
and string beans between
rows of clover.

you watched us and we
watched you behind the window,
behind the sink—
*what kind of trouble will you,
we,
get into today?

you dream about the one that will **** you--
an accident on I-70 with the
windows down, cigarette hanging
from your fingers;
blown rubber on the blacktop
where you danced under
an eclipse
and drank three olives
from my lips.

I don't write as much or
read as much as I did
in between classes and on
busses or under the bed
at three a.m. with light from
those glow-in-the-dark spoons
out of cereal boxes.

I forgot what it's like to
say i love you to family
and friends and they forgot,
too, around the time dad
stopped smoking and we
lost the house to a gambling
addiction -- they don't know
I know.

I missed the class on making
decisions and holding my
ground and learning to love
myself in that way that
the important people love
me.

I wasted time on drugs and
empty wants, promises--
ruined parts of me I see
on bookshelves and in
B flats on sheet music.
I sleep, I dream;
I tread softly, and I steal
the words better suited to
someone else but I missed
the class on expression, too.

Students and bosses and ones I met
for a moment on the street
laugh and it's always at me,
even when it's not; even when I hide in
plain sight, shoulders hunched, head
down, reciting
Yeats or Siken under my breath
like some mantra of
people with bigger, more
painful, beautiful pasts.

they’re
walking through the wall, to the parlor
where it rains in mid-summer;
where you never patched the holes.
after the spring when
you promised to rebuild the wall
between the garden—
posies and marigolds—
and the girls’ crib.

they’re somewhere between
where the bed lay—
sideways,
where we were together,
but always alone—
and the bookshelf collected
dust on Atlas’s shoulders.

they make tracks in the ash
where mom’s old cedar chest
held heirlooms and your
father’s armchair—
rickety thing.

they’re somewhere—
not here—
between the mailbox
without a home
and us without
hope.

there's some dream that
sits upon you in the
dark of day
when the hateful
snark and snap of bird song
drags you through
the gutter
to the places you
saw in the sea;
when gusting
floating
reaping the minds
of those you admire in
the night
but hate in the city streets;
you knew them once
in yourself
but lost it
somewhere amongst
the all.