I only wanted to learn love; the unknown was unbearable.
Like a child plucking flimsy wings
from pretty little dying things,
I'm innocent, and terrible.

In the minutes before sleep last night,
through stellar static, astral snow,
a poem, half dreamt, was born
and died; I drifted off and let it go.

Just one line survived the night;
that line will have to be enough.
I wrote it down before it faded:
sometimes we were good at love.

My precious sweet potato pie, my darling little damselfly,
your life is still a lullaby, and I love you more than life so I
kiss chubby fingers pinched in play, make root beer floats,
chase bees away, but even I might break your heart someday.

Perhaps not love – at least akin,
this shatterbelt of sheets and limbs.
Our hearts break for the smallest things,

but if we're just two burning bees
in a forest full of cardboard trees,
I wish for drought, dry leaves, a breeze.

To your can't, I say won't,
and that's fine, love. That's fine.
To your try, I say don't,
and that's fine, love. That's fine.
To each failed attempt,
I say wasted ambition.
To your look of confusion,
I say you wouldn't listen.
To your heartfelt regret,
I say no need, it's fine.
I felt loved for a while
and that's mine, love. That's mine.

I think of August:
strawberry sundae cups
and squash blossoms.

You were in your forties then, lived upstairs with your
old man, gave the neighborhood someone to feel better
than. I was maybe nine or ten, and Franny, oh! I could
have cried when he blacked your pretty gypsy eye and
Franny, oh! my restored hope when I saw Joe, his lip laid
open; Franny, you could throw a punch. So here's to right
hooks, Franny. Here's to gin before lunch. Here's to street
smarts and cunning hearts. I didn't end up like you. I got
out of the neighborhood. I'm my own woman; that's our
slogan, but you know, Franny, sometimes even that 
makes me feel like I'm swinging my fists in a third floor flat.