God, but your patient.
I can’t stand how much you love me, in the grocery store.
You give me so much time,
you know how its hard for me.
But sweetheart, get angry!
Penne or Rigatoni is not a valid stressor
and you don’t need second opinions for cauliflower.
How calm you are while I fuss over fresh herbs
or dried ones--I chalk it up to your lack of experience:
I have, after all, known myself longer,
and I make a mental note to loan you
‘House of Mirth, which you need to read
so you can resent me properly--or at least with authority.
I just want you to hate me like I do
so when it turns out I’m a better cook than a person
you won’t be disappointed. But what if you only
love me more afterwards? Oh, my God, What can I do?
There are 41 types of pasta sauce here
but I only need one.

"Not like that!
Like this."

She turned over her shoulder to face me, snatched her hair, soft and strawberry blonde out of my hands and giggled as she tried to show me the French braid.

She saw my blank expression and buried her face in my neck and giggled some more.
"This isn't going to work."

She gave up on the braid and kissed me anyways,
She tasted like sweet tea,
mixed with somethin' southern and strong.

She said "thanks love".

Her porch was lit up like it was the hearth of her home
and we had stopped slapping at the mosquitoes hours ago.

with my head in her lap, I was getting the grass burs out of her skirt when my fingers crept up her thigh and picked at something polyester, it smelt like lavender.

She put her hand on top of mine and kissed me again. I watched the dimples form on her cheeks as she whispered "daddy'll be up soon."

Laying by the river, when everything is silver, and silent, just for a moment before
the sun rises, we held our breathes

and then the love birds wept
and rattled their cages.

My memory fades as she got up to go but she said something like

you're still dizzy from that southern sting
or
you're still dizzy from that southern swing

and that she was hungry
and that we were hollow.

and I just laughed anyways; I could never get her father's truck to start but my heart was always in the right place, she knew it.

*She had a way with words,
she had a way with wasted...

she had heaven on her ankles with her jeans rolled up, and I just wanted to linger there.
My first prayer, my first gray hair.

you read those books where they build girl angels in laboratories
who fall in love with lonely boys.

you like hearing your poems
read back to you in english accents
and you like your accents
licking on your poems
because, if I recall,  you’re heart-broken
--no I haven’t forgotten,
yes I remember, you were the
curvaceous queen of unskinned knees;
I was ****** in jeans.
you got partway through Swann’s Way,
but gave up last November,
when I was hitting walls hard.
the last words  you read were the last
on your mind, “Happiness is beneficial for the body--”
and you stopped, that was fine enough
for a tattoo. (happy needle,
breast imbrue)
Well grief taught me, grief bought me,
and I was hitting walls hard.
But straight back  for you,  to boys kissing boys
and  you’re too old for toys  and
you think it’s pathetic
how girls go to get it
with silicon and plastic
oh go on, tell me how
you’re a heart-breaker, ha,
because you showed them
your *******, like an angel.

you like to remind me how skinny you are now,
and you still love to dance.

There is no equivalent factory making boy angels.

Sunday was sad.

I used to have a dog,
his name was Jimmy.
More happiness than
you could ever give me.

Poetry so eloquent,
I read like you,
I bleed like you.
Prose I find so arrogant.

Baby, draw me
an album cover.
One that's in tune with
all my thoughts of you.

I used to have a bike,
it had five gears.
One for every path
but fear.

Baby, I don't have
a dime, but I make
a **** good cup
of coffee and the
cigarettes I roll
for you will be perfect
every time, I promise.

My message seems too abrasive to send
Like handwritten ransom notes
With a geriatric hand,
Gnarled and pimpled with
                Weariness
                And experience.
Our war stories
Are cards thrown down at a poker table
So initially casual
Then troubling after the fact.

People spout perspectives;
Our inputs are faucets overflowing
With the chemicals that change the mix.
Each of us contribute to the compound of strife.
What I need – what I want
Is my own element,
                Thoughts pure of your life,
For you do not fully comprehend my experience.
My wuss-**** whines that resonate
As sure as a saxophone’s wail.

My jazz demeanor, burlesque figure
Only mask the pedigree of emotions

Beneath my wiggling hips, fluttering eyelashes.
Remember: this is a woman.
From smudges to sunlight to wind to aligned stars –
                The cracked liar’s smile never eludes me
                Just as the bite still scars my neck.

Marked, experienced, wrung out, aloof –
                Live for sin, looping exponentially.


The seagulls scavenging in
The grocery store parking lot,
We know them and hate them for it.
****, drink, yell, tip your way, son.
I’ll tap my cigarette, clamber into bed
[my motives are my motivation]
Deepstep, baby, deepstep:
                Come willing because I won’t.

I am the renegade impulsively flipping cards,
Smirking across the poker table
And yelling, “Checkmate”
For no good reason.
Scattered to the winds,
My nonsense is the very ground you have to tiptoe upon,
My sense is the word on the tip of your tongue that absconded.

I am not your maker for he’s my friend.
I am not your mother for she’s my servant.
I am not your lover for you’re my witness.

This [whatever it is] is a syllable caught skipping on the record,
                                                         ­                                  And we’ll never know the rest of the word

This morning I stretched out, glamorous and lazy, planning to be purposefully late. Dismissive and smiling. What real life?

I took my time, browsing through my thoughts and movements carefully and deliberately. Washed my hair in the sink for the fun and dirt of it. I still didn’t feel quite tired enough. I spoke with clarity and wit, despite the crusts caked over the leftover sparkles in my eyes.

I licked the laughter off
of your lip
and bit your bloodied ear
while you told me you still hear them whisper sometimes.

So I sli--d my hand to your waist

We knew about the city scream outside,
the smog that creeps around every almost dream
and breathes gently into our lungs.

We could tell you matter-of-fact about the
week long drag and the people all bedraggled
making their last way back home.

We were somehow worrying that the sauntering
(So sleek! So stealthy!)
reality would ****** us away--since it does
and it does--

But instead you flicked your speech
quickly along my spine as I
Ahhh---ummm
Kissed your hip--
So divine!

Occam's Razor blades burn through the air
around us.
Because You blush when you laugh.
Because I pay attention when I joke.
Obvious.
So ******* obvious.
Because I swell to see you,
and you meet me among the clouds.

Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora

Obvious.

I can't tell you. I've told you a million times.
But it's too hard to say it right.
The words are difficult.
I love you like a religion.
I worship you with the devotion of the faithful.
I know, the atheist claims faith.

I love you like the spot behind the
living room recliner that a dog hides
behind during a thunderstorm.
I love you like a thunderstorm.
I love you with the depth of an
Irish song about heartbreak.

I don't know how to do anything else.
Because you blush when you laugh.
Because I notice.
Because I...

Obvious.
So ******* obvious.