for Patrick,
                    if he can still hear me

Rise, every neighbor!
Hear the cacophony of dragon fire
BANG, BANG
and the pitter patter rain fall of disease
T T T T
pouring over your households this evening.

Catch that butterfly, there, boy!
And know that in your future you will be begging
to look as hideous as a moth
banging your skull against the roof of my trunk
as I drive away with your body.

You beg me
give me reason!
and I try, but it's so difficult
I don't want to live!
and what am I supposed to do to help
when you don't want the help I give?

And we plead to gaze at stars over the Causeway
going seventy in the sunroof as off in Norco
the refineries let go a blaze jealous of the sun.

The moon doesn't shine as brightly as I remember.
Maybe I was too young to understand light pollution
or maybe it's the gnawing away of the ozone
as my skin tightens and ages over my teeth.

Do you understand how permanent
death
is?

Let me show you, this:
the vision you are trying to make me live through;
I will not let you force me into folding
your hands over your chest
while the embalming fluid grows stiff
beneath your cold hands.

I *will not cry for you, if you bleed out your sorrows on a tile floor
or over a dark carpet
or crushed against the wall in your blue Mustang.

I will not cry for you,
but for the life you left behind,
the life you took, the life you stole
from me.

ME.

I have faced death with weakening knees;
I have knelt before the toilet whispering
please someone anyone
when it was too early in the morning for anyone to hear.

I have emptied the medicine cabinet of its promising contents
to find that nothing but
nothing
waited for me on the other side of ignorance.

Pain;
and it rains lightly on Tuesday evenings.

Somewhere behind the doorjamb is a flute
being played by a breeze
through the window you left open.

The note you will never write is tickled by the wind
and a thousand sunsets later--
I do not forget you.

****** soothes the aching,
I learned that trick from you.
Don’t bother with the counting,
that’s all theatrics, what matters is the blow.
You play something loud enough; you screamed
you can’t hear the imperfections.
Throwing my Plath books out the window
you murmured,
Talking about death means you aren’t ready.

Your silver has turned my fingers green,
for the last time. Until the next time.
You bruised my lips with a kiss
Now it will hurt every time you try to forget me.
Walking away, my hand caught in a doorjamb
you slammed it shut.
Broken fingers can’t hold on to anything,
you promised.

my lips
are a doorjamb
blocking all
but a wail

my words succinct
yet you cannot
hear them

how are you?i hope youre well.im damp and sore, but
living.
ive been walking through the rain all day.i know i'm foolish.
i know it rains all the time here and water just makes the blue bleed from my hair.
my shoes are soaked. my knees are muddy,
all my sentences keep breaking before
i can complete them.
sorry for not being pretty while i cry.
he led me through the woods while i slipped in the mud behind him.i dont want to be here.i want to go home
but i don't know how to leave, i need you to lead me back.
sorry.i know its not your job to
clean up after my mistakes,
i keep killing myself for unworthy causes.
tell me how much you need me.tell me you don't love me.
i am not grinning, i'm baring my teeth at my reflection.
he keeps speaking to me.im just trying to watch the rain,
would you do the same?
you're uncomfortable with silence, i know.
your shoulders, sloped, broad but weak.
my lips,  wet from rain, sticky from smoke.
hot-headed and cold-handed, i burned my tongue
on the inside of my own mouth.
when i held your hand, your fingers froze
and broke off one by one.
{frostbite never tasted so sweet.}
did you say that or did i think it?i thought we understood each other.
im biting my cheek and wondering why nothing feels right.
this is the fiftythird glass of water
i've drunk today.i can drink things other than guinness.i know
you dont like me when im drunk.
you dont like me when im high.you dont like me when ive been awake for 72 hours,
biting my knuckles and bleeding on my best shirt,
but thats ok.
ive been fracturing bones in dark rooms all my life.
i broke my shoulder on a closet door,
hiding from a celebration,
no crying so no one hears.
my mouth tastes so bitter, no wonder
you never wanted to kiss me.
don't slam the door so hard.i feel it in my skull like it hit me
and not the doorjamb.
don't ask me if im hungry.in my mind,
ive been vomiting for the past two weeks.
i am piercing my tongue with steel.
i could say it started two years ago
that i fired a shotgun in my mouth and
the wounds said they loved me enough to stay and
ive been spitting buckshot ever since.i could say
two years ago,
i kissed someone who didnt care and now,
just the taste of strawberries makes me want to tear out my tongue, but
you know already know
my mythomania is less a disorder and more
a habit i cultivated
to convince myself i was worthwhile.
i like to pretend something made me this way, something made me
see myself as a broken lock
and not a person.
it hurts to admit i've been like this from birth.
im deconstructing clocks in my head.
im extracting your loose fingernails like
garden spikes from soil.
ive had this dream before.
im descending distorted stairs in the dark,
im walking on sheet ice.
im sleeping until the sun sets and waking up in a cold sweat.i dreamt that i couldnt stop dreaming about you.i dreamt of
gently pressing needles through my tongue
while you read my diary.
i am a house half-constructed.a candle half-lit, and you are a forest half-grown
or half-burned,
sometimes it's hard to tell.
i am waking with knots in my hair for the first time in years.im combing them out.
im drying my hair and thinking of you.
im throwing out my umbrella.

~


pasture grass warm and sticky complete
with distant goats chewing and
kicking up in play
from the creek side a flash of black
just enough residual periphery to startle the herd
square pupils dart and scan
while floppy jowls with stringy drool watches from the pampas

first sprinting left then
darting back to the right and circling around
the 2 year old Lab pup pretends to Collie
attempting to direct the herd
without any human direction

from the faded red door a farmer appears
straw between lips
hands deep in overall pockets
quietly surveying all that is his when at once
a disturbance is noticed
goats darting around in frantic worry
being chased by one hundred pounds of Labrador fury
reaching just inside of the doorjamb
the old farmer pulled forth a 243 Remington
took steady aim
and shot the menace attacking the bleaters


when we got back from the Country Fair the Thomas house had a funny air
and only Jimmy came to greet us
Roy was nowhere to be found
after a few hours of searching the forest and questioning
neighbors we were handed a red dog collar from the Dairy farmer
2 miles up the drive
they shot my dog for playing with goats on a Holstein farm
and so we gave up milk and though about revenge     /

Perfect, white, and uniform
the snow that fell
the morning it fell on.
That isn’t accurate. It fell overnight.
It just belonged to the morning.

Blades of grass and shrubs reached up
and hauled it snug over their flanks -
covering themselves, not being covered.
Made the most of a single inch: a bare quilt
so when you woke in the morning
the even sky, with no sun, equal gray
shrugged blamelessly -
it wasn’t me! -
and the frost settling
on shorn lawns and dying ones
was nobody’s fault,
was even imaginary,
would be gone soon.

I drove through it listening
to the sound of wheels slipping,
the exhaust freezing out of the air
to fall again in glassy flakes behind.
Everything crunched like a tumbleweed
and white is not a Texas colour
but I remember snow is water - it soon reverts,
and sluices down curbs, ***** gray.

From this and other colours I made your youth,
put wallpaper never seen into your house,
like faces in a dream, and listened.

I was a smudge of teal lipstick on the mirror.
I was the steam behind the shower curtain,
the draft in the attic. I had no colour
and you looked right through me.
I remember by description only, but still I remember.
It all runs together, these strong colours,
like a fainting plaid, out of size.

I know the hot furrow in the clavicles of women,
but not of men. I dive into the known hollow, breathe the leavings
of the unknown. If you hold me firmly, perhaps,
I will know what it is like to be held firmly.

Curry simmers on the stove.
Lemongrass creeps along the floor, snakes beneath the doorjamb.
Behind it is frost, knocking, dragging its heels: heavy with winter.

When understanding the fact
there may no longer
be future days
it's the little things
which burn with the ugliest truth.

Like not knowing what cabinet
the olive oil
and peppercorns are in
or how much laundry detergent is left.

Gasping yourself awake
at the sound of barking dogs
still haunting edges of every doorjamb.

he the wayland
on the morrow
fry the fish head
fetching sorrow
spilling coffee
water closet
magic muffin
easy does it
mark the doorjamb
twenty minutes
spellbound silence
random spinnets
fifty-second
gully washer
**** the ******
mustard slosher
rabbit puddle
prancing pony
slap me sideways
steve maloney

“All my time I’ve walked a filed line
I've held a vacant sign upon my eyelids
All my time, oh Lord, I’ve been so blind
But now I see the light peek through my doorjamb”

“But there’s no hallelujah
It will be gone soon
Yeah it will be gone soon
It’s just an empty room
This is our darkest day
We’ll never see the day
But slowly make our way up to the mouth”