To my friends
who can write
fresh-smelling
bouquets of words
with splendid color,
I offer my envy.
Mine are the blunt, stunted words,
rooted in the cracks
in pavement,
or forcing their way
to light around
overbearing rocks.
Some useful
in their own way,
edible or flavorful,
some with a
pedestrian beauty,
but few that one
would bring home in a bunch
with a box of candy.
More appropriate
in a grimy, young fist
crumpled in love,
destined to be vased
in a water glass
by a doting mother,
or shredded petal by petal
for the sake of soothsaying...
he loves me, he loves me not.

In the heart of the rain in the middle of the night;
In the cocoon of my blankets,
In the warmth of solitude-
My world tingles with a drunken glow.

The tilt of the edges of my consciousness draws out my thoughts
Like blood,
And suddenly I ache for the Seine-
Her quiet waves and raucous shores
So full of life and dripping dreams…

In the silence of my dizzy memories I am struck
With wanderlust,
So fierce I awaken with one shoe tied and key in hand
Pleading for anything but here.

It is too easy to leave, now.
Beyond what was once audacious and beyond
The clear, raging sea-
The unknown calls to me.

In the core of my body in the center of my soul
I now know home
And it is far, far from any place I have ever seen
It is heartbreakingly beautiful and
fleeting

Please come save my body from my soul.
Even my fingernails ache with the weight
Of those thousand wine-induced truths.
Every eyelash carries a lost dream,
Neverlands and rain on windshields
In which I go nowhere in the night in a car
I can’t drive.

And my calloused heels!
Imperfections rendered by faulty directions,
U-Turns,
And Leaps of Faith

I’m surprised when my chest still rises and falls
And that breath still whistles through my nose
When all these bricks lay there,
Heavy and unmoved.

My body will someday reject me,
I fear.
Too many sleepless nights and coffee cups
Will shatter me

So please save me

It’s not giving up when you let go.
You tried, right?
You held him fast in your arms until
You were only clutching air.
You still wish for him there.
You may ache for him in the night
Though your loneliness was fiercer
With his breath in your lungs.

Yet like the morning fog
He has disappeared,
Leaving the warmth of day
In his wake

In the hope that my knees will touch rainbows
I arch my back to the heavens.
If I close my eyes tight I can almost feel the flit
Of a hummingbird’s wings on my cheekbone,
                my brow.
And yet there is, too, beauty in the imperfections-
Holes in socks,
                        cold coffee,
                                           weatherworn hands.

For all that we see hides the unseen,
The blind curling of bodies towards one another and
Snow falling in the deep chill of the night.
Because the fact that we still bleed and babies cry
Means that we are alive
Too bold to lie down and die.

Shall I kiss the wind with the same sweet sorrow
That plagues my soul,
Or shall I close my eyes tight

And feel the prism of light
-not unlike a rainbow

I*

Momma tucked us in tonight
and wrapped the blanket close
to our faces.
"Stay warm, my children,
My babies, my onlies."
She sang us a lullaby.
There in her pretty honey voice
She told us of goblins with
faces scrunched up like lemons
And leprechauns scratching their
bitty green hats
as they looked for their pots of gold.
Momma sang about dragons
who breathed fire as red as her hair.
The dragons musta been real, ‘cause
I thought I heard some people running
Up above us.
I made sure to tell Momma
that they were up past their bed time.
Then she kissed us,
my little brother and I,
on our foreheads-
Peck, peck.
And we said our prayer
as Momma closed her eyes and laid on our
feet.

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray thee lord, my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake
I pray thee lord, my soul to take.
Amen.

There are yellow daisies,
Two pairs of glasses,
And a watch abandoned in the dark.

There are socks strewn across the floor,
Jeans, a belt, a bra.

I am curled like a comma
Next to your heated skin,
Listening to you breathing in,
And out--
Rhythmic like the tides.

The stars have faded.
The morning light may soon trickle in,
but for a silent, suspended moment--
It's just you and me

On the cusp of dawn