I remeber long nights
With your plaid button downs
Always with the first button undone
And your white T-Shirt underneath always brightend the hazel in your eyes

Memories of Germany danced on your lips
How I wanted to taste them...
The longing still holds on the end of my tongue

Car rides were always needed
But I never minded sharing them with you
Conversations of endless nothings and you didn't know I was falling hoplessly in love with you.

You may not have had the blue eyes I dreamed of as a little girl
But they looked to me like how I looked at shooting stars
The dead of night always ran through your hair as my mind ran circles around itself chasing those cosmic wonders

And there may not be a sequence to this poem
But thats how you made me feel
Out of order
Maybe a little out of place
But when I looked to you, you knew of all the wishes I spent on those shooting stars

the corner shop near the railway station
opens now unlike when we came here first
when everything would shut on Sunday

the flea market in Mauerpark
is over-ridden with people selling kitsch
but we always go and we love it

everyone is so cool here that I think being cool
isn't hip anymore,
the street is a sea of hipsters in black

it's early Spring and there is still
no ferries on the Spree
but if you walk down the right street

you'll catch a couple of musicians
maybe a juggling act  
that blend in with graffiti and art

in the evening we'll go to the TV Tower
like tourists
pretend we can afford dinner in the revolving restaurant

two hundred and three metres high
and look over the cars on the road to Berlin-Mitte
that look like graceful glowing bugs below

we'll get have a cocktail with dinner in Caramba
in the square (just one)
and listen to light German jazz

with no need to worry
if the transport still runs at night

You can find me skipping through the streets of Paris. I'll be the girl with the long brown hair in a black summer dress. I'll have sunglasses on and as I make my way around this foreign town I'll wonder why I ever need to go home.

You can find me arm wrestling in Germany. I'll be the girl in the shorts and the lips t shirt surrounded by angry, sweaty German men who just want to take a chance on beating me. And as I laugh my way through the match I'll wonder why I ever need to go home.

You can find me in Italy drinking wine and dancing under the moon along the cobblestone alleyways.  I'll be hand in hand with some beautiful Italian man as we kiss just because we are young and free. And as I kiss my way across the canals I'll wonder why I ever need to come home.

And if by chance I make it home to America, where the lights aren't nearly as bright and the memories aren't nearly as fun. You'll find me in a boring office working as I dream of my foreign adventures again.

Of that cold spring day when our hands froze
Clutching cones of your favorite strawberry ice cream

Of the following warm summer day when my favorite
Chocolate ice cream coated our tongues

Of that day we escaped our classes
And found ourselves held captive
By the soft cherry ice
With nuts on top

Of bubblegum sonnets, of almond praline declarations of love
Of fig and honey serenades
With soft coffee angels singing in the back
And cookie cream cherubs whispering in our ears.

Of the best first taste.

Of the worst last lick.

You died for what you thought was right
in a non violent way
you died without a fight
on the day
you tried to right
the political way
you had to write
a paper to say
the message right
but you were caught
and were executed on one February night
and you never saw the day
when they were wrong and you were right

so I passed by this gentleman today at the park & through his broken English came to find out he is from Germany, East Berlin to be exact...his name is Hans. I asked him how he came to Michigan & he began telling me his story, you could see him travel back in time right before your very eyes. He and his wife, Hannah, kept watch over the guards near a section of the wall that was near some summer cottages. At night the 'women' from town would 'entertain' the officers in the foliage, so they put whatever they could fit in their baby stroller, draped as much clothing on themselves as they could manage, & by the grace of God one night the baby did not cry & they were able to run to freedom to West Berlin. He went on to describe how he came first to Canada & then upon hearing of the higher wages in Detroit, came to live in Sterling Heights. It's funny when I asked him & a lady from Poland the day before where they were from, they both said "well from here" despite their obvious accents...home is indeed Michigan for them both now...& for Hans, he's never returned to East Berlin.


*when you see an older person, take the time...I assure you, you will never leave disappointed.

Ma is sitting on the porch
just before the laid out crumble
of stone outlined by brick and mortar
iron bands, gold shell casings
and silence
except for the sky
did you know colors can speak
burnt orange clouds
like fluffed up dried blood
its been raining for years
on shirts, on limbs
on the inside of women’s thighs
bitten by the cold
unforgiving—
that’s how we got here
the place where we are shown
what we have shown
what does Pa think of all this?
he’s looking right up at that sky
scarred and singed
defiant in his brokenness
feelings awash amid the rubble
now comes the season of atonement.