Celebrating father's day early
With Billy in his black lab tee
And Abby passing cards
Under the table to me
We close down the restaurant
The sky falls in sheets as we're leaving
And wet hair chases me
Into the wine shop down the street
Where I decide to be polite
Not just dry
And I buy a corkscrew
Now I can drink the wine
My ex boyfriend made me
Now I can get tipsy and
Finish the book my current man gave me
It took 8 years
2 deaths
And too many well-timed broken hearts
To bring us together
Collaterally
It's almost too much
And on my drive home
From dinner
A dive that's now our
Family favorite
With a menu I met
Chasing a boy before I came to my senses
And my stars aligned like white picket fences
To make May and my new man
Taste like heaven
A car swerves in front of me
The license plate reads
SRNDPD
The ***** cut me off again

There's something beautiful about freckles and blemishes and imperfections before I'm made up in the morning. There's something right about naked in the mirror; flaws and scars and age that accumulates with the years. I am a story to be read. I've got skin like a song.

i kept the voicemails you left
months after they went stale
and sometimes i'd lock myself
into the bathroom
just to listen to them
without being accused of
being a packrat

the day that my sister
accidentally deleted
every single one
was the only time
i cried over you.

It was on the first day that we made love, and the second
and the third

waiting for the eyes to become glossy
when we practiced letting go of each other’s hands

I never saw you in any light but fluorescence
the flaws escaping your face

it was on the fourth day that I recognized the taste of you
as the blood that seeps from skin cut

by broken glass.

I worry when I see girls that chew gum like ******,
the bubbles are as pink as their cheeks
before applying blush. Then, I see their fathers memorize
them just in time
because when they grow up, girls leave everyone.
We are sunlight pressing our ******* against moonlight
so close,
     we no longer need our heart-shaped sunglasses.

I knew a man who was born under the Sun,
a Leo, and his image is posted at a bus stop saturated
by rain. I do not know if this
man I once knew is just missing or dead, I do not
know if his lion curls will ever need cut again.

The body does not have to be stiff
for the Sun to forget its place, be doused by rain –
the Leo man is missing all but his breath.

I can't tell you how many times I have done this before
Sliced tomatoes with a dull santoku
My ankle bells jingle
My hips swivel
And the tip of my pinkie
Is gone
"Will this erase my fingerprint?"
I ask
"No. Only acid can do that."
Like from tomato juice
Like from chlorine in a pool
I am swimming in my own blood
Practicing flip turns
Watching it clot
And drying off
I turn a blue towel purple
It was just a tomato
It's not as bad as it looks
And it tastes even better
When I make panzanella