my mom and I are walking through Big R
when I ask to leave, nervously crushing
my keys in my palm, the lady at the
front has this pleasant accent and talked
to me like I was a woman--I brush my fingers
across all the stacks of denim embroidered in
silver thread with gaudy buttons

we are in the parking lot and she says you didn't find anything?
and I think that all the carhartt hoodies looked like your chest and
all the jeans said you ruin everything down the seams, all I could see
was me swingin' around a hardwood floor that didn't exist--attached
to a hand that was fading away

but I say, no, nothin'.

I hope that when Love comes into my life, he knocks.
That he is warm and smells like hay, like wet earth and roses, like my father.
that he is the same in every light, every angle, in black and white and color. That his daddy taught him how to fix things, and a Phillips looks good on him. When he says my name, I'll hear Texas, North Carolina and Oklahoma, long hot drives and a dust filled cab.
When he sees my shelves are crooked, he pulls nails
out of his pockets, he has pistols in his glove compartment, *****
jeans but cleans up nice, that when I say that I love Jesus he
reaches for my hair and says of course you do.

When Love comes, I hope he waits at the door because I take a while to get ready.  I've been perfecting my heart for ages, softening my
soul to room temperature, polishing the pottery and brushing my hair back. I've been searching for the perfect shade of lipstick, one that
reminds him of a dream, an old brick building where he once
found me, where we broke bread and communed and
when he woke up, he left this old life and
came in search of something new
someone, new, me.

That when love comes, he's neither relieved or overwhelmed. He might
breathe a sigh of joy over I didn't know when it was gonna happen, but here we are. And Everything we've done up until that point is
an instrumental, everyone else a backing vocalist singing
harmonies to the way we laugh. When Love comes he'll
probably know. We'll probably glow brighter.

we'll probably glow brighter.

west of town they're these low
white clouds filled with frost
straddling the mountains like
a woman's thighs,

it's not cold enough to freeze
but bitter enough to bite through
the glass and needle into the cracks
small as pin-******,

Westcliffe's got the worst of it but I've
been thinking opposite of your whereabouts
ever since you told me I'd be better off alone
cut straight in with a bodkin, 'cept you had
no thread, just took any sharp object meant
for better things and delivered readily.

this girl came wanderin' in the shop
with slim hips and these summery
blue eyes, real nice, probably 23.

I've always wondered about that
study taken on by the University
of Copenhagen wherein they found
that blue-eyed people might very
well share the same ancestor--

how in the presence of this feathery girl
who looked like she might be hiding wings
beneath that brown leather jacket, I feel
like even the last man on earth would
rather dive into an inch-deep lake than five
feet of muck, only some people find pleasure
in wet earth

but lately i've felt as if even the men who
call me beautiful would much faster take
off for the sky if only just to leave the ground.

whenever I get to thinking
about what it is that you really
like, like if bourbon was your
vice then i'd be some simple
syrup, the kind my grandma
makes--with sugar and hot
water, and how you only
use a little, a little goes
a long way.

still got those words runnin'
through my head, you'd be better off
you'd be better off if you were
*you'd be better off if you were by yourself

what does it
feel like to have
someone take you
as you are? in all
the shades of carob
that I have become,
toasted almond,
cinnamon and
umber, wet
earth and
bear pelt
the oils
released
when the rain
falls, and I am
separated from
the usual loam
I am still learning
that brown is beautiful

too.

Oh, i'm far too soft
in a warm beer kind
of way, won't burn
when I go down,
no heart-of-dixie
kind of wild, and I'd
only climb into your lap
when the truck's in park,
and only then just to tease
because my hips probably
do a thing or two--but I've
never had the chance to
let someone in on my
secrets, on the road map
to my thighs, and how I
hardly keep quiet--
but I got bible verses for
fingers although the holy
spirit won't seep through,
know lots of things about
the revival in Wales and not
much out of the log tucked into your
visor-- I'm not as scared as
I seem, just ***** easily, if you'd
just wait, if you'd just wait at the
bottom of the hill, I'll eventually
come down, I give everything
too much thought, but commit
100% when I've got the answers,
and sometimes I do, sometimes
i've got the answers, so the wind's
whipping up the dirt and pickin'
up my hair and i must look like
something crazy, but I'm not
I'm not,


I go down smooth.

underneath the nylon blanket I got the
impression that your hands were
these beautiful, shadowy, cecropia moths
reticent with their intentions, while they sat
idly on your ribcage before seeking out warmer
bases. My back, my thigh, my hipbone that wasn't
connected, you whispered.

You smell like cologne and beer; warm and perfumey,
faintly sweet.  I wonder if I'm still tipsy, that was over an hour ago,
over an hour ago when I had to focus on my words
to make sure they came out in pieces and not viscous liquids
thick and sugary. I imagined gems hanging from my lips,
gems hanging from my lips and letters bubbling past
them.

you keep pulling down my shirt like a curtain, derisive of your
own actions, only to find that you have yet to prove yourself
and rock my thigh into yours which was perhaps too zealous.
Too zealous, I think, nonetheless quickened by your thumb
brushing the underwire of my bra.  I laugh because we are far
too juvenile. Here I am protecting the sanctity found in patience
and yet you've evaded the rules.

all this touching and we haven't even kissed, I say, which wasn't really an invitation, but then we are and i am breathing all of you
in sweet staccato breaths, tugging at your skin and still doing the
guesswork, still trying to pin down your wings like a true lepidopterist
all the while knowing that butterflies on cork-boards are usually
dead.

how exhausting to
fall   in   love   with
e  v  e  r  y  o  n  e
to be wrenched in
fifths    and    sixths
to say you could but
know you c  a  n  '  t
and     rushout     the
way fools rush     in
your hair leaves a flick
in the door frame before
the house comes down
in your wake, and your
lungs catch the heat,
billow up on the cliff
side, giant sails that
bring you elsewhere
that take you far away
from the choices you
don't want to make.