Dictation

What we have here is

another dedicated student

of Anatomy.

His eyes trace a scalpel thin line of

vision

down,

down,

down:

Yes,

those are breasts and then

Yes,

that's the waist and then

Yes,

there are the hips and then

Yes,

there's the final glance across the thighs.

He takes notes on the specifics of form

in the air with his hands and dictates

approval of the specimen with the

scientific terminology of wolf-whistles.

To him,

I am not a woman, but

the collective perfection of my pieces:

lips and eyes;

nose and collarbone;

hair and

the precise sway of my ass;

or maybe the gorgeous sheen

of midday sun off of

one well-manicured

middle

finger.

Requiem:

I reached the point of no return
and crossed it.
Into new territory,
Where I've been before.
I'm more hidden than I realized
though I live m life in rainbow hues.
I'm sure my voice won't work
anymore, it's rusty
oxidized from saltwater rain
dripping from clouded eyes.
I remember when they used to shine
the brightest candle blue; shade of joy.
I remember they were yours, too.
Memories run on repeat-
Scratchy old home moves; useless
except  for the sentimental.
I wish I could pull out the film
and leave that as an offering-
leave Life,
instead of cut roses.
instead of placing death on a dead grave.

Galatea:

Deliciously forbidden,
Melting down to my toes,
Liquid gold through his hands
This heat brands what it shows.
A glorious arc,
(the product of a spark),
An otherworldly glow,
radiates through the dark.
Heat rises, I've been told,
But it's combusting my bones,
Sinking, burning, binding until
My secret heart is not my own.
Poured out, setting
With this freshly cooling heat,
An intricate design,
The makers mark underneath.
I'm a woman, defined;
Made in the strangest new lines,
And I glitter in the dark,
His eyes the hottest spark.
His hands are carving sin,
Pygmalion to Galatea,
I'm stone... and then skin.

Rebirth?

A caterpillar's tiny death-
Barters with the Afterlife
For a tiny collection of feathers.
An assemblage, assembled
In fiendish or coquettish lines.
What breaks in trial by fire,
Withstands the test of time.
The endless purity of rebirth,
Is non-existant at best.
One life bleeds into the next:
The black webs of running ink
Pause for examination, sink.
We are nothing but what
We may have been before-
Only with added plumage.
And yet-
Ignorant of our ancient weights, settled,
We trade our thousand tiny deaths
For uncertain, fragile wings.

Spaghetti Western Hero

I've got a temperamental muse
And a sidearm on my shoulder;
The wind in my hair
'Cause I'm just a little older
Than the Doc says I should ride
But my girl is at my side
And my dreams are out in front
With that sunset up ahead.
No, I don't know where I"m going yet
But were I to make a bet,
Eventually is where we'd get,
'Cause I'm livin' life inspired
And Doubt's sunk behind me
Where I left her, deeply mired.
My muse has got my compass
Just pray we don' meet an impasse
'Cause she's commandeered my sidearm
An' I'm not sure where she's shootin'
But we'll get there, 'cause with her
There's just no such thing as losin'.

Let's make a mark

Lovely,
Bleed life into black ink.
They might be only words, but we find
permanence in transience, because
contradictions are the only logical things.
Anyhow, there's patches of flame on
the sidewalk, where the rain runs clean.
They remain unmuted, and
it's not harmony, but it's close enough.
Let's take it all for granted.
Scrawl sunlight onto white pages.
It might only be illumination, but
we find hope in arbitrary inspiration
and though it might be a train,
we're still walking,
aren't we?

Confessions of a chameleon

Backwards light and sidestepped mornings
a place where anonymous is your name
where you slide through shadows
and sidewalks, and both
are of equal weight.
Is there ever a point to reverie?
If it's not something you'd want others
to read, and who am I to say if it's
wonderful, or selfish-
to abdicate from the world.
Do we relieve others of our presence or
deny petty empathy her theories of self-worth.
I mean, if they were never yours
in the first place,
Pay homage where homage is due.
For language is generative, but,
ideas are cyclical, and,
what we were at the beginning
is what we will be at the end,
only upside down,
and backwards.

This is just to say that

Sometimes

When I look out of my window-

recently glazed with abstract patterns that

are sharp and icy and strangely lovely-

Everything quiet, perfect, blindingly bright;

I have these insane urges to

lay naked in the snow so that the

particles would cling like thick, powdered

dust to my skin and then

melt,

slowly so slowly until

droplets run races to my toes

rushing down valleys

tracing jutting bones and hugging curves

to the finish as I 

breathe air so frozen it’s like

tasting oxygen for the first time;

being born, maybe

wet and pink and cold and slightly crazed

with wonder so 

much wonder because the world 

is alien and beautiful and 

brand-new.

GOODBYE.

A
single
raindrop
hits
pavement,
and explodes on impact.
In your headlights,
a million more
shatter in harmony.
That is to say I think we lost ourselves somewhere.

We each hide behind
walls thick with breathing-
we should trade,
see what we're up against.
The looks that you toss me
burrow under my skin
--parasites.
This
car is too hot.

Our hands sit
side by side
on the center console.
Your fingers could
creep over just
centimeters
and suddenly this
would be
okay.
but
they just
don't.

Nascere

The man in the white coat told us it would e awhile, and m mother agreed.
My mother I believed more simply because what could a man know of this,
even with the clicks and whirs of industry surrounding us-- his sphere.
There was, of course, the ever present scent of antiseptic and bleach
and cold- it's inexplicable but true, the scent of unremembered death.
The animal we bury inside of ourselves knows it on instinct and cowers.
Everywhere the sounds of screaming echo off the pristine walls,
rattle in my ears and rip the soundtrack of the spanish soap into the
occasional word able to push and break through the infrequent bursts of
silence-- endless.

Then the sweat on her brow, on hand in mine and the other in my father's,
the only tethers to the earth as her body heaved, despite the amenities,
it seemed the clicks and whirs were drumbeats to mark the waiting time.
I heard someone call out 10:05 and it was over so suddenly, like the world
stopped on a dime to pass a bundle of blankets from her arms to mine.
There's nothing from that moment except the vision of watery eyes,
A tiny ball of angry red skin-- an alien in a coating of afterbirth.
It's strange how quickly you can fall irrevocably in love.

Would (or Wooden?)

We even lay in discordance, my lover and I,
Staring at walls, my fist across his heartbeat
-if I said it beat for me, I'd lie--
And all that's unsaid starts a steady creep
staining the air and the sheets in equal measure.
Like the hatter's drug, slick poison in my veins-
through hands on velvet I seal my own demise.
We're marionettes; all hung up in chains,
with wooden places where our hearts should rise.
I'll never ask, never look you in the eyes
trusting my body to beg you to speak.
But the puppeteer won't stop tangling my steps
and his chatter makes the silence more complete-
I keep waiting for some sign- a token-
but what's the use? What's wooden never weeps.

I-95

I've been swirling in straight gasoline breaths
Dripping sunshine and antifreeze- hang a left
To the fast lane- wild and chomping the bit
Let me feel the horses when the gears shift

Up and groan as you slam down on the gas.
The whole world can disappear- just that fast.
Keep me strapped to my seat with music and lines
About forever as I look for exit signs.

I swear I can taste rubber in the air,
You think we're flying- something like a prayer
For sticky leather and endless highway
And I've never been this close to a cliche'--

I've got nothing to lose or I've lost it
Already because somehow you fit
Despite the fact that we're speeding down concrete
And I've yet to do something as simple as speak.

Flashes

Tonight there will be fireflies.
Gaia's gifts; dreams for gods and men.
They'll drift slyly as we're sleeping
For this is the start of "and then-"

Lovers tonight will whisper sounds
Discovery, the slide of sheets
Tracing curves, evening afterthoughts
Seal broken hearts with new concrete.

The child tonight creates a world
Where shadow-men dance across leaves
To bow before the Faerie Queen,
Who paints fall colors on the trees.

The old one tonight speaks softly,
Her dreams to a deafening world
For she will be gone by morning
Ashes to Ashes, Death's scepter curled.

Fireflies, the briefest blinking,
Shards of fire; hesitant, bold light.

Atlas

I've held open this hopeless heart for so long.
My hands are battered and bruised, the blisters
Have long turned callous, products of cyclical calamity.
I'm well aware I define disaster; even my dreams are empty:
Inevitable thievery, even as smiling strangers
Stagger my quaking steps, calm this tempest,
Long enough for temptation to taunt,
              "One more try, just
                One more try..."
Please,
This is the way that Caesar died:
Over and over, liars breathe at my chest
Knives that puncture foolish, eager flesh.
And I shift my shoulders to adjust one more
Piece of baggage to the rest.

Forse

Nights dream of ways to stay awake
TO greet the morning sun
With eyes and hands and lips to taste
Heartbeats that wake and drum.

Dawn burns away the shadowed sight
So we may see what's true
But--tell me a little tarradiddle
--I'll say I love you too.

You feel my cracks, I know your scars
And, maybe, we don't lie,
Maybe we'll learn, I know this tune,
The Lover's Lullaby. 

Reckoning

Take back your rib, Adam.
I who have borne the misogyny of men
And branded, carry "Mother"as title,
Need no God's hand to hide, to hinder
The path of pain to my eyes.
Keep yours open, Adam.
Open as hands, bloodstained, pull
Wet, whitened bone from withered flesh.
I have not sinned alone, Adam.
But take from me this last shard,
Shameless, deny me my birthright.
We broke Eden together, Adam.
Ripped it to pieces and I alone am blamed.
Take it back. I dare to be nothing
Than be indebted to you.

The Letters Home

Today there is rain. Lots of it, in sheets
that spill over my boots and slap my face
for the insolence of looking upward.
I am reminded of umbrella forts;
the rhythmic pin of leaks into pots on
the kitchen floor; Frank on the radio.
Old Blue Eyes wants love. I want warm, dry socks.

Today there are tears. Just a few of them,
released, the gut-wrenching relief that a
friend in the hospital will be just fine.
I lay across my bed, hiding my face and
I am reminded of your philosophy:
tenerla insieme adesso,
ci sara' sempre tempo dopo a
sfaldarsi, cara. Or something like that.

Today there is sun. Lots of it, searing
my irish skin torturous shades of red
that really won't increase the melanin.
I am reminded of frilly pink hats
and fruitless sunscreen applications, lost
to the lapping tongue of the salt water.
You would say it's ironic that my skin,
like the rest of me, won't learn it's lesson.

Today there are exams. Lots of them, crushing
the hair I haven't pulled out yet under
the weight of pencils, shoved and forgotten.
I am reminded of bright red apples,
brand new notebooks, and waist-length hair in braids.
THere's a twinge of fear in my gut but you
always know best: my worst critic is me.
Ke$ha's on my iPod, needing a drink-
trust me girl, this week, I sympathize.

We talked on the phone today, and your voice
made me smile, even if things like hugs
don't travel well over four hundred miles.
I avoid the exact. Sometimes you'll ask me
What, instead of How, I'm doing this week.
If you wanted the truth, I guess I"m just
Learning how to be someone I like, Mom.

For Mallory

Plastic houses.
Green roofs and red doors
And the most beautiful laugh
In a polka-dot jacket.
I'm Alice in Wonderland
Five again- fearless
Digging for treasure;
Swinging for the moon.
Rolling in the grass.
No shame in falling down,
Hitting the earth hard and fast-
She just laughs.
Twin hazel suns are shining
Above teeny tiny Chiclets
She insists are falling out
'Cause she's "A big girl now, Rinnie!"
Pearly white honor badges.
Her hand fits over one fingertip
Pulls to the slide, smiling,
Showing off the little holes.
My heart's so full it's bursting
So I trip. Obviously.
But she just sits on me,
Dora shoes flashing,
Little finger wagging,
"Be careful, Rinnie!"
I think it''s a little too late for me.

Sometimes I wonder

If I’m still the most beautiful person you’ve ever met. Sometimes I wonder

if it’s normal to still think about you

as much as I do.

Then I think: fuck normal. It is a concept with an incomplete existance

and it demands from me only that

which I cannot give 

like you did.

Sometimes I wish that we had met right now, instead of then, I think

we would have been good for one another

instead of poisonous

“Don’t bite the apple, Eve.”

I have not learned my lesson but I bet I could teach you a few things like

that you love when I tug on your earlobes 

with my teeth

Or that you love the little sounds I make when I am kissed and kissed often

"And by somebody who knows how". 

le fragole

12:31 pm

she swirls the piece beneath

her fingertips in circles, pushing it down

into the thick, velvety chocolate. bends over

red stained lips and greedy tongue pull it in, teeth

bite travel slowly, savoring the sweet, and dark, and wet 

red trails drip off chin and fingertips to be cleaned instictively;

quicksilver taste of sweetness and flesh and summertime, Primal.

Ask me no questions

and I'll tell you no lies, beg from me no secrets
please don't peak under my disguise,
I am hiding.

L-town

Paint me in bright colors, 

laugh in protest when I call you my lover;

I’ll taste summer sweet tea and tilt

the mug to hide a knowing smile

come and sit beside me awhile,

You’ll fall for me before long. 

The Windows in Wonderland

You kissed my hand and I fell down the rabbit hole.

this could have been avoided,

I shouldn’t have looked up as you looked down,

I thought I had deadened my need for such things.

Like a mantra, I repeat that

I can walk away from the curiouser and curiouser and

I can slip away from this 

upside-down wonderland

we created from

sensation and spare sheets and 

I can flee like a ghost when you look at me like 

my face is all the sky you’ll ever need

while under your hands white roses turn red

leaving coffee cup rings around 

my heart but then

despite all of my running and chanting

I find myself too

big for the house that I thought I was hiding in

and when my head breaks the roof

into pieces you just grin like the cat

and say

"darling, we're all mad here". 

Good morning

roll me over,
kiss me softly,
love me before
I'm awake.

Storm

I knew freedom at the top of the staircase,
Throwing myself off of wooden cliffs to collapse
into laughter in your arms. I inherited your skin
and your penchant for not showing emotion;
my first dance was on top of your scuffed shoes
across the living room carpet, faded seventies brown.
There is silver now in the little hair you have left and
I am still not used to looking into your eyes- I blinked
and suddenly I am tied by bills and distance from you.
I have never liked to smell of hospital rooms or
the sound of late night telephone calls or
the pressure of wood against my knees as I pray
and I just want to sit on your lap and hear you
imitate Monty Python for me until we both can't
breathe: Sir Robin ran away... No I didn't! 
Even though these days we're more likely
to trade band names and memories and sip Coke
from the can on winter evenings with the Game on.
I have learned to search for men with callused
palms like yours, and you have decided to pretend
they've never had them on me. In your head and
in mine I'm still the six year old with the big bug eyes
and you're still the undisputed Giant king and
after the blizzard passes you'll pull me up and
down the street in my purple sled until bedtime.

Drabbles

Today I am made of faded paper:

coffee-stained, a bit dusty, ragged along the edges.

I am tired and I am comfortable and I am fragile and it is a slightly

luxurious concept that I have even existed this long.

I must mean something to someone.

Today I am a glass of wine,

pink and cool and intoxicating

frothy and decadent and sensuous. 

Today I am home. 

Archaeology

you are settled into the folds of my skin

dust in the wrinkles of my brow, sweat 

in the crease between my breasts, earth

in the lines across my palms. you have

wrapped yourself around me like the 

potent humidity in the air that presses

on my lungs like a vice. 

you refuse to be washed away in baths

of the ink that stains my journals and 

my body is coated in you, still.

Summer Evenings

There is this place that I go to in my head when

even the walls seem to be screaming.

Where you and I are quiet and I

have your hands

counting the vertebrae 

counting the moans I make

and the scent of your skin drifts into my pores. 

Where the light is a darker shade of blue than

I have ever seen and I am free to speak

my needs at my leisure. 

Where the world goes soft and quiet;

dim but not yet dark; the eveningtide

of cumuli clad in blush and indigo

and not much else; the indecent hour

chimes in with the muffliato of musculature

and the patterned click of settling bones.

Bikes have been haphazardly tossed like iron

confetti across the lawn where two lovers take

a stroll to confess a day’s worth of sin and sainthood.

It’s like I wished for you. 

Beached

I want the ocean as my lover.
Licking at my toes, foaming at the
mouth in demand for me,
more, more, more than just my calves,
more than just wading, more than just
waist deep
more than just halfway
dive in and don't look back
filling all that I am with all that surrounds
me in the backbeat of need
and seawater.

Insomniatic thoughts

There are secrets we confess only to the marrow of our bones;
Secrets we keep locked within the cells of our bloodstream;
Secrets so deep within us, they become us,
You are beautiful and shallow and unbroken.
I will not ask you to fall in love with me.
They become us- our bones, our ashes, our dust-
Like beggars and thieves and Ophelia,
We drown in the depths of pools of our own making;
You are sunny and devoted and untainted.
I will not ask you to dive in with me.
Wise diviners shall know our sin by
The taste of the corn raised above our graves. 
I will not ask, then, to be remembered.

Dormire

Now I lay my body down
and watch my soul depart
though I feel my chest stuttering
the experts swear it's a healthy heart.
Now I lay me down to sleep
all of your secrets I swear to keep
though they may be innumerable,
like childhood counting sheep.
Now I pass from dusk to dawn
arisen with a midday yawn
at midnight, where time is lost
When you said "I love you" and I forgot
there is a cost
attached to pretty words.
Now I lay you down again
for Memory, that witch,
counts no friends
among the living,
And what I have known
And what I have seen
Is not fit content for happy dreams.

Maoyi

Predictable, tell me something sweet
lie to me for body heat as you
try and cheat me in our bartering exchange
of unspoken words and caressing glances-more of the same
old same old I left you to forget:
Your job, not mine (to move on) so why haven't you yet?
Let's trade in friction, you say and I know
this isn't what I should get into or where I should go
or even anything I would admit to
But a kiss on my cheek and you know that I'll submit
to words like "beautiful, wonderful"
that end up being incarnations of cheap champagne
I get the point, but anyone can tell it's not the real thing.

Still don't know what love means

There are wolves at my throat.
I feel my veins throb between their jaws,
I have heard Death's whisper in the
damp breath that caresses my nape.
A grove of shadows has grown and
I keep thinking that if I keep silent and
still they'll release me.
Just don't cry dear, it's unbecoming.
This is not the first time I've tasted saltwater.
When I ask for sunshine,
I always give me rain.
Even though
I have heard that
the worst part about drowning
is how everyone thinks
you're just waving to the shore

Observation

We have learned to love with our hearts half open.
To drink our wine with mouths half-asleep.
To speak with tongues half-dead;
This is polite.
We move in a language that does not belong to us.
We are ghosts to our once-beloveds.
A certain brand of ennui has become a la mode.
We are cynics of the worst kind,
for we are bitter without having ever been sweet;
we are old without having ever been young. 

Contemplations on a candle

Burn and slide, jump and flicker-

casting shadows in transitory paint;

It's all vanilla and dreamland,

Heavy intakes and whispered sighs,

And the most elusive of secrets, like

Your reflection in his eyes.

Cold and curious hands dip

into molten wax-

drip and thicken

even the coating,

relax. 

He's holding something fragile,

though I doubt you'll let him know

It's glass, and soot, and ashes

memories of the flames before,

and while dangerous,

still vulnerable,

to easy extinction at the core. 

For Now:

Somehow I've found myself tangled
Up in knots around pages of poetry
I could've sworn I'd forgotten
Long ago in the dorm rooms of boys
Who wouldn't know prose from pea soup.
Why did I let you in, anyway?
Pulled back the cardboard door to my insides
and there they lay, coherently shattered,
the little lost lines that prove, to me, at least,
that yes- I am alive and yes- I do bleed.
Even if it's only in black ink.
It was never for me to speak aloud:
I cannot exist in your world of sound-
I am so broken I make sense only in
Random pieces I hide in back of notebooks
Intended for worthier things.
When I said I was a poet, what did you have in mind, anyway?
I exist, I rise, I exist, I subside,
My emotions in the hands of a tempestuous moon-
They batter the core of me.
I did not lie when I said there was too
much: to pull down these walls would be to drown you.
When you said you cared, did you mean it?

WE = YOU + ME... + HER

Drive me up, drive me down, swear that it's not a dream.
Flashing lights and sounds across the omnipotent screen-
Just dive in and pull away
I seem to have forgotten what I wanted to say;
It's a little like madness, and maybe more:
I hate how you sharpen your claws on the score
of stains across my sleeves.
It's not my fault my heart won't leave
And go (where it's safe) back under my skin-
It's the same sick obsession balloons have with pins.
I'm lying, of course, face down in the sun
Inevitable, circular, "we-are-all-one"
Except when he tells me I don't matter anymore.
How do I separate the waves from the shore?
Except to haul each back, one by one,
It's hard to wait and be battered when you'd rather just run
Alone, alone, down the winding stair-
Haunted by whispers of "oh no, I care"
Flashing lights and sounds across the omnipotent screen-
I'm praying, suffocating, swear to me it's just a dream.

Songs with No Titles...

That was a false alarm, I'm swearing it.
But, for a second, my heart started again
And you can call me out on my second-guessing,
But I felt vibrations under my skin.
                    We can figure out the format later
                     Just don't let me leave tonight
                    I've been walking in the rain too long-
                     Use those hands, show me the light.
Forgive me for asking, I don't think I'm ready
I'm backpedalling but dead things have trouble with faith:
I caught myself wondering when the holes in your jeans appeared
But then you drown me in sound until I forget to be safe.
                    This'll guarantee some trouble sleeping
                     I'll confess I've been dodging my dreams,
                    But that's the trade-off, I suppose, for
                     discovering you have words to sing.
That was a false alarm, I'm swearing it,
Dead things can't start over again
But don't believe me when I say I don't believe it because
I still feel vibrations under my skin...

Mamihlapinatapai

Bite. Your. Lips.
When you say things you don't mean to me.
Liars with borrowed skin run
their hands all over mine- Please
don't blame me for their covetousness.
I pour my soul out in confession:
There are things I should have wanted,
should have spoken, should have run from-
Excuse me while I suffocate.
It's just that it's me, and you, and
There's all of this Air surrounding us
Stuffing itself into my lungs
making me stutter and blush and think:
There are places of you I'd like to memorize. 
Like the curve of your smile
Or the planes of your chest
Or the shape of you when you hug me.
I'd say I don't want you but I'd choke on it.

Eternity

Today is Sunday, and so the boat
the little blue one, whose paint
started chipping long ago-
pushes off from the rickety pier
to rest, as always,
In the middle of the lake.
And the man in the boat
doesn't know his age
And each second robs him
of an image, maybe a dream
but he doesn't mind.
Without the woman
they're just pages and pages
of empty memory.
Like the body he buried today
Gnarled hands around her waist
Red roses and daisies
On their very first date
Soda pop syrup
And, as always,
That first passionate embrace
The one where he learned
exactly how her mouth tastes
-like sugar cookies, and soap.
And he wonders
If these things sink
or surround him
If the little blue boat-
the one whose paint
started chipping long ago
is buoyed by memories
Because, after all,
The boat is called Hope
The same as when
his hands held his hat
and the ground held his knee
and a ring burned his pocket.
Such monumentous, trivial things
That build a life.
And end one
-like the rhythm of an old heart
in the chest he knew so well-
And the old man closes his hands
over his own traitorous beat
that refused to stop when hers did
and he sighs off to sleep.
Because today is sunday, and there are different ways to be buried