the radio is thrumming in the distance and you are measuring something
its scientific
so you don't bother to explain it to me
because we both know that i won't understand it
and i'm okay with that
because i am more than happy staring in wonder at you
perhaps it sounds cheesy
that's okay, because it's sincere
and you know this

the radio is listing random numbers
as always when it's not tuned to my voice
and the sun hasn't set
but that means very little, because the sun has not been setting at the right time anyways
not that it matters, since electric lights were invented some time ago

you're leaning against me
and smiling
and i am carding my fingers through your hair
and its lovely, it is
because this moment has not yet ended
and while it is nice to have memories to look back on
its never quite the same

it must be heaven, i think
because i am not used to acceptance
not even in such a strange town as this
i am not used to acceptance and while i am okay with this
its nice
to have someone know your darkest secrets
and stay by your side
it make you feel worthwhile

before i told carlos - beautiful carlos, and he's mine -
i was worrying
my mother
before she died
told me many things
most of them to do with my death

but also
some things that are a little more meaningful
and sitting here with my carlos
i am reminded of what opposites they are
carlos
has always accepted by glowing tattoos that sometimes
when i'm not careful
morph into tentacles that snake their way around his arms, holding him close
he may have been a little annoyed when he couldn't sleep
but it wasn't my fault
he said that
very emphatically
and it was very kind
it's never my fault
he said
when someone bad does something bad to you
and that
has made all the difference

Jesse Jackson, mug full of mush
hustling, shuffling race cards—
hush.

your mouth mutters on,
with vague perversity
staking claims upon diversity;

Stirring pots and agitating
mumbling, blaming, *******-baiting.

We know this is your bread and butter—
but must you thusly slur and mutter?

Rather than home-cooking sessions,
take some elocution lessons.

Spit those crackers out yo' mouth—
the gravy train is headed South . . .

Get a REAL job. Join the People.
Stop carding wool and fleecing sheeple.

You're hard for the herd to understand—
if I were you I'd change my brand.

lovers, we are young and
our hearts and our heads can take us
halfway 'round the world
but we can make a wanderlust home
in the space between our heartbeats
when we're curled around each other
the bed too small for all the love we have
knocking at our door is as simple
as carding your fingers through another's hair
we know you're never more beautiful than
with sleep and sunlight in your eyes
and lopsided curls falling at your cheekbones

and on the days that caffeine replaces blood in your veins
and tiredness pulls at your eyelids and your head
dragging them down, love, we'll tuck you in and
keep the coffee coming

and winter sunlight may be watery but it's
never brighter than squinting against the snow
and finding that your smile
is still the most blinding thing we see

and spring will return us to our roots
reaching against the tide of the world
to keep our love alive

oh loves, I'll love you even more
every turn around the sun we make
every spin that sets the sun to rising
always falling through the endless space
and still I know the most important

space

is the space where your breath
mixes with mine
the spaces between your teeth, the
spaces we made for us, the
spaces we'd die to keep

the space we made in a blanket fort
before anything else

white is hardly a colour of
surrender with you flapping
such excess of words;
next battle nearby? call me when
you encounter Hastings on
the transverse trampoline.
i find that critics have stiff
vocabularies, polished ones
ready prim and ready corset,
ready chalk for skeleton
in shadow ****** complexions,
the uncreative always speak of creativity;
it's chequers or chess, poker or bridge,
****-head gaming above all the turds,
carding to a duplex of the shuffle:
n'es pas?

Breath of dragons fill the vale
curling round the trees
carding on the mountain firs and pines
the wool of lambs still strung on barbed wire fence
their eerie horns of rusty iron
among the bramble thorns
no smell save that of pungent leaves
or rotting timber piled
where wrens and robins nest

this damp parade so often comes at dawn
the cows sit silent even yawn
their patches matching those
of moss turned brown on stones
while up above the dragon hides in pale blue skies
his mocking laugh spills daffodils of sun
he's having fun at our expense

while damp our eyelids weigh
our heads bowed down
we critters in the towns
the fog horns blow their melancholy drone
lost is the world we've always known
changed by mysterious theatrical mists
into a mosquito bliss
preparing battle swords to tap our blood
when sunshine sallies forth and lights the flood

Margaret Ann Waddicor 4th May 2012.

jealousy infects my mind
confusion clouds my senses
i do not know why i suddenly long
for your butterfly-light kisses
for the taste of your cherry-flavored lipbalm
why suddenly our song is playing on the radio
i yearn for your reassuring whispers
thin fingers carding through strands of my hair
i watch with rage-filled possessiveness
as you smile that special smile
and kiss your newest lover
my replacement.

my word is my gospel
a body made up of snatches
of conversations
kind words from chapped lips
various pen inks
staining the skin of my hands
and blunted fingertips

believing so fiercely in a love
that i can only hope believes
in me too

and i think a lot about empty spaces
so many voids to fill
like how your hand would fit
in mine
and we could laugh about my sweaty palms

like how a girl
i loved held my hand that first time
and said she wasn’t afraid
she wouldn’t be ashamed
walking by people in a crowded mall
and flipping through baby name books
like we deserved a future together

i think about your cold feet
wondering if there are holes
in socks that you keep forgetting
to sew and wishing there
were a way to close
those gaps of darkness
nestled between your ribs

we could plant flowers there
ya know
plants i promise not to ****
painting a black thumb green
if only to see you smile

and i think about kissing you
i think about it a lot
but i don’t have that kind of courage
still trying to believe in love
like i did as a child

writing that darkness into
something tender and soft
smoothing out those jagged edges
like carding fingers through your
messy hair

filling those gaps with
sunshine and smiles
and your name on my lips
a new favorite taste

giving myself a happy ending
and that’s okay

i am looking for god
in places i saw him
fleeting and peripheral

hidden in the gaps of his teeth
when he smiles
and how her fingers slotted perfectly
in between my own

the knife in my shaking hand
has a white flag tied around the handle
indents of jagged teeth in my bottom lip
not knowing if the blood on my tongue
belongs to me

and that first time we held hands
my heart sprouted wings
tried to escape the cage
of my chest
searching for the light
that you exuded

i am looking for god
and he sat next to me
leaning up against a bedroom wall
long forgotten by now
with her head in my lap
fingers carding through long hair
i counted her freckles
and god said they were like
constellations trapped under the skin
and i think he may be right

i have briefly found god
not in houses of worship
but on the lips of others
kisses in bedrooms
school hallways
standing in the middle of
empty and darkened streets

the feeling they brought out in me
it felt so close to holy
i could have wept

and my grasp on the knife
is becoming less severe
ready to bury it in the ground
watch a forest grow out of it
that fear of a god that
felt more like another absentee father
than someone i could pray to

but i found him
when i looked into your eyes
and was met with an openness
i would have gladly drowned in

i found him
in your laugh
your warm embrace
your calloused hands
your lips against mine

i found god in
you you you