I heard passion on the streets of New York City
the sea foam of the sky hanging on the Persian shield watching over us
the gloaming brings retrospect
the healthy green pendant of the six train matches the bushes in the square
in Little Ukraine
it is dark
we bounce as we step
I know when I move I will
be on my own
she tells me she hears yelling. is it happy exclamation or anger
I don't know. I say. I don't know

--

9/15/2016

the first confirmed case of cannibalism in the Jamestown colony has been identified as a 14 year old girl, possibly from a wealthy family

they found you with
lamb in your bones
and said you had a good diet

I am trying to think of
what kind of person you were
before they put a hatchet to your

skull, assembled you along with
skunk, peat moss, dog.
you were from a wealthy

family because of the
protein they found embedded in you
or maybe you were a servant

and ate well.
maybe this is why they got you–
the first two blows were shallow

and meek
the one that severed you into
cuts for meat

broke your tibia
like you would slaughter cattle
maybe, the archeologist said, if she had

someone to protect her
this wouldn't have happen
she didn't.

but then I read you were dead
before they even
started

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.

9/11/2016

Feburary 2015

you were so tough I thought,
I always have this belief about men that they're not as tough as they think they are and I'm always right
I don't know who my friends talk to I think maybe I'm just soft or
and I remember you,
who'd come from poverty
and no father
would smile vaguely when we, all our friends
sat in your house and when we drove in your car with the windows down it was feburary but we didn't mind
you never showed me any feeling we never knew
what was going on with you
you were excited to get your life together and bring honor to your country
the week before you did I saw you and
it was a Sunday we were alone
you gripped the steering wheel we had stopped somewhere because you had to do some business whatever that meant
a man came to the car you called him ******* and he called you chamaquito you went into his apartment and came back two minutes later
the car was silent as we rolled past Westminster and the Seminary
you cut the air
"you know I don't want to go to the marines
I wanted to be a businessman"
I never saw you after that


you went away to Arizona
and I never forgot that
because it was the only part of you
I ever truly knew,
of this vague polarizing figure

I was thinking maybe, just maybe,
That we could have a baby,
Or be forever 21 and die together in 2080.
See I've been thinking about that lately
I guess you could say it's crazy,
But I've got responsibilities,
That bring me to my knees,
And somehow I've got to look out for me.
Living isn't cheap,
especially at my university,
And I'm only 19,
And I'm only getting stronger,
So if I'm not man enough yet, you better watch out now.

the great horned owl outside my window
calls for its mate lost in the forest
and i understand.
our only difference is
he has found her
and has stopped.