grey mud made blue
for our play, and our faces
we've trudged in it many a color
marched over it, dried in the yard
Many a sunflower-day sight spent on weeds
though her heart is encased in my soil,
she could tread no lighter
that I be overjoyed,
with the footprint of her favor
it is forever a favorite stamp on my
chest, a faucet that runs over my arms,
soaking our garden, play with me
again?

if ceiling gave way
books to fall down
their plot missed, a story never scribbled into the margins
hopefully no lamp in the east kept up, burning.
And only walls to scale, sky to grab, mountains to sip
water-proof sunscreen, mud that doesn't stick to the bottoms of shoes,
eyes wide at the sun.
Under the moon, the lamp in the west still up, burning.

Time as the sea that parts us
I've carried my dresser drawers up so many flights of fresh paint by now,
glossy eyes cafes,
You sitting to watch a drip
when I started drinking smoothies instead
Could touch-and-go waves hold out for us many more seashell lives?
touched by so many and pulled  out
of sand so known,
to perish justly in cold waters?

How does one electrify the soul again over Moses's swells?
How can the red sea part when I know not where you stand?

picture us,
lawn chairs and faces black, like kettles left
out go our hands and dark palms
For now we, the migrants
our knuckles on city doors not ours
humbled to our toes this star-less cold
dining room dreams, now on fire, mercy our new coat
neighborly faces take hands
washing them over buckets though nothing
there was no wall

2018 is a crazy over-pour of blessings and joy and love and
cheap art and fur babies and hugs and eating Mcdonald's with
our mouths open and poems and Shakespeare and roommate pizza nights and honey'd down tea and planting flowers and trips to
the 99 cent store and so many good pens that are everywhere and don't seem to get lost and this purple-blue feeling that I could get away with it all - gold that tethers to me like Christmas lights,   am I too bright? Will this silver crinkly valley let me sip much more?

Locked in I was
and grey spatter I spit
under fear I crept
for satan's name, used so,
at my dawn and at my wake

my own voice, soft like flowers who tremble
under trees so steadfast

then upon not one, but many
a sunrise, my voice grew up to be wind
      ~my love out-loud in the living room
        prayers and fears to sentence my mouth not one more day

Freedom knew me
my pen knew what it wanted at 11
picking it up at 27
never so brilliantly
has ink bubbled

What good is tall grass?
Your blue eyes cupped in my hands, already

I've asked the saints to dunk me under
in all undue riches
save me from my Only One

Ocean shores love knees to touch
craving almost as much our love long whispers
heads bowed
Our toes realizing chorus and green
and tame it no longer, tumbling
so fully-it shocks us to the tips of our hair splits
not even sandy yet

Offering my jewels to Pharaoh
maybe he could take this price off my head,
my wheels off, nights pink tongue from my window

Over the beds of yellow and orange prayers, still blooming
I step beside the ****** to ask,
but not forgetting,
blue ball caps that scream
over the tops of curly heads

and where am I but always with you at the beach?

and in the graveyard of my lovers
i take care not to step loudly
that they might not wake and see,
how cold it is.
that i might not smash their corpses still

i put an arrow in my own heart
to wrench it out with might
and little will it bleed, if at all

i finally dug myself a spot
so i too can wait for footsteps overhead
warm in thick soil
only asking to be wrangled from the dirt,
here and there,
to see the cold.
stooping heartily into my hole
i whistle merrily

Fog-covered in the rainforest
new dark moss,
and our heavy swamp breaths
Heads that sparkled in the city
two hands sway
with saxophone songs
   warm however,
even at cold beer
licking over limbs

Unruly night cast wide it's net,
and we found lips of our lovers,
on islands, opposite

I fill them up, too full in my flask
                         the lid falls off,
on the dance floor no less
I take it with me still, the morning after
while the mimosas are out
I let it drive me,
the windows rolled down
unbothered by the way the sun stares
that February night
wasn't cold at all
                     i spilled in the kitchen
and that July
in red hallways
                    it stained the carpet
but you place it back
in my threadbare hands
and don't scold me on the train
you say "sip up" and remember,
that's whiskey.

I was on the equator
arm gripped over the side I held on,
with my smile
A lantern in both hands
walking past farmers at day,
one,
soothing a flower and singing sweet hymn
My quest I forgot and sang along
in the aisles of her song,
she didn't look my way.
Picking up my candle
feet resigned to the orange sun
heat filled my head
but my shoulders remember
her sweet hours picked

I was a deer downtown
watching as others walked,
down the street with trees.
I collected movie theater faces
and could pen a love story from one bartender
to the next,
and lose no sleep.
But one day I saw a couch
   sitting out


          begging into the cracks of sidewalks, please
             send me someone to love

I've been on the edge of your beach
The bottom of your boat
I have my birds on the lookout,
Listening for when,
Your love song begins
Does it sing the waves back to sleep?
Or is it met with sails that turn back,
For more
When is it safe to drop the oar
So mermaids can return me to land

though a gold wet glass I stare ahead
eyes wide open
into the vast and open fish market
palms reek
of all that I have drank
my coin purse sunk, at the bottom
of this ship
I gave up my hair twice
for the kiss that would drown me,
finally,
making the act of coming up for air,
inconvenient