You taught me how to love words again.

Quaint Acacia tree forest:
******, unblemished as it was
when my grandparents first met here-
mountain school.

The chapel beside the administration
office
is locked.

But just as holy are the dark coal
mountain
rocks
that sweetly fell from God's hands before
Jesus set his feet here.

He didn't.
This place is lovely nonetheless.

Wanderer.
From window to window.
Seeking
             something
in different glass scenes
from offices and trains and restaurants.
Like she'll see something or someone
or somebody.
And the world will no longer be
a tilted painting.

Clear spring cold
papers over
the scene of the city of her world.
She's freezing.

There is a cafe at the end of the
road
where sidewalk snow has mingled
with trod-on mud
from commuter's shoes.
It's called
'Les yeux qui voient tout'

She can smell coffee and cigarettes and paper and words
and smiles and wine all the way from Bordeaux.
She sits by the window.

Tendrils of hair cut
across her cheek
as she lowers.
The seat is cold.
Legs crossed,
                       arms clasped,
high-heeled shoes with straps
that cross,
head bent
over a crossword.

'Un cafe au lait, s'il vous plait.'

Last four-letter word pencilled in so
she crumples up the paper.
The eyes don't notice
origami birds dangling above her.
Somehow
they're all angled
towards the glass window
like sunflowers reaching for the sun.
Perhaps the casual
shuttered-open winds
are the birds' oxygen;
reminders that
                          something
like
sky,
air,
wind,
exist, beyond
coffee-smoked counters.
Reminders that
they could breathe, live, fly
in some other city of some other world.

Cup and saucer on a silver platter
hover over.
Idle fingers
and then a clatter.
She stares down into
the white porcelain pit,
teeming with hot brown
                                           alarms.
It isn't a portal
into
       something.
Just a cup of coffee.
Now that is an alarm.

Slow and
                shaking,
drip,
         drip,
                  drip.
The milk is poured.
Curling, italic, Persian carpet spread
from the cup's centre into warm-cream brown.
She imagines it is
blood in her heart.

She raises the little silver teaspoon
napping on the saucer and
stirs.

'Le sucre?'
Does she want it all
to be
sweeter?

Two packets, long like
Marlboros,
hastily, desperately dumped
into the mix.
Quick and
                  shaking,
she raises the little silver teaspoon and
stirs.
Little sugar grains ******
into a vortex,
dissolved and melted into
the city of the world of the cup.

With her little finger, she
dabs
stray sugar grains
on the table
and tries to bring sweetness
to her sleep-thick tongue.

Slow and
                shaking,
sip,
      sip,
            sip.

She's­ tricked herself
into feeling warmth.
Ticker-tape banner
pops up in her head:
'All of this will not
fix you.'

Porcelain clatter
as cup meets saucer.
Again.
She arms herself with
a cigarette case and a book.
Maybe now she will belong
amongst these people
with sad eyes and burning lips,
clinging on to cups and drinks.
So desperately-lit smoke
trails out of
her warm mouth,
steaming up her face
like a window on a cold winter day.
And meanwhile Camus perches
in her hand.

Her eyes swim
in the choppy seas
of French.
The cigarette dangles,
painting the air grey, grey,
tilting, tilting, tilting.
Slow and
                shaking,
she weeps.

Half-aglow in the white sunshine filter
from the glass window,
a woman is wondering.
She drinks her coffee,
wipes her smudged mouth
and leaves.

Nobody notices the wobble
in her high-heeled gait.
She's just a part of
another tilting painting,
another glass scene.

These simple acts,
           simple things,
define
the speaking soul.
In a scene of the city of the world.

From a distance,
planets look just like particles:
you can't see them.

So when I disappear
into the edge of the sky,
maybe

we won't orbit each other
so much.
Maybe

you'll sleep without my
gravity
while knowing how small

I am,
but still a small
part of you

like a particle
which might be or have been
a planet.

sometimes i wonder if god keeps a record
of all the times i have been left,
all the times i have been unable to leave.
i wonder if he thinks to himself,
"when will she learn?"
as if he feels my heartache too.
i picture god with a furrowed brow,
hunched over a typewriter,
beginning me again and again,
a mountain of crumpled paper at his feet.
but somehow -
he always ends up at the same point in the story
where i am all ****** palms
and half-hearted hallelujahs
propped up on bruised knees.
spitting up blood & teeth at his feet screaming,
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?"
but he doesn't answer.
and i catch myself wondering if the silence
is his way of punishing me for making a deity out of you.
after all, the bible says he is a jealous god.
i could've sworn there was a verse somewhere
that said you weren't allowed to love anyone other than me.
but now that i think about it,
i probably took it out of context.
if i could add a parable to those already existing,
it would be how your chest
felt like church under my head,
and how i thought to myself,
"this is how it would be if he loved me back."
or how you fled my bedroom like a crime scene.
i am still bleeding.
i won't tell you how many times
i cracked my heart in half
trying to be what you wanted.
how my lips on your skin felt judas.
now i am waiting for god to begin me once more,
hoping he'll leave you out of the plot this time
because i don't think i could stand to lose you again.
see, rumor has it he knew you'd leave
and has been trying to make it up to me
since before we'd even met.
my song is one of repentance.
the wood finish from abandoned pews
rotting under my fingernails.
i made sacrifices you didn't ask for.
i have never known
whether my inability to abandon people
is more a strength or a weakness
but so far everyone i've ever loved
has turned into an exit wound,
and myself into a flickering no vacancy sign.

- m.f.

Time: 1
Us: 0

Will it always be like this?

Swinging our racquets at Einstein's illusion.
Singing, singing, singing 'Stop
the World I Wanna Get Off
With You'
when nobody hears
over the relentless tick-tocks.
As
     as
the clock's hands
push
         push
pull us together,
apart.

Hey, you.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
Let's look at the scoreboard.

Time: 1
Us: 0

In school, they taught us perseverance.
So we keep
dancing, dancing, dancing
                                              around
the hands of the clock.
I'm on number 3 and
you face me.
What's it like on number 9?
What's it like to be on the edge of
the next hour,
the next day,
the next big thing?
You're on number 9, I'm on number 3.
I face you, you face me.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
I face you,
                   you face me.

So easy for us to...
So easy for us to love, but
so easy for us to leave.
So easy to fight, to
wrap our hands
                            around
each other's throats
simultaneously.
So easy to embrace, so
easy to walk away
when you are the west and I am the east.

I'll ask you again:
Are we lovers or are we opponents?
Eyes flit up to the scoreboard,
even though
                      we don't want to look
away from each other.

Time: 1
Us: 0

The ball is in no one's court anymore.
No more back and forth,
stichomythia, repartee.
Nor round and
                           round
when it's all an illusion,
isn't it?

Don't look.
Don't bring it up.

Time: 1        
Us: 0

The figures are getting bolder, louder
than the ticking.
Tell me, tell me, before
you move to 10
and our angles get skew,
tripping over the clock's hands,
because we forgot the steps of
our dance.
Tell me, tell me, what it's like
when you see me
all the way from number 9
while I'm on number 3.

The scoreboard's screeching
like a train ready to leave.

Time: 1
Us: 0

The audience is already beginning to clap.
They have loved us
and so have we.
We put on quite the show,
enough to rival Djokovic or Murray.
But neither of us will walk out with gold.
Not when we've lost to an abstraction
that can swallow us into
memories.
We get silver medals.
Around our necks, choking
but we clasp them tightly
so they can sparkle on our chests.
My silver beams to you,
                                           your silver beams to me.
On and off,
a Morse code speech.
When we can't speak,
                                       can't breathe,
that seems to suffice.

Here is a case of beautiful irony:
How did we meet?
Your eyes
                 saw in
my eyes
               that silver gleam.
My eyes
               saw in
your eyes
                 the very same thing.
Remember:
I face you, you face me.
Are we lovers or are we opponents?

The scoreboard screams:

Time: 1
Us: 0

I bought a watch today, why
did I do that?
I'm so smart but
I'm so stupid.
I face you, you face me.
It's not an illusion, is it?
Look at me.
Is it?

Time: 1
Us: 0

We're finished.
But then how could we have ever won
when neither of us knew how to play tennis?

We look at each other
so the scoreboard can dissolve
instead of us.
Like your eyes
                          in my eyes
a tethering glance,
could hold us in an eternal position.
Like a single look
could sustain us
stationary.
I face you, you
                          start to leave.

It doesn't matter now.
Everything's spilling out
on the loudspeaker.
(And for once, you don't wish to seek this one truth.)

Time: 1
Us: 0

It will always be like this.

Time: one.
Us: love.

so you're disappointed
that you're disappointed
and maybe that's to be expected
some folks make beds
out of their catharsis
differently than others
it's this list
of things you lost in the fire
or how jealous you are
of people
who never came back up for air
you're crying
so the faucets leak out of solidarity
& someone asks you
why the floor is wet
so you tell them
"we've been weeping here forever"
then they want to give you
a mouth full of presupposition
by saying
"are you going down with the ship?"
& you look them in the mouth
like Leo is handcuffed to a pipe
five decks down
you look at them
like you just woke up
from that dream everyone has
where all their teeth fall out
maybe it's an intervention
a hearse vs station wagon origin story
a clearance sale
& everything's gotta go
or maybe it's the dream
where you're at the docks
from your childhood
and there's a little girl
unmooring all the ships
because she thinks
they'll float away
but every time
she unties them
they just sink




                                          they just sink