if I had to choose my last breath
i’d choose it with you
and only fantasies create
a sort of granule gargantuan glee
if i had to choose between
letting go of fear
and touching you
i’d choose you every time
if i had to rebuttal the claims
of my own body insecurities
i’d let go of them
for you
if i had to challenge myself
beyond a thousand measures
go past fear itself
i’d do it for you
and maybe it will take forever
but i’m willing to make the case
of loving you so gently
i’m at ease with the whole world around me
and i just keep thinking of
oranges hanging loosely in a plastic net
just dangling about to
plop down on the shiny wood
floor clean of dirt or
rest them lightly on the white
porcelain kitchen counter
without a care in the world
because that’s how you make me feel
unbound and synchronized like
the clunk of a VHS tape
fitting nicely into place
re-wound and ready
for the movie to start

and if i had a wide choice of manly lovers
i’d choose you every time

you’re not what i expected
for a woman in her prime

there are cracks in head
the same way there are cracks
in the ceiling of your mother’s kitchen

i tell myself they all formed
from all of my thinking
and all of my feeling

your mother’s ceiling
kept crying all of those nights
she wouldn’t stop yelling

one day we won’t even notice them.

The butter started to glisten with fear
In the face of the icy saucer
In the silence the sound of the basket reciting angrily-
There was no place for an affair with
The strawberry jam.
So sickly sweet
The pleading knife resisted;
Don't make me do it

A smooth slice,
A pale & hard interior.
The shaking jug cried.
And the jam fell to the floor.

The sun creeps through two small windows where the wall and
ceiling meet, small panels of light begin their saunter towards us
on the couch.
You’ve rolled over towards me in your sleep, and our legs are tangled.
Hot breath on my neck and chest, but it feels good. I’m cold.
I hear bustling and business upstairs, the sound of pots and pans pinging
and crashing together.
You contract briefly, and then extend your arms and legs like morning glories in spring,
a sort of early morning développé:
Oh my gosh, you say, I am so thirsty, rubbing your thumbs on your temples,
cradling your forehead in your fingers.
Rising from the auburn leather sofa, we approach the stairs
and have a hearty, stale laugh together before venturing upstairs.
At the top, your mother’s red kitchen is alive:
Peppers and onions sauté in a pan on the stove. She stirs eggs in an orange ceramic bowl.
Your father reads the newspaper, squinting even through his glasses. Your younger sister paces the hardwood clutching one single, black combat style boot, muttering about
her siblings taking her clothes.
Your parents say nothing to me of spending the night- your father says only Good morning, and
your mother, How are you? Can I get you anything? Offer your guest something to drink.
A wry smile shades in your lips.

Afraid to sleep,
we keep on working.
Afraid to sleep,
We meet the dawn
from either end.

When light comes,
its continuity calms us
and ancestors watch over us,
as we sleep in fits and starts.

Outside the kitchen door,
Señor Romero's own grapevine
says: "Buenos dias!", says
"Gracias a la vida!"

I started tearing a tissue.
An old tissue in which the cotton is easy tearing apart.
I tore it into stripes,
Twitch it in the small pieces of cloth.
It was a summer afternoon,
I sat slumped on the kitchen floor.
In the distance you could hear the radio.
Last night I cried.
And this morning.
In a dream.
Under my withered eyelids
You appeared
Bringing the blossomed memories.
In immoral attempts
You want me sunken.
Red dust of tissue
And that tingling all over me
In this icy solitude
They take you by your waist
And it's like you're here with me,
With your head laid on the ****** tiles.
Suffering floats through the air
Darkened with the walls of smoke.
I'm touching your death,
Calmed for a long time,
I'm saving your pain
In the interior of your ribs.
I can not tell whether this is really you,
Grubby and rotten.
Crushed.
With my lips I'm touching the red clusters of your brain
Which is slowly turning into roses
Or maybe cyclamen.
You are still present here,
Your beauty has not changed
Although your eyes are empty and cheeks sunken.
I wipe your face remains with a tissue
And I cry.
I killed you,
And put your soul in a jar
Painted in the colors of my heart.
And now we are here
Together reclining in clotted blood
Covered with cotton threads
Of a tissue.

The *** of rot
I've been simmering
Was embroiled to the boil
You tried to remove the heat
And appallingly scalded
Your chest and face
As my
Water supplies are
Surprisingly small
I have little to go on
but potluck
and recall

You kissed me in my kitchen and I laughed.
I looked into your eyes with that devilish grin you loved and ran away. I forgot to call for a week or two. You were so nervous then.
Eight months later and I'm shaking you over and over again to simply wake up each morning. And you fight it like you're thirteen years old on a Sunday morning begging your mom not to make you go to church just this one time.

And my love for you is non refundable and I can't put my finger on why. The math doesn't always seem to add up as I silently weep in bed for the thousandth time, but you're too high to notice. I've never liked crying in front of other people anyways.