Moving my glass in a circle, listening to the ice and cup collision.
As I go on and on and on, the ice melts, as does my vision.
But I'm alone, my most frequently taken decision.
Followed by correcting my morning away in revisions.

I'm caught in my hammock, tangled like a fish in the netting.
Watching my hand pick up that bottle in this repetitive setting.
And wonder of your pulse, and if it's been forgetting
Those moments, that at this point, seem to be getting
To be all that I am.

Forgetting Sundays.
Or the stars with salt and butter, to feel better.

By forgetting the corner shelf, each handwritten letter,
Forgetting long drives, how making a bed with two people is best.
Being car sick. A beer to pitch up the tent.
Gazing up at the redwoods.
A single tear rolls, a fire burns as tall as we stood.
Tied together on that forest floor.
Tighter than the knots before.

It means,
Forgetting the inner dialogue of those people walking down the block.
It's never getting the hang of how that door unlocked.
Forgetting a **** good teammate for cracking word games.
Forgetting that medicine bag that was actually lame.
Or that plate under the bathroom sink with old dried up paint.

Visiting a farm, the salsa, debating on the shirts.
Deciding who really wanted to sneak into the abandoned house first.
Someone sitting at a bar, typing the night away.
Live music, completely failing at spoken word that one day.
Waking up as two kittens. For hours to play.

It means,
Forgetting the harmonica, and songs that lived inside it.
Reaching dead ends with GPS, so we had to guide it.
Laughing for hours on a porch, smoke winding around our fingers.
Mimosas, a most satisfying breakfast smell still lingers
Answering a phone as if faintly afraid.
Remembered the songs I heard; the exact time and the day.
Leaving notes around to be discovered and sweet.
Shaking hands with the world, all those random people we'd meet.
We never went to the BBQ at the corner car wash.
Always owed the store next door a dollar.
How I would sit on that chest as you walked back and forth, deciding what to wear.
Smoking out the window.
Finding socks everywhere.

It means,
Forgetting the run to the bart station after bar hopping quests
--Those in hopes you'll say yes to that one invitational request.
Always on missions to go see and eat things we hadn't before.
Driving to that one restaurant where kids worked the floor.
And there were no prices for the plates.
Staying up late.
Forgetting how the white people dance and we laughed.
This is how you dry two sweaty hands.
Promising all the adventures we planned.
The day you tried to get me to drink the green goo. Ew.
I still drank that whole glass for you.
Helping you even out the dirt in that backyard with a slab of wood and a string.
Those songs off Pandora I attempted to sing.
A Red Bull accompanied by other snacks in a bag.
Picking you up there, and later setting one of my pillows on fire.
I packed everything but that **** set of plates.
I laughed at your knee socks, BART running late.


It means, all these things that might ring a bell;
If you can forget them, you forget me as well.

vii..xii

my baby exists when he wants to
leaving vitamin D outside my door
gives me kisses on my arteries
kisses my bruises even more

my baby gives flowers for breakfast
and claims they won’t ever bloom
he loves me, he loves me not
he speaks in glances across the room

my baby breaks my heart
my baby adores me so
my baby knows just the right spot
gotta let my baby go

and I watched you
while you slept,
wishing I were with you.

But I could settle for this.
You felt real.
We were as close as we could get without touching.

at midnight I made a wish.



Not hard to guess what it is.

We have dinner two weeks later after the phone call at a place called Spencers. It's a hole in the wall with 50 cent oysters, cheap drinks, and a single waitress that isn't hard to look at. She tells us her name is Olivia, that she grew up around town, and went to school in Boston to study something. We both nod when she tells us this, but we don't say anything, nothing like a congratulations or feign of interest. We've both had this conversation too many times to show genuine interest anymore. I think about this when I order the hamburger with no cheese and avocado on the side and it makes me sad.
"How would you like the burger cooked, then?" Olivia asks me.
"Medium rare, please. Thank you." I hand her the menu and smile.
"And for you?"
"Fish and chips," he says, "With a small cob salad on."
"Great," she says, "And it was great talking with you guys."
"Yep," I nod, wanting her to leave.
"And those drinks will be right up."
"Fantastic," he grins, his eyes lazy and looking away from her.
Something in me tells me that maybe it wasn't a good idea to order drinks this early. It's only 10am and I haven't even had any coffee yet. Perhaps a ****** Mary will do us some good? A kick to the nervous system with tomato juice and ***** and a little hot sauce may be a better way to wake oneself up rather than liquid brown *******. He didn't show any signs of hesitation, so all seems to be well...keep it to two, maybe three if conversation is easy. Above us, the sky is light blue and clear. Trees line the sidewalk with seven feet of distance separating them, birds filling their branches, chirping wildly.
"How are things, my friend?" I ask.
"Things are," he pauses and looks at a passing dog and their owner," Good. Been working a little bit as well as working on some other projects."
"What kind of projects?" I know he's been making movies and I've seen his latest, which I liked, but he rarely embellishes on anything else.
"Scripts and movie stuff. Some music. Working on a website."
"I'd love to see it if you would be comfortable with that sort of thing."
"Yeah," he says, watching the waitress as she puts our two drinks on the table, smiling as she does it," I'll have to send some finished stuff your way." I know he won't. I know that he'll forget, either on purpose or by accident, but I nod and say that that would be great.
"I'll have to send you some my stuff. See what you think." I've been working on some small writing projects, trying to piece a book together of short fiction. It's been coming along, but I get distracted, things come up, more "important" things that I feel guilty for doing later. Normal pains.
He nods his head, digging his straw into the tomato juice and ice, swirling it around a bit, forcing the pepper to the bottom.
"They put too much ****** pepper in this thing."
"Yeah," I agree, "I might say something. These ******'s are expensive."
"Don't bother," he tells me, "They're fine. Let the ***** work her magic for a minute. Olivia seems to like us. I wouldn't want to upset her."
I look over at her behind the bar. She's making a large tray of mimosas for a table of women at the back of the restaurant. From the pink banners scotch taped to the wall and mound of presents, someone is having a baby shower. A baby...good God...how would I survive that? Good thing I'm single. Olivia struggles to pick up the tray and for an instant, I have the urge to get up and help her with it. He sees me staring at her and kicks me under the table.
"You like her?" he asks.
"What?" I laugh, "Who?"
"Olivia, you goon."
"I was watching her try and pick up that flight of mimosas. I was sure she was gonna' drop the thing. She's so tiny."
"Why don't you go help her out?" He teases, looking up at me as he takes a sip of the Mary from his straw. "She's alright." One of his eyebrows inches up.
"Nah," I say, "It's too early."
"I just read somewhere that no one is ever actually living in the present. The reason I say that is because I was just about to say something cheesy like "YOLO" or "Live in the Now", but then I remembered that article and it stopped me dead."
"Why can't we?" I ask him. He seems suddenly perky and intrigued by his own memory of the article.
"Something like every human being is living at least 80 milliseconds in the past. David Eagleman believes that our consciousness lags behind actual events and that when you think an event occurs, it has already happened before your brain has a chance to create a cohesive picture of the world."
"So what we're seeing right now has already happened in the natural world 80 milliseconds ago?"
"Something like that. I guess you could equate it to looking in a mirror that reflects an image that's always slightly behind."
"But the time is so small, one would never notice or really know anything was lagging behind in the first place. Everything seems present right now, right?"
"Yeah," he says, "It does, but I can see the argument that we are all slightly behind our brains and our eyes and the world outside. It's all just too much."
"Overwhelming," I mutter, taking a large pull from my drink."
"Let's get another round. You want another round?" He picks up the drink menu that was hanging off the edge of table.
"Yeah," I nod, looking out on the street, "I'm good to go."
"I'll get her." He raises his hand and Olivia sees it. She comes over, smiling, grinning like mad as usual. We order two more drinks and wait for our food.

1976:
black boy, black boy,
we shot you --
nothing left
in your small, shiny black shoes;
your tidy school uniform

2013:
white boy, white boy,
we will not shoot you --
nothing right
in your big, broken black shoes;
your untidy school-form --

instead, we will not teach you

white boy, we will not teach you:
English is for black schools --

Madiba, Madiba:
the jacarandas of Pretoria are dying;
the mimosas in the bushveld
have taken the Acacia tree's name
and beneath the soil,
the roots of South Africa are still
growing, exactly the same?

Under the blue jacaranda that swayed in the soft spring breeze
I breathed in the scent of her lavender blossoms, recalling the moment in dreams
Before me were rows of her sisters lining the old town streets
Ringing their bell flowers, calling me in - my blue jacaranda trees

In the gardens were flowers and trees of the world, exploding with colours in glorious hues
Lit up by coral trees’ fire like glow, all through the city where ever you’d go
The pink of the silk trees, mimosas of white
Jasmines of yellow that shone in the light
Flames of the forest that Cook brought so far, burning bright orange and seen from afar
Flowers like birds and their scents filled the air, Angels Trumpet the Lilies on show everywhere

Under the blue jacaranda, I savoured the views in peace
Her leaves were like fern and her shade cooled me down as I sat in the warm spring breeze
And dreamed that one day I would travel her way if over the seven seas
Ringing her bell flowers, calling me in. My Blue Jacaranda trees ...

In Northern Virginia, for the ladies of wealth, Sunday mornings begin with a hangover, a Virginia Slim, and a Xanax. The day transitions to brunch at Liberty Tavern: one mimosa and one ****** Mary; an omelet with green and red peppers; and another round of mimosas and another ****** Mary, because: why in the world not?

For Thu—a Vietnamese American—Sunday mornings always begin with a different routine.  

She comes downstairs to the dining room, steps around the bundle of adult diapers, and pulls back the curtain that leads to her parents.

There, on the far right corner, her Dad lays on an electric bed, his eyes sleepy as if he had drunk too much whiskey from the night before. His mouth agape, he has a face of a man who has lived for many years. In fact he has, 80 something years in fact. His arm hangs over the railing, blue veins protruding from the skin.

Thu pulls the blinds and light comes seeping through the window.

Her Dad smiles as the sunlight warms up his face.

Thu lifts him out of bed and into his wheelchair and travels with him, looping around the house in a circle: starting with the dining room, then the foyer, through the hallway, out the kitchen, and then back to the dining room. She tries to make him walk at least three rounds. Sometimes he makes it, sometimes he doesn’t.

He grunts and curses in Vietnamese, his walker scraping against the marble and hardwood floors. He moves the walker, using the little strength he has in his biceps and the muscles in his right leg.

Two years ago, her Dad had a stroke, leaving the right side of his body impaired and aching. Ever since then, he’s been trying to recover. He spends his time watching soccer and UFC on a television with a line running across the screen. He has caretakers who assist him with going to the bathroom and showering.

His wife is the only thing that keeps him going. She has Alzheimer’s and at random times in the night she’ll open up the refrigerator and search for food, because during the day she hardly eats a bite. She walks around in a cardigan and cotton pants, a toothpick jutting out from her mouth. She enjoys lying on the sofa and making phone-calls to her friends.

But she often misdials the numbers, startled when she hears a voice of a stranger on the other end of the line. She tells the stranger she doesn’t know English, shutting her eyes before trying to dial another number.

Thu has lived in Northern VA for many years, 18 years to be exact. She’s a Hokie. She’s an avid watcher of Criminal Minds. And she enjoys apple cider with a side of kettle-corn. Despite having to cook and look after her parents, she never complains. Never gets upset. Never says that life is unfair.

Later on in the day, she’s wearing a blouse dotted with blue flowers, a pair of gray sweatpants, and open-toed sandals.

When her daughter Vicki walks into the kitchen, she makes a remark about her posture. Vicki scoffs, no longer trying to seek her approval, but when Thu’s back’s turned, she straightens out her posture. Thu never makes a comment about her boyfriend. That’s a lost cause in her eyes. Once Thu doesn’t approve on a relationship that’s the end of it. She wants the best for her daughter, pushes her to be the best at what she does.

Thu used to live in Saigon. When the war ended, she had fallen in love with a boy who lived next door to her. He was her first love. He would write love poems to her. Sometimes they would hold hands. Once they had shared a kiss.

They were young and deeply in love. But as the war finished up, they moved on from each other. The boy went to live with his family in Australia, while she moved to America. After they broke up, Thu would still think about him. He was the one who dumped her.

The breakup crushed her heart. But she didn’t let it mar her dignity. Time passed by, Thu moved to Virginia and she went to high school in Fairfax County. The letters started pouring in from the boy. But she had too much pride and she didn’t respond until one day.

That was the day that John Lennon was murdered in cold blood.

She was heartbroken like every other person in the world. Yet, she also thought of the boy and how much he loved John Lennon.

Thu remembers reading the newspaper, seeing John Lennon’s face on the front page of the paper. She took a pair of scissors and cut a square around John’s face. Then she wrote a letter to the boy. And then she sealed the newspaper clipping and the letter in an envelope and begged her mom over the phone to send the letter to the boy. Her mom was still in Saigon and somehow she made contact with the boy and gave the letter to him.

A month later, she opened the mail and there was a letter from the boy.

She read the letter, stifled a cry, and then proceeded to write. The next day she sent the letter. Thu was happy to read his words. It was as though she could hear his voice through his sentences. Like he was there next to her, looking at her, speaking to her spirit.

Days passed. Weeks passed. And then after a month she realized he wasn’t going to respond back to her letter. She couldn’t believe that he didn’t give her a response.

“And that’s the end of the story,” Thu said to her son.

“What do you mean that’s the end of the story? That can’t be the end!”

“Well you’re the writer, right? Think of an ending.”

Okay. So here it goes.

Thu smiles, her eyes grow sleepy, and her head slumps over. She starts to snore, very loudly in fact. But it’s cute and you’re hoping that she’s dreaming, dreaming about something relentlessly lovely.

You didn't see me, yesterday
at the mall, outside
American Eagle, perched
over my phone, praying to God
that tomorrow's flame-filled tornados
and neon Nuclear nightmares didn't strike
like lotto tickets after 20 years salary wasted
after 20 years wasted in front of the bottom of cups
and the ends of wet joints -
No, something about today's different -
it's always darkest before the dawn
and it's always coldest before the crack,
sometimes I feel like letting go of you
and never looking back - I know
You must've figured the same
maybe I'm too wracked with disdain -

Pity, that's all that was.
Faking it, just because.
loneliness made me weak
attention is all you seek
why care about what you feel?
When none of it has been real.
Except getting me between the sheets
And ******* me until you admit defeat

(which coincidentally wasn't longer than 5 minutes)

Thrive on being the one with power
Leaving you without answers
My walls made this Tower.

Trust is something you misuse in your game

just like me,

a glass, once broken is never the same.

I'm learning my lesson
And sorry, but you will never win.

What do you call a saint who knows how to sin?

Oh I remember now...
a liar
a phony
a crook
try all of the above...

Espero a madrugada

A noite escura estava cansada,
De esperar pela madrugada.
O galo ansioso por todos despertar,
Eu abandono-me a este fenómeno peculiar.

No ermo onde existe um Senhor da Boa morte,
Noite escura em Castanheiro do Norte.
Os cedros parecem ter luz,
Eu perdido no silêncio que seduz.

A noite aqui é simples, singular,
A madrugada de encantar.
Candeias de outrora, cavalos e suas ferraduras,
Madrugada de anseios e aventuras.

O vento sopra solitário e as mimosas são fustigadas,
As madrugadas que tantas vezes foram madrugadas.
E eu aqui sozinho espreito com curiosidade,
Uma madrugada sem tempo nem idade.

Victor Marques

crying when you're by yourself, 'cause of what they think
about you

I mostly want to get ****** up
because I'm tired of thinking rather
than feeling. so please,
what would you do if you weren't in your right mind?

There is something incredible about
the moon tonight
Its bright , beautiful and all
But today its not that
As the moon drift hiding and showing through the clouds
My heart is gradually tiptoed by sadness
an incredible sadness
and I know its you again
It makes me sad how the moon still shines with such luminosity
But we failed ourselves and our promises
Was it the same moon we sworn at
Was it the same sun that reflects through that moon
I do not understand why then we enjoyed our lies
danced at tunes that faded so abruptly
Floated around blue mimosas that fell with rain
why now the truth seems not right
why those mimosas blooms as ghost at night

But I tell you again, and for ages more
I still love you like certain dark things
liks breezes calmly gluing your memories to my mind
like the stars alinging with great art
to write your name in my heart
and the incredible sadness the moon brings
Because its you
You bring the best out of me
even the sadness.

You can get used to anything--merciless debt, infidelity, death--anything, the photojournalist thinks as he stares out his open hotel window to the beach where two boys lay covered with white sheets.

The bombs fell an hour earlier. Upon impact they didn't so much make a sound as absorb it, syphoning off laughter over mimosas in the first floor cafe, blurring the start-stop of traffic into a shapeless background hiss. He was out there when it happened, on the beach, walking his morning walk.

From one hundred yards he took in the flash, the upheaval of sand, reaching for heaven and then, all at once, subject to gravity's retreat. He knew there would be a second bomb, like when you're cutting a tomato, and you look at your finger then to the knife, and think, I'm going to cut myself, and a couple slices later fulfill the prophecy.

He didn't rush to the boys. He got his camera out of the bag, grabbed the lens, adjusted for distance, for the wane morning light. Boys screamed and ran. He wasn't sure how many, four, five. The second bomb hit. One boy, smaller than the others, rode the sand upwards and back down. The photojournalist thought he tried to get up, but he wasn't sure.

He knew better than to rush over. An unidentified person pointing a vague object at the children on a satellite feed would garner backlash. So he waited, surveying the slight waves break, the gulls continuing flight.

Parents, people he assumed to be parents, moaned in an unfamiliar language. Their sounds though, both guttural and sharp, said all. He approached. A man picked up the smallest boy, his lifeless limbs, doll-like and pierced with shrapnel, hung off to the side.

He took twenty-five shots from behind the lifeguard's post, using the telephoto zoom. He lowered the camera and made eye contact with the father.

Now, in his hotel room, there's an urgent knock at the door. A voice shouts. The email sends. He drops his laptop in the bag with the rest of the gear. A taxi pulls into the roundabout outside.

When he lands he's not sure if he's fractured his ankle or just sprained it. He limps to the door, climbs in, says, "Airport."

"Maa?" the driver says.

The photojournalist punches the seat. The father of the boy, along with three other men, approach.

"Maa?"

Manic mimosas
On a syndicate smile
Bourbon scotch cherry blossoms
With cinnamon eyes
He’s the only one who knows
how deeply he affects me.

Tonight I need to drown in you
Feel the loneliness consume me
With no desire to grow
From the garden I was planted in
Staring at Louisiana’s root -
how deeply he affects me.


I don’t want to be beautiful
I don’t want to be happy
I don’t want to be skinny
I don’t want to be strong
Let me drown drown drown

With the sheer knowledge
I’ll be laughing like God
After freezing a man
who sings my name
for him, I will return

To manic mimosas
On a syndicate smile
Bourbon scotch cherry blossoms
With cinnamon eyes
He’s the only one who knows
how deeply he affects me.

July saw you drinking mimosas
underneath a tree that wept shadows.
You were never one for cloudless days
by the sea. Silver wax over golden dust.
You are beginning to realize
blue might be the loneliest colour
when caught without the sun.


Yet only the ocean can speak of love in any tense.
Look at how it creates and destroys
at the same time.
Look at how
it carries on.

The potential quarrel only,
And I say only, is the thought
That 'us' would not be us
After our kisses.

We will never be just one flame,
One firebird in the distance
Pecking at mimosas.
And there's just too much flaw
If we are perfect for each other.

I could be the day of our starts,
And you, the day that begins.
I don't know.
You tend to over-think,
And often, I think of you,
Etcetera,
Vice versa.

So one by one, we secretly seek
Each other's secret;
One by one, we hate
How we hated each other
Till other things remain
In other things.

And so we think of each other
Only,
And then we kiss.
And I say:

Let love be a kiss,
For when two people kiss, it never mattered
Who stoops or reaches more.

© 2010 J.S.P

You start out carefully
Pouring into a shot glass,
Then the shot glass is
Sloshing over into the
Coffee mug: it's an
Irish Coffee Mug, "Top of the
Clan McGregor Morning, to you."
By 10 AM you're pouring
Right from the bottle,
Into an assortment of
Jelly-juice glasses:
Mimosas Are Us.
You skip brunch & lunch &
By 1:30 PM you're swigging
Directly from the liter bottle,
Wielded like a meat cleaver
In more ways than one.

(7 pm - sad news)
A soul departed.
And I could not be but incredulous that how so natural a quietus was to be met, when one would most deny it.

(8 pm)
An inch closer to reality.
Or else this Death, would've been as devoid of taste and essence as a heart that but stalks the fleeting pleasures of an unworthy world.

(9 pm)
I pitied him. And myself (rather selfishly).
He lost a mother.
Oh he lost a mother, and I have one to lose!

I wonder, with what subtlety have my heart and mind deceived my  sense of sympathy, because
I remember vaguely whether my tears were in realization of the misery of an ever-rejoicing friend,
Or in mere anticipation of what was written in heavens, for my mother.

I never really admired the man he (my friend) was.
And I never really appreciated his general lack of concern and the apparent absence of mindful demeanor.
But when I came to know the person he really was,
I cried that night.
And I cried that night talking of him with other friends.
He had found his breezy spring here, seven hours away from the silent autumn that was meant to strike his home.

And now I knew him,
Whose patient smile, kissing the perpetuity of bright harmonies,
Denied bowing down to the contours of a winter twilight.

Oh, now I knew him,
Whose eyes had shone like a thousand summer sun, even
When night's crawling terrors lay unhidden;
Despite the profundity of darkness that showed no mercy.

He lost a mother, oh he lost a mother.
And I have one to lose.

(12:30 am - 7:30 am - the travel)
A visit.
To the autumn, seven hours away.
In the middle of nowhere.
Where he had lost a mother,
While the white desert mourned
And the clouds hung low in melancholy.

There, ah, there in the ivory clouds I saw a cleft.
It must have been the door to heaven!
It must have been opened for his mother.
It must have been opened for her.

(8 am)
I met my friend.
He looked alive, not brilliantly though,
In submission to God's unquestionable will.
Had I looked deeper, I would have found vivacity stone-dead,
I would have found unfathomable grief,
And I would have found life,
Trying to hide from the terrors of its own self.

(2 pm - the funeral)

(Condolences)

(3:30 pm - Return)
The tough terrain that we traversed on our way here was smoother now,
And the mimosas had reappeared, and the desert seemed less dull.
I wonder why we forget too easily, the matters of "the bourn from where no traveler returns".
I wonder why we fall too easily for the winter even though we know what freezings it would bring.
But then it's only so human to forget.
So human to forget.

You are feathered butterfly
Armed with mimosas,
Perfumed to perfection,
Dressed delicately, purely, with only
The most diaphanous of colours,
Of your simplistic silhouettes
And your ever-glow, the peppery yellow,
And gold, and emerald and silver.
You govern my little empire.

I come like a deer bowed before you
In integrity,
For you are royalty,
A gift of nature.
You wear the therapeutic tiara,
The morning of mornings, my rest,
My hope, my sweet.
You are the princess and the panacea,
The kiss I long longed for,
And I'm your squire,
Your only,
Only dreaming.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

leave him.
he is a worn-out version
of what once was

he is lukewarm
he squats in no man's land
he is not sure

he is the kitchen floor
after an exclusive dance party
at your friends apt.
where
like
only six people came
and you all drank mimosas
and danced and
the cat did something awkward
and you all laughed -so hard- and
you had such a ******* good time
and you drunkenly swore him off

he is a war-torn region
his heart
is a foxhole
his heart is not peaceful
it is in pieces
it bears teeth
he is
not a bad person
but you-with-him is
a bad mixture
it makes his heart-teeth gleam
he changes
he is different around you
the moon calls for him

he does not listen
he senses
he hears with his gut

I want to drown in ***

Wallow in tequila

Suffocate in bourbon

And by the time I fall asleep

I’ll forget about you

And when I wake

I’ll celebrate with mimosas,

Her name far away from my tongue
And you still would not notice

Because your beer

With two X’s

Will kiss me and keep me intoxicated

Until I pop two fizzes

Seltzer and sober

And I’ll remember

Why I never wanted to fall in love

You are a familiar
downtown intersection,
even though I'm
from the suburbs.
You are streetlights
that don't flash yellow
at 9:00pm, busy
don't stop but
go slowly. Careful.
You are construction,
hazard lights,
hiding caution signs
in bedrooms
and you are painted
in warning orange,
red lights and green,
stop and go cars
lining the way.
You are brunch time
traffic and stale car air,
loud music on the radio.
You are being late
for our reservation and
not knowing what to order.
You are mimosas
and caesers and sangrias
before noon,
spice in my mouth and
burning my throat.
You are unorganized,
not knowing
formal table settings.
You are hungry, you are
full of Spanish breakfast.
You are unsure about
where we should go,
where will we end up?
You are a lazy midday walk,
the cloudless sky.
You are skipping rocks
under bridges and finding
perfect pebbles.
You are inappropriate
footwear for the task,
my blue dress by the river.
You are slick shore rocks,
tears or waterfalls or sweat,
slipping into danger.
You are sirens, my wailing
drowns by the water.
You are flashing lights,
here and gone and here and -
You are what I think about
in waiting rooms,
off white florescent lighting
and white tile ceilings
and business black chairs
and a heavy ticking clock.
You are the dead space in my life.
You are the dead space.
You are the dead.
You are.


**V. K.