My friend died last night,
his mother said,  
so you should probably stop smoking.
But he was more concerned with giving
away his dog and shooting himself in the face.
 
Blowing raspberries didn’t stop
the advancing train that left bruises
on either of her shoulders,
or left her compacted
and hung-over the next morning.
 
And she was screaming like a banshee
trapped inside a locket,
when he finally bent her over
and said You are beautiful,
do not let anyone ever tell you any different.
 
She might have lost the polish
from driving a stick shift for an hour
or chewing them, worried about
deer leaping into windshields,
but that is why lesbians don’t paint their nails.
 
So when he finally slammed her foot
into the side of his dresser,
all she could do was lay there
and bite, losing more of her sheen
into the divots she dug in the skin on his back.

He is rougher then being dumped
from the saddle of a bay mare,
but perhaps she shouldn’t be riding
******* past vineyards of red rusted vines.
 
And if she is on fire then she should probably roll
or climb into a hot tub on ***** Thursday
and put out the flame ignited by the thought
of hoping to God his parents can’t hear her.
 
She had always wanted to know what it felt like
to slaughter someone. So when he placed his palms
on the arch of her back and massacred her lips,
I imagined her smashing his skull against a brick wall.
 
And when she is in the bathroom washing him off
her hands, with a published poet in the next stall
she shouldn’t yell *******, I’m not a flower
and start listing off the ten rules to **** ***.
 
Because no matter how many times she uses him
as her own personal merry go round or slams
back beer after beer, he will never die in a coffin
so that she can say he is already dead and
buried.

Your hair is thick and dark

evergreen branches that glide

against lilac petals 
made of powdered sugar.

I wish your hands were not so rough,

when you mold my body out of clay

you leave divots, not as deep

as tire tracks in snow
but tiny deer prints

left behind in secret

the kind where the mystery

makes you follow them into the thicket.

Strum that song again, 
the one you played, laughing

at the silliness of knowing

every chord, even though we both

silently love it. Don't talk to me

about intimacy problems

because you know I would have

loved you, more

then children with fried dough

the kind that comes from county
fairs
and you can't look at me

like that, with painful eyes

'cause we're both guilty.

What happens to women without
 men?
Running fingers over bare
hills, hoping to once again

be covered with fur trees

thick and dark. So catch me

with those that match

your pea coat that smells

sweetly of cigarettes

and stories only known

by haylofts and cotton pillows.

The way the dragonfly

across your chest stares at me,

through a lawn of pinwheel hairs;

and the way your beard

tickles me in such a way

that I believe at any minute

you are going to accumulate 
flannel and chop me a tree

subtly confuses how I feel

now that we have played

a skilled game of ring toss.

I am used to our conversations

while you drag quill and ink

across my skin and leave scars

in all the right places.

But the way you look at me

a masterpiece to be devoured,

and poisonous makes me

ask if you can scratch my back 
for hours,
but ******* get raw

being rubbed like sweatshirts

against bare skin all day.

I don’t know how I feel about

palindromes now, 
but I know how you feel

when you make it snow inside

and hand-rolled cigarette

smoke fills the room

chasing ferrets through sheets

leaving bruises in the shape of dental x-rays.

How does it feel,

Once all of your tattoos have met?

You can only see half your face
when you press it against a glass reflection,
wondering where the other half goes.
Like evergreen ferns
wrongly named, in the end
they too will parch and crack
like the smiles and various shoes
that surround me as I lay
on the cold, stone tiles thinking
of all the names I have never known.
You can dial my phone, with guitar calluses
but the ring will just be an empty echo
of all the unanswered calls that left us
half-knitted sweaters and woolen scarves.
The ones that only kept us warm long enough
to blaze that last cigarette, lighting
our way into the darkness. You can fade
my coat and bleach my mane
but I will never be a palomino
in a dark jacket. So marry me and I swear,
I’ll scream until every vinyl skips
to repeat and that same song plays
copying notes in your head.
Watch my needles fall you’ll need them 
for the bonfires in the summer
when you burn me away and roast
the other skewered pigs on display, fruits
of well thought deception and the thrill
of the chase. Put me out
with jazz music and your hollowed
tree-trunk-promises so that only
the smoldering is left. Shot’s fired.
Here’s your twenty-one gun salute.

The clichéd shower the next morning
left skin bloodied jerky
hot with brush burns and soap stains.
This doesn’t happen to concrete walls,
but even the Berlin fell.
But months later when another
whispers “darling” to me
my squinted flushed cheeks
flinched.
******, *****, prostitutes
know many. But none
are names like this.
Cause when I let him run
his mesh palms
over my face. I choked
on the dust
of all the memories
I ground and blew away,
dandelion seeds.
It burned as acid
fingers mounted my throat
and a thumb of needles
sewed my mouth
shut with embroidered thread
made of beer condensation.
The inebriated venetian blinds
reared and “shush please don’t”
swam the air, as the pacific poured
from my eyes. I said to her
“You let him strap me to his back,
a saddle pack filled with jars
of intoxication”
She said “Its not like he ***** you.”

You smell like laundry detergent, mongrel, and marijuana
wrapped in strawberry cigar papers. The way
the couch smells warm of people
prior to the heat and sweat we produced
on its rough synthetic fibers
that left me brush burns. Of French fries
and cheesy steak hoagies caked
to your apron as big golden
grease stains. You smell
of a soft shower, the nothingness
smell of water, that is still a smell.
Of loofah drenched with cobalt body wash
that your mother bought, not quite
feminine enough, but nothing you picked out yourself.
Of turquoise Listerine, the first and last time I had to wash
you out. Pineapples and watermelons, latex
and the salty smell that could be sweat
or *****. When the air is mixed with gasoline
and ***** ground winter snow,
filled with rock salt. That’s what you smell like,
in case you were wondering, her jacket
smells of you.