Driving Home in May

in summer
i drive
exposed through car doors
music loud enough
to make the mirrors tremble
drum beats so thick
that i could wrap my shoulders
in a cloak of vibration
a coat of heartbeats
windows wide and wondering
if my road mates feel rhythm in their blood
if they tap their steering wheels
or simply nod
in the uncontainable expression
of the steady or the syncopated
I scan adjacent lanes for open windows
hoping they will hear
that they might feel the bass climbing up
past rubber soles and coiled shocks
and perhaps
amidst the rippling heat
of summer and exhaust
your pulse will find mine
and we will connect.

Us

we hear
we buy tickets
we punch faces in faceless crowds
we feel the ink on our skin or the taste of metal and dust in our mouths
we are the yellow in the sunlight
we soak in smoke and sweat and sounds
we are the heat in waves
we race and stumble and fall
we sing
we dance
we link our arms and scream across steel barriers
we ravage and regale
we are loud
we are one
we bleed
we see our reflections in sunglasses
we touch and press
we breathe
we twist and jump and explode
we
we walk in the dusk
through the sweat and the mud
we sit in a dirty car
and we are completely in love

summer, stop teasing me

no one walks in straight lines
when the restless flutters of May
scratch soundtracks on their windows.

Amber

wearing shorts on the front porch
the tangerine glow of
this melancholy summer
lays in layers over
the unshadowed inches of our legs
the ghosts that live in photographs
have taken their red eyes and drunken smiles
out from under the bed
and into our hands

it is too early for acorns

we snatch the light as it falls
extracting the best lines
filling our notebooks with honey and cursive
her pages like peaches
heavy and sweet and bruisable
mine like plums in a saucer of milk

even the smallest leaf is someone's blanket

our hair creates curtains
as we curve over glue sticks and twine
attaching and trapping and tying bits down
the tree shadows descend from overhead
they wrestle and collide
in butterscotch and coffee patterns on our skin

the bees sing her favorite song

and so
we climb into the sticky tree sap puddles
smearing our cheeks and elbows
and and anticipate our petrification
for someone to uncover us
legs and necks and little toes
as priceless and pristine as we feel
in the golddustsed pages of our former selves

Why I Don't Own a Dog

You look like a frightened puppy
hunched shoulders and shifting eyes.
Whispering as though i weren't watching you
circling, sniffing, marking your territory
all over my carefully cultivated garden.
A quivering yelp that sounds strangely like my name
is loosely buried under bulbs and earth
so painstakingly nurtured,
now turned over and reeking of your scent.
Watching me
as if i had a rolled up newspaper
behind my back,
or if with a swift kick, i'd call you "little bitch"
tell you to stop chewing my shoes, and wearing out the heel.
I'm sick of picking bits of your coat
out of my casseroles, and off my clothes.
As if leaving yourself all scattered over the couch
would be a pleasant reminder that you are here
to stay.

Not Anymore

I want to keep her.
That girl who is not me.
With her teeth still whole and uncracked
The skin of her thighs unstretched.
I get caught stealing backward glances in her direction
and look down ashamed while the heat of her yellow hair
cascading in the the xanthous light
still tingles
like a phantom limb against my cheek.

She still carries the kiss
On the upper-right hand corner of her lip
And her mind with its puzzling gilt boxes, each encapsulating the next
Still holds the innermost box, safe
unopened

I listen to the soft whisper of her footsteps
when i am enclosed in headphones.

She often stands silent at my shoulder
dropping strands of saffron into my tea
and wearing holes into the elbows of my sleeves
She makes the dust in the afternoon sun
glitter

But as months fall away
her golden luminance dulls
and the strands of yellow hair begin to thin.
She feels transparent, and out of place
like a lonely telephone pole
against a landscape of desert sky and joshua trees.
The more i grasp and clutch her towards me,
The more she fades into memory
This girl who is not me.
No, not anymore.

Portrait of Anna at 17

She would rather stare out the passenger side window of a car, than drive.
She likes the way you sound in headphones,
But she will steal sounds from the air, before they fall complacent on your ears.
She will complain while she picks you up, and dusts the rubble from your tan suede jacket
She will always save your life
But she is not composing poetry to the sound your voice makes, or choreographing the dances your bodies will make as you walk towards each other on busy sidewalks.
She tears the labels off water bottles when they are half empty.
She thinks about you
She keeps her secrets behind gaudy red and orange patches, sewn to her blue jeans.
She walks down suburban streets after midnight,
The street lights extinguish as she walks below
She is wearing the shoes that she wrote your name on in red Sharpie. Letters now scuffed away in a pink smudge.
And she thinks about running in a monsoon, and your hair, soaked with rainwater curling around her fingers, as you wait under the overpass.
She goes outside and tilts her chin into the mist and walks into the day with your name on her toungue.

Weak

Last second,
I reach forward to catch my head as it succumbs to gravity.
the weight of it in my hands makes my muscles quiver with the strain.
Slouching in my chair, spine curled, pain in red lines creeping
Navigating between the tendons and the muscles and the sinews of my shoulders.
Each step I'm walking in mud

Each attempt to shake off this iron coat
does little but crack joints and glaze eyes
The weight of my empty insides
causing my walls to cave and ceiling to crash.
I am walking in quicksand

The skin beneath my gray outer layers
is detaching itself from the rest of me, in search of someplace warmer

I am walking the bottom of the sea, dragging a medicine ball from each limb

Secret Keeper (revision 1)

My muscles are coiled
As fingertips grip the steel bar against the stage
The delicious tension warming the skin


We radiate as we reach for you, a shadow against the yellow lights
Chests pressed and aching to touch
Feels like making love
To a space heater


Targets are acquired and locked
With anticipation for ammunition
A thousand voices scattered and obliterated
With every ragged scream
The springs beneath the skin tremble in preparation
Soundtracks of restless breaths travel through my lungs
Between the silences
The dry burn of our thirst
Pushes us closer


Lights dim and we erupt in the heat
Music from a red room bleeds and pools in our outstretched hands
Melting from fingertips, licking through my hair like flames
I twist greedily in the sound
Pulsing and contracting
My chest rises and falls with every beat
Filled with your notes
Black floors soak sweat like a mattress
Like Vampires, we crowd in the yellow lights
We drink deeply and die

Numbers

Slowly becoming obsessed between the space between .4 and .8
I calculate ounces, but i was never very good at math.
Exit the gates with speed and determination
Examine ripples and the soft dent of iron building behind the thick thick thick
But,
3 weeks stagnant, and resolve begins to waiver
Staring and obsessing over the space between my feet
Wishing i could weigh each bead of sweat
Green tea, peanut putter, banana
8 cups, 64 oz.
Ankles supported
Knees bent backwards like a broken coat hanger
.4
breathe, breathe breathe
.6 drink water,
More water, get rid of it, try again
Pressing palms into my sides
60 minutes, 600 salt drops
.4 .8
shit
oatmeal, beans, whey protein
trying to calculate the space between chocolate bars
but i was never very good at math
zippers laugh
don't panic, don't panic
sick on my knees
.2

God.

naked and staring at the space between my feet
12 more reps, increase the 8's to 10's
kick under desks, extend the knees
64 oz, portions portions
it's half past midnight.... don't panic, dont.
it's dark and beckons
no restraint
shit! not again...

on my knees
.0

.0

.0

Secret Keeper

My muscles are coiled
The delicious tension warming the skin
You never knew you could make love to a space heater
Music from a red room bleeds and pools in green sheets
I twist greedily in the sound
Stretching and contracting
Targets are acquired and locked
With anticipation for ammunition
Bones scattered and obliterated
With every ragged scream
Melting from fingertips, licking through my hair like flames
The springs beneath the skin tremble in preparation
Soundtracks of restless breaths travel through my lungs
Between the silences
My chest rises and falls with every beat
Filled with your notes
Black floors soak sweat like a mattress
Vampires crowd in the yellow lights
We drink deeply and die

emptying the box

this is a postcard
this is dusk from a fire escape
this is a tracing of the lines on your palm and a promise that won't be kept
these are the naked epistles you wrote to her
this is the shadow of a hand dipped in flour, smudged across the front of my black apron
these are the pennies dropped from canyon cliffs
this is the magazine where you inscribed my blue name in the margins
this is the morning as it tilts over the hills
these are words you wrote to me, "blue eyed and distant" at the coffee shop table in the corner of your bookstore
these eyes are "sky or sea, bound or free..."
these are my eyes. they are green.

paris in the rain

she has
fingers like piano keys
they grasp the black handle of an umbrella
with white bone china
pink and gold rimmed.
her bare feet
trace circles in the ground

Hidden Things

Perhaps i am cheating, but the only way i can get the ones i
Love to try any thing anything new is by hiding it.
Even my two year old eats butternut squash, when it swims in
A bowl of
Spongebob squarepants macaroni.
Every thursday my husband freeze frames bookshelves, searching for
Concealed numbers, and copies of
Our mutual friend, and the dark tower. and so, i slip
My affection between layers of white-chocolate
Fudge brownies, and lace pretty words between
Opinions of the phoenix suns. but what i want, what i really
Really want. is for you
To just once find
Me
Even if it takes a drop of extra effort

Why i don't write long poetry.

because no one reads it. thats why.

wish

i wish i'd written Extrordinary Machine
in, like, 1955.
i've had dreams where i traveled back in time, and just happened to have my mp3 player with me.
i would revolutionize music.
(but i'd also be a liar.)

it's like a notebook... only it lives in a computer.

Names to remember. Sailor, Boston, Ulysses.

*i bought a bag of skittles.
emptied the bag onto the table
put the colors in the right order

purple red orange yellow green

too bad there was no blue.
i ate them in even numbers
till there were exactly two of each
and gave elliot the rest.

An Apology in Haibun (with cliche)

i realize it's mostly my fault that you break eggshells with each step, and i realize i've been asking you to blame the over burdened camel instead of me. but it's ok.
i'm sorry i don't listen.
Jimmy would cry. you've been cheating on them again, (i can tell, you just called me shorty) i will tease you about it, as long as you promise to take it and make fun of Coolio in the same breath.
i'm sorry i haven't told you that you are the best thing that i've ever had for real...


soft green surfacing
in twisted mat of dead grass
when you call me boo


i didn't say how much i appreciate your patience with Elliot, with Story, (with me)... i assumed you knew that i love playing Scrabble, and hiding in Romania.
i'm sorry... i forgot.


water droplets trace
patterns of red and shadow
in stars on your skin

this is a poem

I am the best at writing poems.

Pretty much the best that I know of.

Oh wait

just a minute, just a minute

You see I can start a sentence here

and finish it here.

Love is letting go of yellow balloons in an underwater

minefield.

Death is the crayon marked “Macaroni and Cheese”

Love is bad

Love is really really bad,

Especially when the night is dark and the rain is wet.

yes, well i guess... if you're in to that sort of thing

I use words like teeth and tiresome and terse

Oh, let me rephrase that

Teeth set tersely against words words words undulating tiresome- ly

I can make ten million out of you

You see? Don’t you?