Like drinking water out of mason jars
Like reading through fake plastic glass
Like dressing in your grandparents bolts of fabric
Like holding an unfiltered cigarette
Or even better a wooden pipe…
Smoke swelling in closed mouths
And nostrils blowing in sailboat clouds
Down to the next not- Starbucks
To sit on a velvet couch with
Coral painted nails and a chai in hand...
You all can be like this.
With no workout clothes and
With at least two piercings in your nose
You all are like this soon enough.
Who gave you the idea to pick up the
Ukulele anyway?
Who gave you the idea to shave one quarter
Of your head?

We all did. We all are a
Fleet of individual sameness,
A want to stand out from the
Cookie- cutter looks,
But now we’re all cupcakes
With the same story but with
Different hooks
For hands, snagging the rest
Of us along.
With your identical twin lipstick
And Birkenstock feet.
The lack of shock we absorb
Gets lonely and depressing.
So lets all move to Montreal
And French kiss and knit
And maybe real soon the
Croissants will go stale
And it’ll be cool to live
In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

We are the duet
Of water meets dust
Sky meets ground
Heaven meets earth

We are the duet
Of a mucky dance
Crying over the crops
Stepping upon the seeds

We are the duet
Invented from the mess
Of creation, turning
Into devastation
By the hands of the
Coalition

We are the duet
Pouring hands and feet
And cranking necks
And exposing wrists
And lengthening legs
And loosening tongues.

We are the duet
For the dried up leaves
In need of a drink
For the endless fields
Silent in their thirst

We are the dance

To grow and harvest
That will give and give and give
And keep feeding and keep feeding and
Keep feeding
Both types of souls:
Those who believe the duet is worthwhile
And those who believe they can live
Without the smallest amount of rain.

Drinking up your dark roast

With your stub cigarette

I fell for you down sideways

A mouth full of baguette

My French country vacation

A choking silhouette

My sandals went off walking

In a place I won’t forget…

Meet me in the streetlight

Meet me in the sky

Meet me in the wrinkled grass

Meet me in the high.


Let's meet under lashes

Let's meet in the dust

Let's meet where it’s burnt and stale

Let's meet amidst the trust.


I’ll see you in just a little while

Hiding in my poem

I’ll see you through the pinkest glass

I’ll see you and you alone.


Find me in the smoke

And then find me in the shade

Find me when there’s no one else

I’ll be killing the charade.


Come searching on my doorstep

Come longing for my tugs

Come bury what you mustn’t know

Come cringing at my lungs.


Meet me at the crime scene

Meet me in the dark

Meet me when it’s the end of ends

In the moment of the spark.

My elbows feel damp today like they’ve been sitting in
Small pails of oil and someone forgot to tell me.
They feel drenched
Where if someone tried their very hardest to pinch the skin
I would feel no pain.
My only moment of invincibility.

My elbows are boney-
From my mothers side of the family
Like my toes are shaped like my fathers
And no amount of brightly colored nail polish will distract from that fact.
My hair is all my own and my eyes, a cinnamon mix
Caught between browns, yellows, and
Gluey waves of molasses.

But my elbows feel damp today
Even though its fall and skin likes to crack and break and shutter in the wind’s blue outrages.
But skin is only skin
And I didn’t die from scraping my knee on that branch hidden in the big vulnerable pile of leaves…

It’s fall. And leaves are caught struggling with
Conformity and peer pressure.
Their newly painted toenails scream out insecurity;  
Caught between greens, yellows, and
Cinnamon mixes.
Like gluey waves of molasses.

I bet some of those leaves have damp elbows too…

My unprotected heart
Limply falls out of its chest
Loses its way down the left arm and
Slips right out of my sleeve
Rolling right past my cuff, my open palm, my fingernails
No time to catch it, no room hide it in my skinny wrist.
No time to take it back, to swallow the incredible lump of tears swelling…
There it spills. Pumping blood into cracks and crevices on the unfinished table.

My unprotected heart
Cold and birthed
Lays there beside the elephant in the room
Gathering slivers and stains
Too scared to move, too weak to breath
The room gets a good look.
A car wreck, gazes glued to the scene.
So many gazes…
Unprotected, it is dissected.
Focused and scrutinized
It is analyzed
Thoughts like a string of pearls so perfectly placed
The perfect calculation for my imperfect equation
Lab work is drawn up.
My heart becomes the experiment.
Attention in humiliation like a trip on the sidewalk, a
Stumble on the road.
My unprotected heart undergoes surgery

Open on the table
It cries out to be back in its cage.

I’ll forgive you.
I’ll forgive you, though not from the heart
Not even from any other significant
Body part
I’ll forgive you quickly, a reflex.
But from my elbows
Or from my teeth
Or from the space right behind my knees
I’ll find forgiveness to give you there.
But not the heart
No, that’s rare.

If forgiveness is a gift then my
Gift to you is cheap
I’ve cheated you just as you’ve cheated me.
My tongue says, “I forgive you”
But my eyes say, “I’m still hurting.”
So here, take my gift-
My ankle, my appendix, my right earlobe…
And I’ll say we’re fine, I’m fine, wholesome and cool.
And here I am, a smatter of lies,
A fool of a fake plastic heart protected and tucked away.
I’ll forgive you
But I probably got it from Dollarama
Or Army and Navy
I’m a bunch of puzzle pieces connected with tape and glue.
Here take it. Just take it! This unimportant ***** is for you!

And now I’m quickly
Running out of places to find spare parts…

Lingering B flat
A purposeful off key constancy
Hangs onto tips of earlobes until the wet earring must fall and shatter.
Blankets the earth, spreading its wealth as wide as the silver lineless clouds will allow.
Soft and refreshing
Crocodile tears glistening maple leaves weighing them down.
Falls,
hits,
rolls,
slides,
shaken,
splashed...

Water meets dust, a mucky duet.
Constant hum of dots and lines polka dotting khaki pants
Falling against and consuming a world of heartache and lies.

Follows you home from up above, not daring to let you out of its greedy spotlight.
Hugs you,
With the many small kisses of a child.
Full of pride and selfishness pouring on parades,
Laughs on metal roofs for hours keeping some awake, for others a lullaby.
Shouts when it’s feeling heavy and frightened, but always after a while
The temper will subside into a
Long
awaited
whisper.
Calms the ones who weep along with the heavens,
coating them in understanding.
Drowns out the sounds in awkward silences.

Falling forgiveness cries out, as the world reply’s
- we thank you.