Three days now
I've sipped licorice
in the afternoon.

I am, even now
as I write this,
warm in the liquor's womb.

Perhaps I judged too soon (?)


                             *mzf

it's not
that he said
he loves me;

it's that
his voice
came from somewhere
inside,

and
we've never met.


                         *mzf

it’s morning  for me,
he's still snoring
in the other room,
cozy under flannel sheets,
close and untouchable.
after last night
i thought he’d be a kinder lover.
(the kind that leaves afterwards)
now i’m stuck
waiting for a train wreck,
the couple next door to start screaming,
anything
that will wake him up.
but it’s so quiet-
even my thoughts stayed in bed
bundled up with him,
and i’m too (l)affable
to shake their shoulders.

                                                 *mzf

I believe in the language
of everyday, and words
unencumbered by misinterpretation.

It's an added perk
that
*******
means as much
as it sounds.

I feel
lately
I can't do anything right.
The forks
are on the wrong side
and the baby's bath
is too warm

and I try,
I really do.
I want to
wash the dish I used
and not wipe my face
on the hand towel
and I was gonna tell her,

when she came in
all of a sudden
and tells me we have a problem
with something.

'What thing?'

'Everything.'



What a relief.

Everybody knows everything
is better than something.



                                    *mzf

death waits in windows
that have swallowed the sky

and clouds could care less of it.
they are only passing by.


                                        *mzf

these caravan walls
crave flesh,
eat residents
and bury their femurs
in dandelions  
growing up
from the front steps.
a boy
makes it past
the threshold,
but a man remembers
the blue eyes
and brown soil
where he planted
a garden.
some weeds
will never die,
and what he learned
of the world
is already wilting
in his glove-box.
most weeks
hope drives off
in semi-trucks,
leaving an americano
growing colder,
on counters
in cups
between hungry walls
made in the u.s.a.,
and ever blacker.



                   *mzf