Taking stock
I tuck this year inside
the first little furrow-line
across my brow.

Hm. Skin's changing.
I'm changing.

There was more anguish in 24
than the Doc ordered.
Somehow, the endless easy wealth
endless easy employment
and eager entertainment
evaded me.

But there are also little dents on either side of my mouth now.
A ripple between lip and dimple.
There was joy on this face-
enough to carve its name forever.

24 and time has begun to speed up,
people talk a bit quicker
fleeter of foot
and calendar has begun
to foxtrot-

And I sit on the side of the Hall
watching the days dance on and on
how selfish they seem
How quickly Spring woos Summer
How fickle is Summer, as she whirls to Autumn
How chilly, Autumn as he falls for Winter,
How feverish, they dance.

24, a left-footed wallflower.
24 with wide eyes that try to capture
the entire world and hold it STILL.

This ball lasts forever and never.
There's no break.
24, I guess it's time to give Life my dance card
surrender and cut in,
24, ready, steady-

*let the dancing begin.

Sticky hands-
the price of touching delicious things.

And no matter how I handle you...
from the spout, with a mitt, upside down,
you get all over my mind
you sneak your way into thoughts that
haven't even come close to you.

And for each drop of soap
an ounce of appetite comes to tip the scale.

A sticky heart.
That's the price of touching delicious things.

Six red roses fastened to my doorstep
wept half a dozen treaties
and begged to be kept.

in dreams i met the fox again
this time i asked him to use words
grabbing sandcastle fistfuls of his fur
until the tide swept in
and i howled.

i asked him for the essence
secret ingredient
that made him a fox
as if it could be answered
= fur. paws. snout.

so we built a den of bricks
and i seal it over and over in vines
-just hold this together-
in thin flora we both know he could tear down
(if he wanted to)
the fox and his mystery mortar.

one day, the fox opened his mouth and said:
"wait".

do i ask for his appraisal
or do i riddle me for mine?

tearing down the wall to qualify
my own little bits of stone
twist my silver hair

because maybe i'm not half as scared of knowing the fox
as i am of knowing
the wolf.

He's like a cat
creeping across piano keys.

Deliberate,
discordant,
and dear.

Oh, when you're on the edge
on the edge of clean
I'll make space for you darling
come closer to me.

And I'll tuck you down
and tell you how very good you are,

how very good you are.

And I shall ready a place,
waiting for you to
wake up
wake up
from our love, half-asleep
the curve of your hand,

from our love, half-asleep
in the Purple Land.

Unspoken words drift snowly white
Ashes from this Vesuvian relationship
First they blanket, then they catch fire,
As she slips away from the embalmed desire.

He sneaks a bold finger into her navel.
She squirms in sudden protest.
He quickly lifts the damp hair from her neck
and kisses little apologies.
Her sigh forgives the intrusion, she rolls to her side
suddenly all hip and pale inner thigh.
He follows swiftly down the valley,
a little boy running home for dinner-
He hums a nothing song.
She quietly hums along.
He waits.
She says it first and means it.
His heart pulses twice at these prophetic murmurs.
Her mood quickly changes, leaps to her feet, flexing naked muscles
and pouting in comic exaggeration.
He laughs and softly adores her unselfconsciousness, this is new.
She bends to kiss him.
He remembers the oven is on.
She remembers the time.
He whistles Last Stand cheerily to the scorched vegetables.
All because she touched him inappropriately in the kitchen
in lieu of uncorking the wine.

i was afraid of them
until i found her in a flower
and found she was the flower
buzzing little soul
colour shifter
dream
      c a t c h e r

autumn nights were cautious
the songs we sung
were the songs of those stung

in the winter we built
a secret warm glen
and she taught me to dance
   (in the way that bees do)
so that snow wouldn't weigh down my wings

sometimes she flies unseen
but she always comes home
her heart beats in my chest
and mine, her honeycomb

we don't belong here
   (i think we came from the sky?)

we belong to each other
     my flower bee and i

Your memories visit me seldom
these days
        but they're just as dear
(when they do)
warm and removed
             like these still May mornings on the coast that are gorgeous, innocent
                           and new
  ... do you remember the absolutely absurd things we used to laugh at?

photograph One:
i see you, and the first things i see are your dark eyes
you sit beside me with open hands and make me laugh over coffee.

photograph Two:
one night i notice your mouth. you haven't drank but i have.
still all i see are your eyes when you first lean in.
i'm aroused and utterly haunted.

photograph Three:
you're so pale i want to colour you in. i want to make you alive.
you're dancing so frenetically, my marionette man
and i can't tell who tugs the strings.

photograph Four:
It's after midnight and you've stormed from my house snarling
like a wolf waiting to die.
"i'm poison" you spit. "i'll poison you, too".
"you and me." i plead. "i won't run".

photograph Five:
it's a cloudy day. you tell me you love me without looking me in the eye.

photograph Six:
you're standing in the open doorway against winter wind
dragging a half-quit cigarette and i am hugging my knees on your couch
waiting for you to calm
our eyelashes smeared chilly with tears.

photograph Seven:
you are lying on the floor, heaving with sobs.
i am holding you as tight as i can because i don't know what to do
and i'm afraid if i let you go you will cremate in the heat of your darkness
already we are both husks.

photograph Eight:
we lie awake in your cold bed and we are strangers
you will not touch me and i feel naked.

photograph Nine:
i awoke at 4am from a dream of you that was a lie
many months after i fled from your ghost
and like an infected wound
it still throbs hotly that i could not save you
and that for so long i could not save myself from you
the dark-eyed boy with the angel tattoo

At the end of my name
follow three letters
right now they spell
"mop".

folks say it ain't the
way it used to be
jobs- like there's even such a thing as
"beneath me".

I'm a clever little phoenix
I have my flight plan
not an android, nor
academia didn't make me
Galatea

I can wait and remember
I can serve you an ice cream
without forfeiting intellect in
a flurry of sugar cones

I pick my battles gracefully
so I remember what I was taught.

Curl up.
Pay rent.
Rebirth,

then-  

pounce.

Dark eyelashes
That flutter at my clavicle
Alight upon stepping stone freckles
And whisper-paint my canvas
With nothing-everythings of orange violet red
(Realizing reveries of your pretty head)

What blessed crescents

The sigh pumps slowly though my veins
The colour of sky after summer rain

Grey. You are invisible to hungering eyes.
Except perhaps to mine. I see you with my memory.
You are anchored in my mind.
Grey. Grey. There.
The spectral photograph of your architecture.
Ensconced in mist. What have you to hide?

Your regal spine, adorned in halfsleep shades of midnight.
Rucked up around your amber skin.
There are mirrors everywhere that speak in half-light
As it gathers about you the blush deepens and ebbs.
I think of violets.
You are so very still.

I watch you magnetically with my entireness
With want of telling you tangibly
Coloured cognitions
My heart is yours.
It is all stained glass.

Said the fawn unto the fox:
Sing to me a song of happiness
And the fox swirled rusty 'round
her twig legs- breathing about her
a scarf, crimson draping the snow.
First- said the fox:
First, show me your secret antlers,
and then I shall sing to you a song
of all the happiness of the earth.

Said the fawn unto the fox:
antlers, I have not.
They are spoken within a tree
and written in his knots.
And the fox swirled rusty 'round
her twig heart- breathing within her
a Sun, crimson draping her soul.
Then- said the fox:
Then, take everything you know
feed it light to make it grow
until the tree is the whole sky
and you are the North Wind, just as fast
telling stories to the aurora borealis
and making promises to last

And then, said the fox:
*And then you shall be mine,  
and I shall sing to you a song
of all the happiness of the earth.

With my heart I picture you in polaroids
tinted blue by my eyes, surrounded by crushed leaves.
In the skipping track of my inner eye
your mouth, the way it moves when you focus
the open-palmed reaching of marimba chorale
and softening of your brow from the vines
of midnight-colour hair.
From many perspectives, again and again,
in the skipping track of my inner eye,
photographs shot with love.

Applying reason, she constructed logic sandcastles
that against waves of love were still hopelessly matched.

To break is an abstraction.
To break what?
A noun?
Tangible?
Phoebe fell down four flights, fracturing her femur.
A verb?
Felt sharply in a sudden absence?
Singing Schubert and feeling a spasm of sorrow, his voice shattered.
Direct object?
A being, a destination.
I am. I am (what?) I am (broken).
Don't tell me I haven't failed
in the same sentence you tell me I'm not enough.
And watch me leaf-like tremble, fumble hands, cover mouth
A paper mask over shaking gasps that wrack me naked.
Don't tell me I'm not broken.
When I am (broken).

in the dark i saw a glow
    t he glow of a billio n
              s o f t       little cells.

and ******>   not yet feel ing any fear,
i became q u i e t-

                               i drew n e a r.  

y o u're so very   w arm.

I love you more than me
it's what scares me most
my chameleon heart
I become what I cling to.

And so my colour-blind soul
passing through shades
when picking you flowers
what do I have of my very own to give you?

You made me out of blue
You felted my heart of this red
You turned my hands to gold.

I am already you
I have nothing of my very own.
My darling, what could I give you now?

in bare feet i want to run
sound of skin against hardwood, fleeting, fleeing
i want to hide in a too obvious place
the laundry basket in my closet
agonize for eternal minutes
hyper-alive, i want to turn off
with the solemn resolve of a crone
steeped deliciously in self-pity
holding quickened breath and fearing
the blood pounding in my ears
in the utter darkness
will give me away
even though already i want to be found
peering from my encampment to the
vertical strip of white giving away
muted shapes of loved ones seeking
their brazen little refugee
burst open, light
tugged out by slender wrists
and held tight
with no words
and that is my curse:
to be seen always as a child
dimples and all

my hands are mumbling something about
moments of grandeur, philosophy of life
words already spoke- world could live without
why choose I fear quiet as real as a knife?

a predicta-poet who's turned all her tricks
will the page weary of the same tattoos
will syllables return to rocks and sticks
will the parables fade, the truths misconstrue?

my fingers shake upon the keys
if I cease to murmur, will I cease to be?

There are moments I see you more clearly than ever

the taste of ginger on a Sunday couch, stretched out cat-like to watch our show.

And I laugh at all the moments I know you would laugh.

Unfair as the prettiest dream.

If I begin to tremble,
I know you're just right.

Aware both of the autumn at my throat
and of your impossibly bright teeth
I turn owlishly as you pass
and am thrown off my orbit
by the gravity of your curls.

Knowing I will never see you again,
I watch you like a red balloon
stealing swift into the blue
far beyond the limit of eyesight

and I am overcome with the terrible desire
to weep and to laugh
and to know your middle name.

Oh, my cherished-
If I could give you him
I'd wrap him in picnic plaid
Like the gift he should be
(I know you'd like that)
And I'd tie him to you by
his tweed and sheepish smiles,
so tight that you'd turn into
a Great Ancient Tree.

Darling, if I could
shake the demons out of your forest,
I'd holler at them in a pentatonic fury
and bend them from your nation.
(With air. Not fire)

My Siamese twin,
connected at the heart,
If I could give you the world
I'd carry it to you
like Atlas
though I'd have to work on my long distance running.
I'd do it for you.

I'd do it a hundred,
and bring you all the jam ever jellied.

Put my heart on hold a moment,
while I pick up the other line...

... Are you there?

"You are what you eat"
until one day you don't
and that's what you become
n o t h i n g (beautiful?)
your cognitions like broken clock cogs
s l o w s l o w s l o w (perfect?)

tabula rasa is the body unbefouled by
nourishment (enemy?)
And the walls are washed white
Nature sickly perverts vitality
The cornucopia becomes a conspiracy
To sully your porcelain
e m p t i n e s s (happiness?)

hypoglycemia makes you shake
but not as hard as eating a whole meal

Can one person be so myriad?
This identity could not possibly fit inside a body.

Dreamer. Comedian. Thinker.
  Friend. Musician. Writer. Smiler.
   Lover. Wisher. Runner. Fighter.

      Bulimic.

And there it is: ugliest of all words.
This identity could not possibly fit inside a body,
and you see, it doesn't.

It breaks it.



I don't know how
but


*I will win

If I'm the cowgirl,
courage is the bronco
and you're the stranger in the mask.

Call it geographical bias,
but I know we're both tired of tumbleweeds,
both allergic to dust.

So carry out,
carry on.
Spit and be brave, child.

This town ain't big enough
for our desert rose hearts to grow.

So give me land.

Lots of land.

Clenching my throat in resistance
I'd like... to reach down deep
pull myself inside out
but I'd never want you to see that.
This wicked penance holds charms
but only for me
like every great lie
full of empty beauty.

lift vase, draw back arm
cast with the strength of living
hear glass scream aloud