My mother is my seamstress,
lapping around a genetic retail store,
she had 23 chromosomes to spend.
Knitting freedom’s peach fuzz fabric over the inseam of  muscles,
cross stitching stereotypes of blonde thread into the pores of a rounded scalp,
hot-gluing  privilege into blue eyes,
kneading the molds of a thigh gap between legs of the race that would shame its way to superiority.
I am white.
My mother was my seamstress,
she made sure the licks of discrimination didn’t scar my back.

I like my women like I like my flowers,
down to Earth, and she’s rooted to the concept.
From her orchard, orchids cry out that she’s
a beauty. A beauty as bold as baby’s breath
but she’s not soft-spoken. It’s written in her
blue-eyed, irises that she’s a stargazer
with a heart made of marigolds, laced together
by Queen Anne. She sprouted out of that cracked
cement with tulips curled to the cosmos, greeting
morning glories with a stellar smile, that I fell for
like a shooting star. She’s a bloomed-beauty that’s
bound to this Earth, and well, I’d pick her up any day.

© Matthew Harlovic

We were walking down Adam’s bend,
stumbling on sweet nothings
that sprouted up in the spur of the moment
in between the cracks in our conversation.
That evening seemed as sweet as the
second-hand secrecy we shared.
She turned to me,  
with a bottom lip white-washed  from nerves,
and slowly asked, “Matt?”
She let a breath flutter
like those ivory black lashes,
“Should I really be doing this?”
In spur of the nerves, I laughed, “Doin’ what?”
she shyly spoke “This...”
I felt lips press against my collar bone
It was chilling. I froze up.
She kissed up my neck,
and my heart thawed.
She kissed my cheek,
and it began to drip.  
She kissed my lips,
and a note that hung on my lungs read:
“Slippery when wet”.
Alas, it lasted a couple of seconds,
with a couple of baby’s breaths in between,
but this wasn’t my first kiss.
It was my first kiss on the lips
of a woman that I knew I loved

© Matt Harlovic

Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Day Sunshine. The Night Before was A Hard Day’s Night. I, Me, Mine, I mean, I Feel Fine, Better, than I ever felt In My Life. I spent midnight in the Strawberry Fields down by Moonlight Bay. I was Searchin’ for Maggie Mae but met up with Penny Lane so we ran around in Circles till it started to Rain. Yesterday was Something , but I can change I promise you that I Will. From Me To You , I can be more than The Fool On The Hill. Yes It Is, a little silly, but I Just Don't Understand. Why you constantly lose faith in this Nowhere Man. But We Can Work It Out, Because, well I Need You, but all you got to do is believe Like Dreamers Do.

© Matthew Harlovic

For every door that closes another window opens
But my momma warned me of strangers
so I latched the window shut, hoping
that opportunities wouldn’t put me in danger.

© Matthew Harlovic

Forgive me Lord for I have sinned,
I have taken your name in vain
and then abused that vanity to
raise my own name.
In spite of the green-thumbed
that wander your garden,
I tried to gather as much fruit
as my arms could carry before
Jacob’s ladder gave out to my weight.
But knowledge is a burden that even
Atlas can’t get a grasp of.
Forgive me Lord for I have sinned,
For I’ve fallen to the seven wonders of
this world that you didn’t warn this sheep of.

© Matthew Harlovic

We drove down the drunken arrow
with slack on the pedal during the steep
inclines. Roundabouts rounded out my
view of those pullman pine peaks
from what I’ve read in geography.
But what I didn’t read was the sightseer
schemes: there’s a price fix on the peaks,
there’s a price fix on air,
Mother Nature is selling
her body to the public.
If we want to pay any kind
of mind to her we need pay
up before we spend time with her.
But this isn’t how it should be,
we should be able to see her
without a cost per hour.

© Matthew Harlovic