I didn't sleep again last night
my yesterday is still taking place
as my fingers gently press these keys
so as to not wake my brother
restless,
I realized,
I've seen a sunset
but never a sunrise

the streets were still asleep
the only ones about
only the down and out
the poor black folk
the aimless hipsters
the homeless
the single mothers with three jobs
who wait alone
under a flickering street light
for the bus which will take them
to their deadpan jobs
the puddles from last night's storm
rest with not a ripple
and the pretty little birdies
start finding their voice
restless,
I realized,
after the sunsets
the world opens up her eyes

periwinkle horizons
blend easily with the grey skyline
and the line between man and God blurs
the sky is tropical mango cocktails
and pillows of white Caribbean sand
the smell is left -
like a residue -
chasing after the tail of a storm
but the air is wet to the touch
hinting at repeat of the downpour
and I would've sat on the arm of that denim sofa
hour after hour
until the world was ready to wake up
giving me a chance to sleep off their insecurities,
only,
I felt like writing this poem
only,
I felt like a sunrise
or maybe a sunset?
or just maybe
a ******* supernova
I felt good
brimming with peace in my gut
like a warm fire
restless,
I realized,
that after all is set
I will still love the sunrise

I tried to capture you
In the forests of Donegal,
Your bark of hair, red, so dark,
Was smear, camouflage, and window
Into a lost Fae world made as I was sinking
Without ever knowing, falling, without fear
Years later, you have long left and I still
Breathe in a wooden box of dream.

to the shadow of my bed I call sleep

a woman with bare feet put her breast in my mouth.  her man lit a cigarette and opened the schoolroom window.  I pictured a microscope slide pressed into a ladder of blood by some pink thumb.  miles off my mother came to on a raft and was afraid.  witchcraft, she said, to the dry land below.  to the kites on hiatus, tied to trees.      


to the man who will say to my daughter a lurid thing

the whole of your mother was lifted by one with a similar weakness to mine, lifted over the head of the so named, was the whole of your mother, and she was witnessed safely, snugly, to be fitted by the circle window of a kitchen door, seen by your father’s father, whose care led to the phrase hungry as a hornet, because he was a ****-up with horses, had been kicked, left by anger and like a small nest.


to those who think me wild**

so I can see my mother sleeping on the roof on an indian gift shop, I pull by a string the toy rhino on wheels up a nearby hill.  I hear my brother crying into the sleeve of the shop’s owner for what seems a lifetime.  the lifetime I’m referring to is my father’s.  at the top of the hill father mugs me for the rhino’s horn not because he is a coward but because he fears the red ball my brother could not leave.

Kira is gone again,
Loose from his cage.
I don't understand how he manages it
But he squeezes himself between
Thin little bars
And enters the freedom of my bedroom
Time and time again.
I only catch him
With sweets and good luck.
He's a tiny little mouse,
Black and white speckled like a cow,
Such a sweet wee thing,
But much too adventurous for his own good.
I'm lucky he has a sweet tooth.

I'm not lonely
sleeping all alone
you think i'm scared
but i'm a big girl
i don't cry or anything

I have a great
big bed to roll around
in and lots of space
and i don't dream
bad dreams like i used
to have that you
were leaving me
anymore


Now that you're gone
i don't dream
and no matter
what you think
i'm not lonely
sleeping
all alone