she is wary
of ****** thermometers
of masculine logic behind sterile
of adjectives that make things difficult
to put in her mouth
and swallow.


                                                      ­*mzf

A little boy kicked
a ball, not a red ball,
into the sky.

Somewhere between his laugh
and the clouds,
He lost sight of it.


                                          *mzf

What will become of us
when sons inherit hate?
Will we be proud?
Will we offer spirits, weighted
with every detail and derision?
Yes, there is blood and grief,
there are tears enough
to salt these hills
and fill our wadis;
Yet wadis squander
all we spill out.


                                            *mzf

Max Boxer,
accused of ******
local women,
was brutally killed
yesterday.

His killer,
a woman arrested
this morning
on animal abuse charges,
confessed immediately.



                              *mzf

I never liked sitting on porches.
My father did
and sometimes my mother too.
I wondered,
are they really in love.
One might think so
if he passed down the street
toward the sunset
and happened to look over his shoulder
and see my mother's head
propped against my father's neck.
He might even hasten his step
into the oranges & reds & purples
with a new outlook,
hoping to find love
or maybe even a different life;

but
I know
that when it got cold and dark
my mother would come in
with her eyes on the floor
pretending to call our dog
(her way of praying)
until she made it to the kitchen.

For dinner
she cooked with onions
because she cared about us too much
to stay out on the porch
and look up past the stars.



                                                *mzf

you
manifested on mourning swells
all too soon. a slow fade

grayed over our blue sea
and your green eyes.

i hope you feel

                                        missed.



                                           *mzf

there is a simile
in the moon
and the way
her belly waxes
with each waning,
though
she won’t let me
write it.


                  *mzf

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

I cracked my sister's door once,
saw her paint curled fingers
nettled into the floorboards,
shoulders sunken, cramped wings
beating at the edge of the whiter parts.
She never found room to fly
on that easel. Thinking back,
I should have stripped her walls bare
and shattered the windows.


                                               *mzf

somewhere
on my way home
a little girl
reached up,
held my hand,
said thank you
and exited
when we stopped.

something told me
to tell her
it was nothing,
but the words
got caught up
in the sigh
of the closing doors.



mzf