Sipping tea, alone, 2 am
Unbelieving
That I could have loved before knowing
Your cool hands
The emerald flash of your eyes
Your voice
Song

First take an empty shell
And carve to your liking
The contours of muscles and veins
And the strong jaw
All threaded with fur,
Then stuff it with excelsior
And anoint it with sharp cologne,
Dress the body in the finest blues and grays,
Kiss the tired hands that work
So you don't have to--
And talk
Because silence is a valiant listener.

I hold a crystal in my hand
Absentmindedly turning it with the tips of my fingers
Watching the light from the window break amethyst into seven
Colors bounce off the walls
Into my hair and yours
Onto our cheeks
Our legs, our feet
And we are moved by the rhythm of color

Doesn't she look so becoming
With her red lips
And her red Keds?
Echoed the woman--
Or child--
In the mirror
Who lives neither in
Nor out
But she remembers me still.
She and I sat with you
Scarred our hands
Because we like our tea hot
And drank in solemn bliss.
I miss pouring my parents' money away.
When I was recalling
The summer you taught me how to waltz
I did all I could
To inscribe ciphers where our hearts should be
So now we sit
Trying to break love off the corner of a chocolate bar.
And in our want
We stray not from pallid lips,
Though cold,
For it took weeks to wash you out of my clothes.

my linens
are still
crisp--

I brewed a *** of tea this afternoon
Wearing only your T-shirt
And a pair of stockings
With every intention of putting on a dress
And no motivation to do it

The arms of feeling wrap around me:
Numerous and dulcet,
As Thursday breathes
And cobblestones remember

He just doesn't know
How much

I dropped a pound
And everyone was so startled by the sound

I, a cool woman,
Watch you
Through Summer's lens.

Well, her name is popular
So my imagination, without fail,
Created a sort of composite girl
Of all those I've felt threatened by;
Petty and stupid, I know,
But there is still that small, animal part of me
That won't let go.

I've lost myself
in myself.

I keep having to remind myself
That I won't be cold
This winter.

You were always
Six degrees cooler
Five steps ahead
And four years behind.
Three floors above me
Two months my elder
And one phone call away.

I fear
That when I am middle-aged
My lips will grow thin
And curl in
And you won't love me anymore.

Last night I went to a jazz concert
and I bought an eight dollar jar of cocktail nuts
during intermission
from which I only ate
the few wasabi peas I managed to pick out
in the dim of the theater.
I thought about you
and then my thoughts were interrupted
by trumpets and saxophones,
and I wished it could always be that easy.

The bottle doesn't
Love you back.

I have Psalm 20
memorized
because there is always someone sick.

When you show up at a party after exams
underdressed
and when you're tired
and your hair just looks a mess.

If you're driving me in autumn
and your nose is pink
or you've finished watching a game with the guys
and you're pouring the dregs of your beer down the sink.

When you tell me stories about your childhood
and I'm lucky enough to catch that glint in your eye
I might see a flash of your girlfriends past
and remind you you're a lucky guy.

On longs walks up the stairs with you
and you tell me we should take a rest
you seem a little harried then
but this is when I look my best

Don't open the door for people
when they arrive

Open it when you know
they're on their way.

How long would it take for me to grow?
My feet were half the size of yours
And yet they fit so perfectly together
But that was a long time ago,
And since those days I've grown for the better.
You and I, we were tight
And I lived only for your sweet insight;
I couldn't conquer darkness without being shown light
And mornings spent alone in the park
You offered constant but candid snark
And you helped me lose my fear of the dark.

Looking down
At my tired-old journal
And thinking to myself
*that's me on those pages

Skip the preamble
Introduce me
meditate
meditate
Revelation.

I felt eternal summer there
And ran my fingers through your hair;
And though I can't recall what for
I'd hang my camera on the door.

I locked my books with bits of string,
In a land where telephones do not ring,
And opened my windows up to hear
The babbling of students and tourists near.

I remember buying a pencil, light blue,
And drawing a picture, to give to you,
Which remains in my wallet, and when I see it I laugh
Because I drew it on the back of an old photograph.

I regret never dipping my toe in that stream,
And taking my tea without sugar or cream;
But I wish I did not uproot grass by the bunch,
And maybe then I wouldn't miss it so much.

Thank you
For making
Once in a lifetime
Happen every day

Freedom is merely the unseen
a bag of chips
and a tank of gasoline
locking myself in the dining room
and writing a letter to the queen
getting clean
from a psychotropic TV screen
putting on airs
and running against the wind
spinning 'til my face turns green
men who need roses and time machines
and peeling the rind off a tangerine

I want you
To like me for me
More than for the parts
You see

You sit in busy subway cars
and start tabs at the ****** bars
in search of girls with wider hips
to trace in the air with your fingertips

You look for love in silhouettes
but find it in your cigarettes
and when you think your love life's back on track
you're reaching for another pack

Your denim sofa is a shrine
for sequins and for cheap red wine
which stains the fabric every night
but won't clean off, try as you might

You stroll down backstreets and alleys on end
hoping you will find a friend
in a girl who sells herself to you
because you know she needs friendship too

We keep flames near
the petroleum ocean between us
yet I look at your Jimi Hendrix haircut
and your fu manchu
and wonder why things still are
the way they are

I am surrounded by people
Who think my boyfriend is
Gay
Just because
He treats me with
Respect.

Someone to use the sink next to mine
Who tells me every morning
That I sound funny when I gargle

I bought the ticket
I drank the wine
Yet how beautiful it was
To live
Beneath him.

Falling in love
With you
is like discussing
Color theory
With a chameleon

This
Is the end,
The chocolate
At the tip
Of a Drumstick.

Those nights
When you spend forty-five minutes
Washing your very short hair,
But the water from the shower head
Isn't the only thing
Trickling down your cheeks.

My son dropped me off at a retirement home today.
I was sitting in the lounge room,
reading a book,
when a man about my age,
wearing a flat cap,
walked by and sat in an easy chair.
He asked me, "I've never seen you around before. You new here?"
And I replied, "No, I'm actually quite old."

I once sat in the park with a dear friend of mine
As yellow bugs scurried over our legs and fingers.
We talked about most everything
Friends, our mutual distaste for chocolate, love.
For hours we sat against a mighty oak tree
And mulled over the mild philosophy of mid-adolescance.
Despite the fact that I had been fiddling with a daisy chain for the past hour and a half
And despite the fact that we were about to miss class
I felt rather grown up at that moment
And I wished never to wake from our sleepy discussion.

I grew up today.
I unpacked, practiced smiling in the mirror, and then proceeded downstairs to chitchat.
"How grown up!", thought I, the act of chitchatting to be.

I sat on the curb today
And I thought.
I asked myself some rather difficult questions
Only to look to the traffic lights for some sort of revelation.
Still I sat and contemplated
Turning thoughts and questions over in my head like blueberry pancakes.

I've always known summer to be sweet and simple
A void that lies between the stepped hells of the first world
Each hell is greater than the last
And each void is sweeter than the next

Laying down on the cool, wet grass,
Watching the colors of the sky fade to black,
And reaching out to grab the moon with my small hands.
Listening to the purple waves, crashing into shore,
And waiting for the stars to come out.
Reflected in our eyes are the shapes of disappearing clouds,
And our bare feet are painted with white sand and sprinkled mud.
I return to you each year to respire.

Summer wanes with the grace of a swan.
Weaving silver thread through a park canal,
And dipping off toward the horizon.
Making my hands perspire with excitement
And my eyes dewy with exhaustion.

It was like all the windows in the world were opened,
and the curtains made that lovely snap of a sound they make as they billow out-of-doors.
And everybody in New York was out on their fire escape watching Fourth of July fireworks tint the night sky.
And from the streets of New York rose a cacophony of city sound that was somehow pleasant,
devoting itself entirely to a sort of refined sincerity that was gentle to the touch and sweet tasting as it resonated.
It was so loud a deaf person would have heard it, but so quiet that only I could.

She was a childhood friend of mine,
even if quite briefly,
who was the type of girl who would trap mosquitoes in her books,
or put her retainer on a napkin beside her lunch tray.
And she'd give me a very condescending look
(one eyebrow raised, and the like)
if ever I mentioned my poetry.

The arms of feeling wrap around me:
numerous and dulcet,
as I sit on a bench
or lean against a tree,
thinking of serenity.

I was alone in a field I discovered
But while running my fingers through the grass
I came across a single uprooted blade;
Tawny, with a knot at its center
And then I knew I was no stranger.

This morning I woke up a little earlier than usual
and grabbed some leftover boiled peanuts out of the fridge,
which I ate cold.

They seemed to have lost a bit of their charm,
since I always ate them hot at a picnic table in the market,
and I was usually accompanied by a friend or two.

So I sat shelling the cold peanuts,
with a paperback in front of me on the table,
which I neglected to read because my fingers were rather wet.

After a significant amount of time, during which I shelled peanuts
and pondered the various happenings and constituencies of my small lifetime,
I began to read.

And as if days of time had lapsed,
the empty shells had turned a churlish gray color,
next I looked at them.

Upon wriggling my fingers through the mound of halved shells
in a sort of diaphanous trance as I read, I stumbled upon a shell that had yet to be cracked,
which awoke me from my reverie in bestseller prose.

I was quite puzzled about how I ever could have missed it earlier.
I proceeded to roll it around in the palm of my hand, noticing its incredibly light weight.
When I opened it, there was nothing inside.

I remember I was sixteen, and it was raining.
My father told me he was going to take me somewhere I'd never been before,
and I knew immediately where it was we were headed.

As we drove past used car dealerships all claiming to have the lowest rates,
and Dominican and Cuban restaurants painted in their vivid reds and whites and blues,
their reflections painted the roads in murky puddles of summer rain and gasoline.

Turning into the cemetery we were unsure of where to look for my grandfather's grave
as Jewish names cascaded by us;
and there it was.

It was thundering then, so we waited for the weather to calm a bit and then we hopped out of the car.
We walked over to my grandfather's tombstone, and placed our respective rocks atop it.
Then my dad and I stepped back, looking at my grandfather's grave.

And while smiling in the way that is appropriate in cemeteries,
when recalling a fond moment with a loved one,
the sun began to shine on our backs.