I harbor a gentle whiskered beast
made of quiet sighs, all knees and elbows
jabbing my ribs while I sleep,
a weight shifting among the sheets
in the long shadows of earliness.

Suddenly, unprovoked, he is startled
as if threatened by an electric presence.
He listens intently to the silence and bristles
as though a ghost in the corner has spoken
in a tongue meant for beings higher than myself.

When the spirits have gone he sighs again,
his paws turn circles and he lays himself down
curled neatly behind my knees,
quietly pondering primal truths
that I was never meant to understand.

Outside he chases skittering leaves
and imagines he is wild
in the great wooded taiga,
flushing fowl from the brush,
scattering them like gasps of color,
with fluttering hearts beating warm in their *******
among pines capped white with snow.

Keeping Time

Since you left the faucet’s started dripping.
I asked it to stop; It would not.

The lithe silver neck wilts as it cries,
Watching me make the coffee
Nodding out tears that go plunk all morning,
Like it understands why two cups is too many
And the extra stagnates all day in the carafe
Staining the glass the sick color of burnt chocolate.

I catch myself swaying along with the ticking
In idle evenings spent staring at a blank TV screen.
It wastes water, keeps time, my immutable metronome
while I burn down slowly like someone left in a hurry
and forgot to shut off the oven.

In fitful dreams the dripping is a knock at the door
gone unanswered, for I am distracted in the kitchen
trembling with fury, strangling to death
that mercurial throat that drummed a lonely racket
in the stainless steel basin, counting out mocking measures
of this new silence.

Through the branches of the trees
comes blackness.
There is nothing on the other side.
Relax and it waters down.
Focus and it glints like a blade.

Drifting formless from room to room
I am the ghost in my house.
The leaves have somehow found their way inside,
they will soon let in the cold behind them.

Relax, focus.
Blackness holds its form.

Wading knee-deep through the past
feeling the muddy bottom with my toes,
the hills and holes and oh god what was that?

The water may be shallow,
but it is deep enough to drown myself in
and murky enough to hide what lies at the bottom.

I could rest, languid
listening to the babbling of the past
pouring over itself
playing you and I
on repeat
indefinitely.

Corralled at the ceiling,
a garden of flowers
tied with delicate, colorful stems.
Helium petals bob softly above and
I pluck a blue stem of my own.

At home, out of sight
my small clumsy fingers
knot the blue string proudly around my neck,
like a trophy. I giggle with delight -
the orb floats just above me,
a faithful bird, a pet.

Then, down the hall come the quickness and shuffles
of house-shoed feet feeling possible threats.
Mother’s face blossoms red, breaks open
exposing her white bear teeth.
Her green eyes **** and twitch.

A black ballpoint pen meets my flower, and slowly
it wilts, crinkles, shrinks
beneath her feminine fists.
The severed blue stem bleeds nothing but silence
and momma's eyes bleed tears
of what?

I have been
literally
thousands of miles.
I have made the west coast
from San Francisco to San Diego
my *****
for a month and a half.

I have hitch hiked with a gentleman
who shot a cop in the face
at 15.

and every time I looked
at that ******* water,
that tainted, sickening blue-green
the most gorgeous part of the planet
the only thing that makes California
******* California
every time
I saw your eyes.

I have seen blood drying in the sun
somewhere on the streets of Oakland, California.
I have slept underneath the stars in Berkeley
Right alongside Origami Tony.
(He shared his blankets, but was not kind about it.)
I saw from above and beyond,
to either side and in all directions
with three eyes open, wide
I have watched the fabric of the universe dance across the clouds.
They bent, folding in sharp creases,
squares and triangles,
Origami Tony, were you playing God all along?
25 cents to see your future, 50 cents to watch a star unfold.
He slept in the woods,
where he buried his things.
Safer, there, than on the streets.