an awful poem is
someone that I see on the subway reading and I immediately understand
summer wind that doesn't need to be questioned
an item unboxed and used for exactly what it needed to do
walking directly from home to work and back
passing the fountain
not throwing a penny in
not seeing the child get it's shoelace caught on the railroad platform in Barcelona and getting hit by the train
putting a dog to sleep and leaving the room
crying

she talks about things she believes I wish I could do
I don't ask but she shows me her portfolio
casually sidelong I say between sips
"I am not running anyone over
But if you're in my way I will hit you"
and her expression changes from puzzlement to anger
I take another sip and flip her off

Sitting Seven for more than seven days.

I'll bathe. But no mirrors. It's better this way.

painted glass in the dark
black moon and now we've gone too far
I trace a path over your skin
and then feel the spaces where I'm thin

at night I have learned something raw. a new art. of closed eyes. sleep for me has become something pure. A substance without sin or dirtiness of being awake. or dozing in a red bed.

I could probably sleep on a park bench or a slab of stone. sleep with my head in a bucket all the same, undressed. I am just me on a slab of stone undressed. I am just me unchanged and unmoving.

when we moved into the new home
after the divorce, things were
still rocky, we had just
“left” them in the dark
still don’t address them, not a phone call,
not even
now, not after even a *******
deathinthefamily
they are like the side of a house
that never gets light
the side of the house against a cliff
and we live in the sunny sea side
windows open
they are threadbare ghosts
like an old wedding gown
used only once
moths also eat holes in my grandmother’s brain and she forgets things
but perhaps maybe she will start to remember
the reasons she loved my mother instead of hated her.
they live in apartments above beauty salons
and in oaky gentrified railroad towns
but I am a **** but I think
it’s justified that we cut
them off like a sore, well
it’s obvious. Because they
didn’t treat my mother
well at all
And that is
unforgivable.

Contains:
oranges