on the silent city street
when the bar closed
that's where I met her
she was crazy

and wanted to dance on rooftops,
at sunrise
she took me to the cemetery
pointed to the graves of children
the box turtle crawling
toward the 3 crosses

full moon

we climbed the water tower
her eyes dark as coal
looked inside of me
and she began unbuttoning her blouse,
" just tell me you love me,"
(and we howled with the wolves)

2 troubled spirits

she wanted to be held
"and tell me you love me,"

she wanted to be held

but not
the way I held her

she's in my dreams

waiting for me

and no matter how you play your cards
misfits and wanderers
are lost and never found.

her beauty born
of feathers and wax
she flew to close to the sun
and with her palm
holding stardust

her love gave her
a bouquet of goodbyes

never love sorrow
Sarah
the ledge only grows smaller

Broken Heart

butterfly
under the glass

Pure Heart

into my arms you can run

flannel shirt and torn blue jeans
she always held her cards close
to her fragile heart
her wild heart

(a heart not for me)

and she fades into a cold wind
whitens into snowflakes
and wild infatuation

i'm faded

the torn page
from a list of lovers
broken and sad

my love is moonlight and mare's tails

the night's stars
shot full of lost tomorrows

I have boxes of memories
Well-marked and stored
And I am adding new ones
So that there are many more
Though life is not a rainbow
Nor is there sunshine all the way
I can still laugh and smile
And box a memory every day

In one of
my many
lifetimes, when
I was a child,
my dad had a
sprawling stretch
of land in
Missouri.
He had 200
head of cattle.
We used to run
the cows we
bought at auction
through this
shoot with wooden
beams that closed
on their necks.
My stepmom took
this gun-like object
and put an orange
tag in their ear.

My brother and I used
to play with this black and
white steer.
We called him old #56
because of the number on
his tag.
We chased him, and then he
chased us.
I felt bad for
him, the tag in
his ear.
I talked to my
dad about it.
He said if the steer
ever got lost,
we could find him.
I felt good about that.
I didn't want to lose him.

One night
the following summer,
we were sitting down for
dinner.
I hadn't seen
old #56 for a while.
I asked Dad where
he was.
He didn't say anything.
We were having
t-bone steaks.

As I write this,
my black and white
kitten, Bukowski,
bites at the pen and
tries to wrestle my
wrist as it moves across
the paper.
I'm glad that he
isn't a steer.