THE October, 2024 30/30 PROJECT PAGE

Welcome to the 30/30 Project, an extraordinary challenge and fundraiser for Tupelo Press, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) literary press. Each month, volunteer poets run the equivalent of a “poetry marathon,” writing 30 poems in 30 days, while the rest of us “sponsor” and encourage them every step of the way.

The volunteer poets for October are: David Burrows, Miriam Calleja, Cathy Ferrell, Dralandra Larkins, Clyde Long,  Taylor Mallay, Cecille Marcato, Lizzy Polishan, Khamil Riley, and Gordon Taylor

If you would like to join our alumni group of over 1,000 poets, apply here!

Day 13 / Poem 13

I call, a bird in spring
on the wind
day after day
till my voice cracks

Is this the wrong note
to play the chord
of your ruby breast,
beloved?

The stone floor glows
from me on my knees
with a scrub brush

Pachouli burns
in the bedroom
the scent of cinnamon
rolls fill the kitchen
roses swell from vases

still no glimpse 
of the one
for whom I carry
this song

I am mousespeak
sugarspit
I am ragedissolved
the aftermath
I’ve rolled down a hill
unarmed
I am gritteeth
tonguetight
balanceworn

I fight breakspeed
cementstop
chew it with my glass tongue

I discoball my sight
into feetdissolve
I am far
I am made of only head

I walk                         through                the mall       with           my friend

“Your fingers”                       she says                  “are purple”

My head                     the ceiling           My chin

Lowers

             look                             through              microscope

My       tiny             friend

My       tiny             hands                    f             l             o            a              t

the ends of           my arms                 Where               are           my toes?

Invisible anchor                         belly                       heavy floor

All I can see            a blur a buzz                             my cheeks     numb ringing


I do not even try to                                                                                                           keep it together.

Weatherman called for sun, not rain.
By surprise today we got rain.

My freshly detailed car is spotted —
weather guy has lots to explain.

Two dogs ran through the mud playing;
here inside their mess is insane.

Surprised seeds will begin to sprout,
Fall leaves blushing red to be seen.

Tomorrow’s weather will be sunny,
who knows if puddles will remain?

My guess is as good as anyone’s –
don’t trust the weatherman or Clyde.

I began to plot you
convex to concave
& back again
& back again.

Above your own tangent 
you were green & below 
blue; red 
at the inflection point
when we called in specialists.


They made a new graph
with you as the asymptote,
me as the curve.  Our distances 
approached zero, but our points 
never converged 
& this attempt, while never 
hopeful, seemed accurate.

I was waiting for you to get married so I could get married next        The line to get married was very long and in the McDonald’s drive-through       Up ahead a teenager in a red visor hung out of Order Window #2      She smiled and waved       We smiled and waved        Many cars idled between us       It was 3 AM        I was driving  and you were unwrapping your presents      Everything felt pink and looked like cake      Your dress was black velvet to the floor                 I touched my hair, which was hard and smelled like Garnier Fructis         My hair pricked my fingers      Where did you get that tiara you said         It must have been the Happy Meal Toy       I was being crushed under the weight of my enormous white dress      I felt like I was trapped inside a bell        I feel like I’m trapped inside a bell I said           The mascara that ran down your cheeks dripped on the gifts in your lap             I reached inside the tissue-box and pulled out a cream-colored rose       You said when we drive past the coffin drop that on her head

Wait wait, wait,

 

My restless legs only know run. 

 

Bound by elastic,
they’re expanding enough 
to just not make it. 

I am being told to wait. 

To sit and let
the universe do its work.
Which is something much harder
Than it seems. 

It’s another day gone by
not being where you want to be. 

Means knowing it’s out there 
with a price to pay 
and still being told you have to stay. 

Scaling the walls of 
this tunnel or abyss 
I am clawing my way out 

with bloodied fingertips.

 Skinned thighs, 

am shedding pieces 
of myself along the walls
and they will still be here 
as I move on.

I’ll grow new skin, and 
learn to think it refreshing. 
Let my new body 
seep and tie its knots.
As I grow, each tug of these strings
Draws fresh breath into my lungs. 

I am breathing. 
Breathing. 

And waiting.

For something
still yet unseen.

sunrise is the inside
of my hard boiled egg
 
matte white and yellow
the pale grey yolk edge
 
is the curved horizon
this morning a fold
 
of sheep matches baskets of apples
my crimson autumn
 
cable knit sweater and cream
merino wool slacks
 
I fell asleep alone
in this dormant orchard
 
under a tree picked bald
had a dream with a soundtrack
 
composed in an earlier dream
like a carried voice
 
sorry as a cold iron next
to a wrinkle-free polyester button down
 
tragic as locks with caretakers that lost
the codes or a body
 
without a mind
I thought could heal
 
if i forgot loneliness
if i found the word for air again
 
~
 
so this is my arc
i will learn
 
to love myself before I die
imagine a baby in a history
 
of babies discovering
their own toes
 
what a wonder!
what do these do?
 
someone change my diaper
feed me applesauce god
 
damnit what is god
a woman i know
 
said i don’t know
what your poems mean
 
nor do i
join the try to make sense club
 
~
 
and by butterfly my father
meant his fluttering heart
 
as he began forgetting songs
departing for a nameless heaven
 
and by butterfly he meant
one had flown into the kitchen
 
where he picked it up by the wings
when he let go
 
it fell dead to the tile
his hands dusted with orange
 
his mouth agape
do we kill what we mean to save
 
when i’m reincarnated
i’ll return smaller and less
 
vain a sparrow
landed on the tongue
 
of my shoe and looked up at me
i didn’t move
 
until her search was through
remember almost everything
 
is not human
personfication is rude

Day 12 / Poem 12

nearer my dog to me, nearer to me

your tail wags merrily, nearer to me
nearer my dog to me, your kisses raise me
nearer my dog to me, nearer to me
 
I needn’t walk alone, you’re at me side
wherever I may roam, together we stride
nearer my dog to me
your kisses comfort me
nearer my dog to me, nearer to me
 
you bring your toys to fetch
time and again 
and when my spirit’s low
make my heart to glow
nearer…
 
and when the path grows dim 
you shine a light
to guide and heal me
through the dark night
nearer my dog to me
your kisses comfort me
nearer my…
 
your smile brings joy to me
day after day
you love me faithfully
unconditionally
nearer my dog…
 
you greet me every morn
bright as the sun
you are my ever friend, we are one
nearer my dog to me…
 
whene’er my journey’s done
and I lie down, you’ll lay beside me
as I seek life’s crown
across the rainbow bridge
we shall walk again
there in the happy land, nearer to me

After Women who lie by Cathy Ferrell

She receives a trophy and sparkling accolades for her socialized performances. Glitzy glamor in her heels silver-golden that rub, crack. Blisters on an exhausted line. She whips out her people-pleaser, only slightly bruising herself, only slightly scarring herself for life. The make up is wiped in one smooth movement, but somehow, the traces she leaves multiply during the night and don’t you know, waterproof doesn’t mean it can withstand everything she’s internalized. She’s a winner, a keeper, a go-getter, but she’d rather go to sleep. Tonight, for the grand prize, she has learned an entire speech. It is her night off, after all. Her lipstick is askew, her foundation a shade darker. As she walks up to collect this latest symbol of praise, her teeth rattle against the mic. One eyeball pops out. Her left breast becomes unhinged. There is an audible gasp as her lunch repeats on her straight into the front row, amplified. She laughs and it comes out a snort. Then she snorts and snorts and can’t stop herself from laughing, dropping the mic as she shakes. Then, in the last moment, as she leaves the stage, her catsuit gets caught in gaffer tape. Like a matador’s muleta in the final third of a bullfight, she is suddenly in the way of death. Standing tall, in granny panties, everyone can see the first genuine smile of her career. 

The crowd goes wild.

(inspired by Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, with a line from Miriam Calleja Shaw’s the ophthalmologist)

Peel away your old tight skin
and leave it where it falls.
Expose the underneath
It is fresh, raw
Alive Alive Alive

Listen! The wind:
There has been an explicable change

Size up, unashamed.
You are a modern-day Venus.
Unroll the belly.
The dressing room is your scallop.

It’s been hard not to miss you and want to kiss you
even when you leave, I can still feel you
smell you,
Mahogany Breeze, there’s so many things I wish to tell youLike When u kiss me
doubts of darkness began to fade
quicklytriggered by your kisses you plant them
gently
On palms and cheeks
legs wrapped tightly around your waist
Our bodies create
Sacred Geometry

Seems like an answer
not a question, more like a
thought that maybe the dusty
Napa River won’t need to
handle winter storms this year:
A dry October’s fear.

Hopes are for a December
baptismal storm cleansing
dry riverbeds with fresh flows
all into a chorus of roars,
currents deep dark and cold;
a river reborn dangerous.

Baptism arrives early January.
Deluges revive her cold dangers.
Bystanders peer warily over
the eroded river banks. Her moon
and planet cousins above jeer,
“careful now, we told you so”.

T____, I think I am beginning to understand your choice.  
Last spring my cat died & I had to move.
These two events were unrelated.  Or maybe not.  
A sympathetic friend, an astrologer, warned me 
that I would have to reckon with, as she put it, my material culture.  
Did I lose you by mentioning her profession? 
While begging pardon I remind that before your religion evolved
the Tetrabiblos enjoyed a long season. 
Maybe he, Ptolemy, as an early, influential music theorist 
teases your interest or (dare I say?) garners your respect.  
There is room, surely, for us all.

Maybe choice is not the right word.  
Something involuntary like a heartbeat or a secular cosmic force 
like gravity – yes, that strong – moved you.  

A numinous voice that speaks directly to a human heart
bypassing the little factory that is our brain; 
not bothering with ears &, in your case, circumventing 
those gifted hands that might have argued their case 
solely by being lifted to the keys of your Pleyel.  

You would call it God, this whispering force.  I mean that as a question.  
You would say (&, again, pardon an assumption)
that He is not the thought behind the music or a conductor 
of hands on keys but is, in fact, Himself the music.  

A congregation of starlings moves in time 
with Mozart’s piano concerto No. 21 in C Major, 
the whole of it without hearing a note.  
This I observed first-hand.
Who is behind such an event? I might ask. 
I envy you your belief.  
Your simple desk with its three books.  
Your heatless hut.  
My path is strewn with topographic maps, 
family photographs & those of people I don’t even know;
blocked by boxes of books on – name the subject. 
Inheritance.  Shackles.  I understand this. 
I am moving toward you, T____,
with so little time to arrive at your door.   

Bleeding seedling. 
Sick sonic. 
Ten toes touch down.  
Sick Sam, Sam slick
and lick the back 
of my kneecaps. He’ll
tell me I taste lovely, 
Like my grandmother before me. 

Sick screaming at Cynic Sam,
“Take me to the clinic!”
Sick Sam says he’d die before
He’d ever touch me

Safe to say Slick Sam Sank
He fell stiff
Sold his soul for a dance
With mortality
I’d say we ladies 

are all glad he’s dead. 

Palindrome girl, let me write the soundtrack for the afternoon
you were named, sweet

infinity. The wind hummed carry on
over crackling cries of grounded maple

leaves, a storm’s carrion, voices carrying. A poet said
start in the middle. Beginning and ending—

the most difficult. I can’t remember
how fearlessnes feels. A glass

bangle can crack. A lung can turn
grey. My oncologist said immune systems

never forget. Cancer—a quiver
of questions. Where have you been?

When will you go? How
will you look? I have nothing

to teach, but your eyes in the baptismal
photo are clear of accumulation—

your face, backward due to refractions of light
bouncing from origin to reflection. Anna—

even your name—the same
from back to front— will change

shape like a shadow growing
long as morning shifts into noon.

Day 11 / Poem 11

he smiled right to me
said hi
warmed me
which on the metro
was very unusual
for anyone not to be
stonefaced
or into their phone
or inscrutable
me, him, the lady 
next to me
formed a circle
of care
gazed twinkling
at his two year old
daughter
listening to her babble
in her stroller
on the green line
to Greenbelt
he was slight of build
simply dressed
with brown red
dreadlocks
and freckles

there with a brood
of four children
we all communed 
from Navy Yard
to Columbine Heights
the kids telling us
their ages
each in turn
four, two,
eight, six

we stood to exit
waiting for 
the grey doors
to open
I motioned for him
and his family
to go first
before me
he surprised
me again
filling me up
with a fist bump
and a “be safe”
a goodbye
I hadn’t heard before
till the next night
from a bartender
at the Purple Patch
who said it again
a mantra of the city

spies on my little eye
after I’d insisted something’s wrong
I just don’t have the vocabulary for what’s missing
He negates as he is accustomed to do
with women. There has been an explicable
change and what’s to come
will draw a line before and after
my insistence echoes familiar
I’m afraid it is bad news

He says this as though I hadn’t said, hadn’t known, hadn’t thought of it myself.

the dictum delivered – a stitch in time – saves nine ———
the wisdom of knowing gains a voice
I go to my mother to cry
afraid to sneeze afraid
of the actual stitch

To be negated is to feel

            a tingle in the fingertips
            a splotch of red on the cheek, then leech

Colorless

            the billow of a shroud whooshed white and high
            a settling of dust on the crown of the head
            a stuffing of the mouth with cotton
            a throat choked on its own saliva

Swallowed words 

Glazed eyes

Best Actress

They say: Be good, be quiet. Nod. Always, always admit to their mistakes. Look down, because

pupils cannot lie when they dilate wide.
Ours can shape galaxies
hungry enough to eat their egos whole.

U been giving out parts of your hearts that were always meant to be yours
U been feeling incomplete forcing yourself in locked doors
You ought to let go and god take the wheel
And i know it aint easy but just sit back and see whats reveal
See how your healed
See how God shows u how whats fake and whats real
From the inside out
Sometimes u got to stop to take a good look to know what ur really about
U cant keep running from your fears
You can keep seeking validation from your peers
And be surprised when inauthenticity appears
Its time to face your flaws.
Its time to go out and face it all

Ours is a tidy old house
full of shedding pets
who lavish fur and love.

Ours is not a lonely house
yet harbors years of losses
always with their weight.

It’s a busy house filled with
many dreams and needs,
assuming many more years.

Windows filter light through
old glass window panes,
frames giving loose hugs.

Its vintage voice asks us,
“how long will you live here,
you mere doomed humans?”

We are blissfully defiant,
we repair and exercise
answering certain doom.

& now your voice, rich, deep – a hint of gravel
an embrace like smoke, blue & grey, wafting;
one stone in a cairn assembled from scree
a guide for Memory on her to-&-fro way 

an embrace like smoke, blue & grey, wafting
the scent of civet from apothecary jars
musk guide for Memory on her to-&-fro way
shards of a dream or fully formed in the room.

The scent of civet from pharmacy jars
saved for years, olfactory time machine
a shard, a dream, or fully formed in the room
blocking the trail to high Delicate Arch.

Saved for years, olfactory time machine
to be opened at will but not without risk;
blocking my trail to the high, delicate arch:
my cairns more elusive, the longer the hike.

To be turned at will but not without risk
one stone in a cairn assembled from scree;
the longer I live, the more hidden my cairns
but now your voice – deep & rich, a hint of gravel.

The1 black2 cat3 was4 chasing5 her6 shadow7 down8 the9 hall10.


1Suppose this is the first time you are seeing the cat.
2Suppose the cat is white.
3Suppose the cat* is not a cat.
4Suppose that before she was not a cat, the cat did begin chasing her shadow.
5If the chasing that started when she was a cat continues and she is not a cat, is the chasing still
going on?
6As the cat transforms, does the shadow transforming on the threadbare rug continue belonging
to her?
7Suppose she is able to catch the shadow.
8Suppose she is pinning it down.
9Do you know who owns this hallway, if you have forgotten all your French and can’t remember
any part of her name?
10Actually, the hallway goes on forever, but only in one direction.

*Suppose the cat is a pygmy hippo / a beam of moonlight / the possibility of a cat / a
shadow running down a hall

I am not cut out for this life
so full of sorrow and goodbye.
I prayed this lemon sweeter
Than I knew it could be,
then still felt threatened by the rapture. 
I’ll take matters into my own hands
killing myself with every breath I don’t take
And every drink that I do.
And oh, 
I do
Take this bottle, to have and to hold
Until death or new dreams drive us apart. 
Somewhere, my body screams
in objection, but I haven’t got the heart yet
to unfold that there will be no better 
That comes from this union.
Only a journey half-ass embarked upon
Where we, my body and me,
Begin spiraling. 
Deeper into a darker abyss
Who knows if it gets any better than this…

The argument was wood
stain for bedside tables.
I’ve given myself away
 
to you. That’s love
you argued. I left
the hardware store, powered
 
through thick, oatmeal air
Linden ammonia scent
blooming in Ramsden Park.
 
You drove back to find me
sweating on our front steps.
I forgot my key.
 
~                 
 
I  never spoke
of the familiar stranger
who skinned my boyhood
 
body, making love impossible
to believe. In our bedroom
next to the cracked marble fireplace
 
I whispered my hunger
for waves cresting on packed sand
under a rotting pier
 
for a stranger’s fresh musk
in my beard, the wet
of his legs.
 
~                 
 
To know a landscape
you must know yourself
you said, quoting a yogi.
 
Suddenly, we weren’t in love.
We split plastic from paper
sorted salad scraps
 
for compost, wheeled
thundering garbage bins to curb.
I shaved my head, groomed
 
a man I’d want. Antonyms
fell from my scalp.
You tried to wipe the sun
 
smear from the top
of our walnut cabinet.
Just a patch of noon.
 
~                 
 
Nature never needs fury
to rearrange us.
We livestream the morning
 
aftermath of a hurricane.
A grandfather confused
by his own neighborhood—
 
betrayed by tide, was swept
to sea with his wisdom
as he wandered
 
in the sideways rain.
A turquoise house perched
on a cliff’s edge that withstood
 
the sea’s temper for decades
crashed onto a teacup rock.
An echo of gold light
 
stuttered from your iris
to puddle, an inflection point
on our gleaming
 
driveway blocked
by the corpse
of an uprooted tree.       

Day 10 / Poem 10

I heard you as a boy on TV

the show Kung Fu
a bamboo flute
slow and meandering 
like a stream
by a Shaolin monk
and my edges redefined
my body was your body
the sound was me
 
and when I pressed my lips
to your opening 
it was religious
a link back to the ocean
I played and the children
followed us home

After a line by Cathy Ferrell

Time is sand that slips between fingers.
Parched, it doesn’t stick,
never hangs around.

They are lucky to have us, you know

Even though they don’t pick up hints
aren’t nudged by nudges

facta non verba, we stir fragrant food

embroider specific joy
onto the inside of as many smiles as we can

and when the needle stings
we beg for more.

(a response to Miriam Calleja Shaw’s On the shore)

What is a spectacle but
a lens? Look at us,

daring to
inhabit our own

space. They are lucky
to have us, you know.

Lucky to know our tame
and unruly.

Days roll in and out.
The sea swells like 

our bellies. Mine spills
over swimsuit bottoms. One day

I will peel the whole thing off and run
into frigid water, 

whooping 
bare as joy.

 

This morning, 
I cried at work. 
Waves of exhaustion 
Hit me like a hurricane.
Clear liquid drown my
Keyboard. I was underpaid.  
It was the first time 
I felt like my ancestors.
Shacked by the wrist 
in chains of capitalism.
Trapped in a White man’s 
cage of patriarchy. 

I left.
It was the first time 
I met slavery;
kicked its guts with my
own fist of freedom!
Signed the certificate with divine blind faith
Took the underground to tranquility in a bliss
Of fields under the sun.

Importantly
It was the first time 
I learned 
the significance
of saving cotton.

 

Orange emeralds

A patient under the hands of a
physical therapist this afternoon –
I heard about Humboldt weed

and Thailand’s orange emeralds
and stood before tall mirrors,
upright straight like a soldier
at attention without salutes
or verbal abuse. Neck was next.

Chili and fries

A room full of chairs greets me.
I pluck a not-Covid pen to sign in.
Short time to wait with my phone.
They lead me to a surgery room.

Laid down with a pillow and blanket.
Lovely doctor with confident cheer.
She eyes me like an insect specimen
then pokes and cuts and stanches.

An hour later I am free to leave,
in a week or so to be good as new.
I flee to a lunch of chili and fries;
same day beer is verboten.

First day.  The teacher says 
no poems about love, no exceptions.
A student reads,
the teacher shut him down.  
That’s a love poem.  Next.
What about grief, I ask?  Grief, too,
he says. Grief is an abstraction.  
No, I say, it’s open window with organdy 
curtains flapping through; I say,
forty days in the desert 
not even a mirage not even
a palm tree; X-ray blanket 
at the dentist’s – unwieldy & hot 
& carried around for the rest
of your life as in forever.
I say, it’s a subdural hematoma;
or a sudden drop in altitude,
your heart left aloft, the rest of you 
falling. It is sitting with your hands 
folded smelling rosemary & smiling
until you remember he is 
not coming back; it is forcing your lungs
to expand & contract
for air too thick to swallow.  
It’s grey. It’s beige.

1The moon, who wears
hands like hospital
gloves, parts the green
reeds to find the green
seashell. 2The Moon
Would Now Like to Reel
in A Real Fish:
 3The Light
Will Settle for Birdsong
on an Infinite B-Side
Loop 
4The seashell
is a clamshell & asleep.
5Maybe a few feathers
from another century
appear. 6Maybe a cello
-phane butterfly lands
on an exhausted net:
forgotten among the bewildered
reeds, half-submerged in
the purple water, fraying
under a labyrinth of gnats.
7Under the algae, a smell
rises from the depths. Blue
flute music in the key of B
flat…  8The night is,
young enough to swallow.
9A curtain of hummingbirds opens
& a wedge of moonlight
is glazing the green water.
10The green clamshell sleeps
among the green reeds in
the tattoo on your left ankle.

Hunger never leaves the belly for long.

Only masks it in thin acid lining,

making waste of everything it touches.

I’m saying I never learned

to make space for satisfaction.

Only incessant need 

to fill my stomach

with something not quite there already. 

Sometimes it feels like loneliness,

others like a body begging to meet

death by way of a steady fire

so as to finally bring meaning to this

Gasoline pit of a liver.

Of a body.

As the flames consume me,

I am reminded of when my mother said

to win in someone else’s game

is to lose in one’s own

So there is no glory in falling short here

In calling it quits

With a hunger,

I come crawling back

This time for life

I’ll claw my way back for 7 feet under

I learned to disappear
as a teenager, jumped
from a rowboat
changed my mind about dying
and started toward a shore I could see but not reach
pausing to rest every few minutes, breathing
out into waves, legs peddling
under clear blue.
 
As a boy I dreamed in every new room
mama dragged me to, on a bed
of coats at a grown-up’s party, in the grass
under a lawn chair, locked out of the house
in a rainstorm, and while dressed in red pajamas
at the drive-in, lying on the vinyl back seat
of a long finned Chrysler
lulled by static from the tin movie speaker.
 
Mama named me after her favorite uncle.
When she was a girl, he walked her to seaside
whenever gran wanted her gone.
A late twenties “bachelor”,
he fed her chocolate ice cream, slipped
sand dollars into her pockets
explained the beach
was remnant of an ancient mountain range.
 
A chemistry lesson. A body’s musk
tinges a favorite suit at a funeral
long beyond a fatal mistake
or the quick stroke of a name.
I was six when mama’s uncle
vanished, cause of death, a secret. Each morning
she walked me to the water and taught me to swim
her hand resting on my belly as I kicked.
 
She smiled in her floral bikini and pink bathing cap
splash-splattered, tinted cat glasses
hiding bloodshot eyes.
I paddled in the shallows when she let go of my arms.
She waited in the dunes, holding open
a leopard print terry towel until I returned
running to her from the freezing waves
across miles of sun burned sand
shivering— drenched and alive.

Day 9 / Poem 9

humming as a boy

every time I wore them
the pants with purple and grey stripes
the ones dad wanted to make sure
I really wanted
before buying them
 
waiting for whenever they make it 
back out of the wash
to take their turn on the bathroom railings
in the rotation of shower towels
one a pink purple
the color of mulberry jam
the other a deep purple
of Chinese violets
 
pausing daily on the way to work
to take them in
the purple shades
of the concrete walls
of Don Juan restaurant
on Mt Pleasant St

After Cathy Ferrell’s Women who wade

I sit with thighs wide,
body splayed,
pearls s p (l) i t t i n g down my chin.

I am tired but must go on.

Not ladylike!

The crowds rush to seagull.
And I, widening,

             taking up space,

no longer hide the spectacle.

A world that gets my best
must swallow every part of me,
every extra inch of word, unruly hair,
every thought that’s tight or loose.

A world that gets my best
must swallow my scream
                                     my  e v e r y  scream

We walk far enough that
the water should cool, but the burn is 
inside. Why have we pinned our lips? 
Lower to upper, they seal
tighter than the seam of
an oyster’s shell.
Our silent steam cannot 
escape. If it did, 
the world would boil.
Small waves foam around 
our thighs, circle our hips, curl into 
our navels. You point out 
an unspent sand dollar.
We breathe wide above the waterline,
backs to shore,
spit out pearls.

How toxic is it for a society 
to proclaim color determines
your sexuality.
Pink is the color of love and happiness.
I don’t find that to be sexually anonymous.
As if pink were for punks-
Pink for p***
Purple for the the boy who doesn’t find 
breaking a womans heart as entertainment 
In my culture, 
real men can’t get caught with glitter only blood.
Theyre taught that red is for warriors 

and not for love.
I couldn’t imagine, possibly fathom
That the world we live is a corporation.
some agencies can’t approve of your sexual preference
Yet local news acknowledge 
That queer Black boys 
exude sexual aggression.
They look over the rainbow
and forget about Black.
Did you know that 1 and 3 queer people want to die?
Did you know that 1 and 3 queer people will lose their lives ?
It isn’t pride it’s problematic.
Queer pride is celebrated through parade
And celebrating love is damn gay!

 
 

My first night in Maui after a long
flight across four time zones.
One of my favorite places, no matter
a little jet lag on the first night.
My cure is rum on the back lanai,
Hibiscus blooms surrounding me.

Above I heard sudden flutters
and saw its night time authors –
once a myna bird couple,
twice a yellow billed cattle egret.
Clucking and fussing below,
a Hawaiian chicken family.

A midnight fingernail moon
rose over the ocean’s lullaby,
punctuated by Reggae beats
from my insomniac lanai birds.
All I imagined was rest upon
their feathers, soft as a pillow.

We perched by the window
watching the rain disappear in fog. 
When the storm passed, 
we walked to the park together.
The grass shimmered.
Above us, wide oaks
spread their branches in protection,
their leaves shedding cool drops
on our shoulders, our mouths. 
I offered my hand and you held it. 
Somewhere in the distance—
the flutter of wings.

Haiku  |   i 

Cat still life with stuff
My basket my table mine.
Rescue settles in.

Haiku  |   ii

Modern medicine –
ah, propofol: sudden sleep.
Robot goes to work.

You are an astronaut :: You’ve been going home for a very long time :: It is dark & you are hitting every red light :: The highway is made of clear glass & the supermarket didn’t even have the kind of ice cream you like, which is Cherry Garcia :: A crystal spider dangles from your rearview mirror :: On the side of the highway there is a jungle gym & thirteen kids are pretending to be pirates in the dark :: The identical triplet girls climb on the tops of the slides :: The turtle-faced boy gets stuck inside the cold blue spiral & yells somebody help! :: You’re zooming :: You shift your foot but can’t hit the next light :: A deer is catching up to you & you don’t even have your insurance information :: On the passenger’s seat, you have three cucumbers, which you are going to make into soup

I write as a marker
that this black woman existed
in time and her existence
brought life into this world. 
She breathed it into her poetry
and sang it aloud in her song. 
I write so the archivist and the children 
alike remember who really 
set the pace
And set the tone 
Don’t want no history made up
On white and unknowing tongues
About me
And what it meant to live and breathe
As the key 
To this society’s being

Imagine with me, the night
before my father died. I slept twelve hours
nearly dreamless in the guest suite. Just before I woke
I dreamed he changed
my name to his, with one variation. My middle
name remained The.
 
Imagine with me, a woman running
through the hospital lobby, the day my father
died, screaming
her hair was on fire. But her hair wasn’t on fire.
It was a metaphor the security guard refused
to entertain as he escorted her outside.
 
Imagine swapping the word recovery
with un-learning. When I was a closeted teen
I escaped to soap operas. In season six
of Knot’s Landing, Valene Ewing
had a nervous breakdown characterized
by temporary amnesia. Heaven.
 
She left her life behind
and became a waitress. I dreamed
I became a waitress and fell in love
with a man who lived on a cul de sac.
We huddled together after a tree fell
on our house in a storm. True
 
romance. Imagine joy
battling productivity. The pile of autumn
maple leaves gathered in an attempt to tidy
nature. The dog leaping head first
into the crimson gold, spring
trampolining from winter.
 
Imagine bouquets of lilies
of the valley with calming hints of lemon
almond and jasmine. Don’t eat the flowers
because they are poison
like the latency of all gifts, or the snake
oozing in the wet grass like paste from a tube.
 
Ask with me, if family or love evolves
from time and proximity, from a story
we weave as we talk to death
a god. In the late afternoon
sun, my dog and me have long shadow
matchstick legs. We belong together.
 
Without the Wizard of Oz
I can’t imagine cycling to the hospital
accompanied by the Wicked Witch of the West’s
sinister theme, and a stolen Toto in my basket.
Swirling hungry seagulls above
army of winged sock monkeys. Duck!
 
Without me, I’m nothing. Without my vocabulary
I’m a receding icefield. Without the moon
stabbing the lake. there is no white cold blade.
Without a duck that walks like a duck
and speaks an unnamed duck language.
Without duck, no artificial duck intelligence.
 
Without my father, I am not a son.
I am not a story teller
without my tale. Without beginning
there is no conclusion, no grief, no
memory. No mirror
without metaphor. No self. 

Day 8 / Poem 8

here the breeze improvises
pulling the leaves, the branches
the symphony rises and falls
punctuated with the talk
of chickadees, robins, 
jays and squirrels 
footsteps approach and recede
the solar rays warm my ears
something’s ever new
I might pick up the smell
or jingle, the trot or yap
of another dog
so you see that’s why 
I jump up on the bench
to sit, invite you to the same
why I plant my butt on your lap
and patrol every scent 
or step of a two or four legged
every drop of sunlight
millions of them caress me
touch by touch
every moment of time
I’m telling you
it’s awesome!
the arrival of every chirp or bip
thwack or tap
buzz of a bicycle wheel
any bug that slithers
truck that rumbles
here I’m alive and so are you
that’s why I turn to you 
and lick your nose 
thankful for you
for this life

After Cathy Ferrell’s Women who wake

How can I speak
if speaking will untether
your image of how I should be?
And, in choking down sand,
how will the sand dollars fare?
And, will I use them
to shipwreck my way
backward, paying for silence?
And silence, how much
will that cost?

(with lines from Diane Seuss’ Threnody and Miriam Calleja Shaw’s There is no weakness; with inspiration from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening)

Edna Pontellier stepped into
an unabridged salt green sea.
Did she open her mouth there
on the sand? Did she try to shout?
They did not hear. Instead,
naked

silence in its entirety. Tongues bear the after
taste of grief. Our mouths are chock
full of it. So full
our cheeks bulge. Most of the time,
we choke
it down. Edna, did it stick

in your throat, too?
Breathing keeps us
buoyant. We float,
chest rising and resting in
the little sigh of coming to
surface, seaweed and hair clutched in our fists.

Empathy had me feeling empty. I poured reciprocity

into the cups of others and starved myself of sweet generosity.

Forgot to dust myself from despair. Stressed about everyone’s problems caused me to overthink and create scenarios in my head that weren’t there. So, I picked myself up and carried me back home. Scribbled my sorrow on the page and turned my pain into poems. I had to summon my strength, believe in my abilities and un-become all I’ve ever known. I removed squares from my circle and learned to balance my emotions. I started to breathe with intention, got intentional with my focus.

I remember I cried so hard I drowned in my bedroom. Weary from watering my seeds with regret- looking back at the flowers of opportunities that didn’t blossom and bloom. I was tired of sprinting from my past and looking over my shoulder at relationships that didn’t last. It was time to face the flaws. Because I had given away so much, if not all.

It was time to stop adding anesthesia to the pain. Rip the bandaid and stop hiding these scars of shame. It took some realigning my health, redefining who I am and believing in myself. So, I am going where the sun rests and rise in laughter. I am carrying myself back home into the zone of a new chapter.


To my mentors and Tupelo Press friends in Truchas

Stacked next to me:
two boxes of ashes.

Two dogs gone, not
rising when I fetch a bottle.

My lone spaniel snores
as drugged, grieving.

Two weeks are daily
bled by falling rain.

Autumn is surrender
to waning colors.

I retreat to escape by
strong drink –

so sad I never empty
my glass.

In fluorescent aisles, 
Autumn’s harvest waits—
pumpkins piled high at the market,
their orange skins
shining, plump and inviting. 
I lift one, testing its heft
and decide right then to adopt it. 
At my kitchen table, the first cut 
releases stringy pulp, a rush of scent.

Here is my yearly sculpture! 
Here is the cool heart 
of another October, near passed. 
I can’t help but laugh 
at the gap-toothed grin, 
the pair of wide, triangle eyes.
Not a masterpiece by any means—
but still alight, eager, and alive.

There was a guy on the ward whose liver had come to the same end as everyone else’s but for different reasons, not cancer or virus or debauchery.  He ruined his liver by running over himself with a tractor.  It’s true.  Really.  Farmers are so used to routines established by the sun’s journey and grinding necessity – count the cows, squeeze-chute the cows, move the cows from clover to rye grass – that they get, if not sloppy, well, prone to lapses.  Maybe thinking about whether or not Germania will pay for the damage to the barn roof from a lightning bolt making contact with a wet, heavy oak.  Or if the price of milk or beef will hold steady or maybe god willing rise or the co-op need to move after the hay caught fire and burned it to the ground.  Maybe this man from Arkansas had such a lapse.  He’d gotten down off his tractor to remove debris from his path at least hundreds of times since he was a boy.  But this one time, just this once, he left the John Deere in gear, and it continued its advance.  Pinned him to the tree from whence had fallen the severed limb that caused him to dismount, shredded his spleen and part of his liver.  His spleen he could do without, but his liver, arguably second in command after the brain, was another matter.  It’s a forgiving organ, as my husband and I certainly learned.  But it can also hold a wordless but emphatic grudge.   

a bumblebee landed on the side

of my mouth     i did not feel him     

i could not see him      i knew

he was there    i was

in a motorboat 

it was sunset      the sun was a long

strip of gold that cracked

the sky          i was inside

a fabergé egg

someone was opening    that’s how it felt 

look at the water

said the bee       i don’t know how

to swim i said        i’ll teach you

said the bee      you don’t know how to

swim i said     i can

fly said the bee    the bee put on a tiny orange

life jacket      i put on a tiny orange life jacket     

someone opened the egg &

we fell out

Day 7 / Poem 7

in early morning rehearsal

the cello yearns
and piano points to love
filling all souls church
with the Kol Nidrei
the people clap
 
the choir sings ose shalom
hi ya’aseh shalom aleinu
v’al kol Yiisrael, v’imru
amein
 
the sound goes inside
vibrates the heart
I cry for the world
 
translated
may the one who creates peace on high
bring peace to us and all Israel
Amen
 
in the service they sing it again
I cry for peace
 
congregants recite their transgressions
forgive us we say in unison in response
at the end they all clap 

in the falling,
in the fistfuls of hair,
in being brought to the surface
tingling with pain
and the blurriness of coming to.

                                                              As you drop one stone
                                                              into water and then another
                                                              displacing and letting gaps
                                                              fill, the breath becomes
                                                                                                                                  even— a chest rising and resting in
the little sigh of coming to

Bed calls at 
midday, when
the eyes drowse and honey

themselves shut. Sleep curls
thick as nectar. 
We hexagon ourselves,

invert. Always
a fan. Hours ripen
sweet. We seal 

away. For a moment,
the unbearable buzz
subsides.

 
 

Limbs and bones 
lay on the countertop of the earth.
Blood spill from chilled 
bodies like wine. The dirt absorbs 
the blood from the earth like bread and patiently waits 
for its next plate of bones, its next spoonful of limbs. 
The bodies, the flesh served cold.

A child lies amid rubble, dying alone, 
taking their last breath, shearing a mothers soul. 
World leaders, gather their egos 
over collective conformed confusion. Raise their glass 
of booze and vinegar in toast, but this is no one’s Thanksgiving!
Gather here for this genocide, for this feast of violence!
In this recipe of slaughter, 
we swallow the wailing tears 
of someone’s son, cousin or daughter. 
Then, pat our mouths in silence with closed napkins, 
devouring their execution. 
In the palm of my hands, 
I witnessed an air strike drop from the sky launching an erasure of human life.
I sit and do absolutely nothing. 
How many more bullets? How much money would it take 
to extinguish another burning cross, a broken bridge, 
another burning hospital, school, or mosque?
If only their guns could kill oppression,
if only their bombs could shatter affection,
crack open compassion and explode empathy, 
I wonder, then, would this country feel?
Perhaps, the world’s leaders do not want peace, but instead new resistance.
To spit their spitefulness on a region 
and form the birth of a new country that does not know peace.\

But, rather 
they create citizens who take their rights 
in the palm of their hands and clench their fits by any many necessary!
I hope, then, this world 
would wake up during war in a cold sweat! 
I hope compassion,then,
rip through your body,
tears you into pieces, 
and burns your flesh 
alive!

In blackest sky’s velvet blanket,
salt shaker seasoned with distant
suns measured in light years

my gaze turns its hope upward,
anchored here as the sun
metronomes its nights and days,

all the way until our end – a
beat that by measures scares
us or spurs antic ambition.

To relax from day I search
night sky in vain for my moon,
its lunar salve applied each day,

its Rx renewal monthly, rhythm
commanding tides and blood –
but storm clouds hide tonight.

Crickets slow their calls as deep
night falls, a blanket, a cudgel, and
I am left to dreams’ escape.

Years after the last word between us
drifted into nothing, the memory of your room returns

in the evening, like a small boat, an invitation. 
And some nights I accept—settle against that doorway

again but do not move past it. 
I only come to look for a moment.

Not at the wall’s shade or the floor’s shine,
not the tossed sheets or the streaks of light across the bed, 

but one half-lit corner painting 
of a woman at the edge of an ocean,

dark hair down, right hand reaching out, out
to all that open blue. In my room alone, I wonder 

if she was me or if she was you.

The neighbor’s house 
is dark as is the whole block,
the neighborhood. The upstairs
picture window of his boxy
place glows intermittently, pulses 
like a candle flame.  

It might be a candle 
or his house could be on fire
or maybe it’s a reflection 
of my room just across the street 
which could be the one ablaze
as I have lit both the St. Anthony 
& St. Benedict pillars.
Respectively, they help me find 
what is lost, remember to study, 
work & sing (the Rule of Benedict).  
In the dark of my home 
they are untended, something against 
the laws of candle-burning.

Or it could be heat lightning 
just north of the city, 
a foil to the violent strikes
to the south.  The whole town 
where we live – & beyond it,
the world – might be burning,
sooner than we’d expected,
as I bear witness to the flashing
opaque glass, sitting on my porch
waiting for some human light.

once we were on a big black spacecraft //.\\ we were floating //.\\ we were headed to alpha centauri //.\\ it was getting dark because it was always getting dark //.\\ we were drinking orange tang because we ran out of guava strawberry //.\\ you were carrying around being & nothingness because you were always carrying around being & nothingness //.\\ & you never opened it up //.\\

you had a crystal tamagotchi & i had a crystal tamagotchi //.\\ your tamagotchi looked like a tiger & my tamagotchi looked like something that didn’t exist //.\\ sometimes they looked dead //.\\ both tamagotchis hatched from a pixelated icon of a speckled egg //.\\ if we bump together our tamagotchis & press a specific button one tamagotchi will disappear //.\\ after a while it will return //.\\ you said we could do this for a while in a while //.\\ i said okay //.\\ we kept on floating //.\\ you kept not opening your book //.\\

ass replacing
every fallen noun
and adjective autumn’s
pretty ass crimson maple
leaves drop like soft bombs
onto the beige ass silver flecked
sidewalk and overhang
my dumb ass staircase leading
from and to my safe ass rooms
where a shirtless broken
broke ass porn stache
ass musk hook up dozes
in the ass trashed double
bed near the empty
closet and the cracked
ass teacup stains a jasmine ring
on a stack of books and blank
pages flutter on the creaky writing
desk by the open ass window
as the loud ass morning
doves coo through 
ash this war 
our long ass death

Day 6 / Poem 6

all shapes and colors none the same
the rocks are speaking as I step
a hidden language whispered here
my boots are torn the leather frayed
I walk to water through the woods
with Keith and Benny behind ahead

the canopy of trees above
protect my skin from heat and sun
a falling tree slap claps the earth
and something heard it, it was me
a cricket sings from forest floor
as branches reach into the light
to green their leaves and sip the air
above the whooshing of the creek

to waters edge to drink and seek
stout Benny pulls me through the moss
to climb and sit atop my lap
upon a rock cut like a chair
and steady still we nestle there

Today’s birth is stark,
the noises crisp.
I only give the sideways glances
that cannot be seen
in another room
where I have no energy
for a fight.

Some days the earth
seems to be sinking
and taking all its women
down to the water table
between what’s saturated
and unsaturated:
where spaces are full.

There’s nothing there
to boil over
to diminish with a gaze
the towels have been replaced
the glass is full
and all seem to be breathing
at a bearable breadth.

Everyone wants
to eat, but no one wants
to cook. Isn’t that the way
of the world? It seems I lose my 
temper at the least little thing.
We’ve borne many lives. Least of all
our own. It’s a slapstick
morning, if only you could
see. I‘m glad I filled
the coffee maker,
last night. A little honey,
the last of the milk, my best 
chipped smile.

1serve, incline, listen, watch over

True love isn’t lustful or fast.
It’s not a flash of passion
without action;
it’s calm,
steady
like a slow burn from a candle,
the flame is meant 
to burn 
a lifetime.

For a year, I took them:
melatonin, diphenhydramine, 
CBD, and THC.
Four warm Coors Lights
pulled from the back of the pantry.
A sip of gin in a dark kitchen. 
Sometimes I drove to a bar
and drank until my spine relaxed,
until breathing became easy. 

People came up to me then:
a man in an oil-stained shirt
with the name Dave
stitched in red across the breast,
who wanted to tell me
about his tour in the Navy,
about jolting awake each night
in Afghanistan.

And a woman, Colleen, 
who had just retired
from thirty years teaching,
whose sister had died 
a week prior. 
Three beers in,
she began to stare at me
as if I were a holy icon,
grabbed my hand and said,
Every day is a blessing,
really.

Months went by. 
I traded Coors for chamomile,
pills for soft linen—
even opened the windows 
at dusk to hear
the nightingales singing.
And Death, 
who had been waiting
in the wings for my signal
all this time,
smiled and finally 
stepped from my door
into shadow.

Last in the parking lot
turn the car key.
     Ignition, exhale.

Next inhale all the
air you can, hold it,
close your eyes
     curl your toes
splay your hands
into starfish –
     release.

Vision clears, no more
monochrome.
Back up ready
     to escape –  
you grip the wheel
     asking why.


As you survive to home
you exit the car
     praying,
pull the parking brake.
Deadbolt your home tight –
     Now what?

lisa frank
erasers

yellow
laffy taffy

shake shack order
receipt
             vanilla shake
             large fry
             saint vincent

concert
tickets
louise glück

quote
tucked
inside

 your shining
phone
case decorated

w glittery
stickers: teeny

     totoros     assorted
clocks     glow-in-the-dark
     orchids     holographic

ghosts
seashells
you

collected
at the foot of

a lighthouse called
i forgot

first i was Kate Hepburn
in On Golden Pond hoping
my family would get along
 
i was also my daughter Jane
Fonda waiting for my father
to love me before he died
 
i was Julianne Moore hiding
in the bathroom in The Hours
pretending to be fine
 
i felt trapped in a straight life
when i had a gun in my holster
i was a cowgirl Mercedes
 
McCambridge in Johnny Guitar
i shot a man in the head from my horse
and i was more badass
 
than Joan Crawford but not as good
as non-chronological scientist
Amy Adams arriving
 
late to deciphering my alien grief
i was Michelle Williams in Manchester
by the Sea and i couldn’t stop
 
crying while i was Kerry Fox
in An Angel at my Table
typing and hiding my wild
 
curly hair was part of the plot
i’m Jackie Weaver
a subtle mob boss ordering cops
 
killed in Animal Kingdom without
my depression’s unsuitable guilt
i’m Linda Hunt a diminutive man
 
in Year of Living Dangerously deceiving
Mel Gibson who deserves it
i rise and rewind into Geraldine Page
 
rushing up a candlelit
church aisle in Interiors
running from my own rage
 
the only revenge i can take
since i’m too old to be angry at my father
is to arrange an exquisite vase
 
on a bare pine table
before i walk slowly into the ocean
and speaking of Sigourney Weaver
 
i’m hiding from an ice storm
rolling into a deep insensible sleep
where love never fails
 
and children survive their youth
i’m Marilyn in The Misfits
written by my new ex- husband
 
my last role
you can see it in my gaze
i am more beautiful
 
when i stop caring
i’m Marisa Tomei in the bedroom
and my man is shooting my eye out
 
because he doesn’t trust me
Sissy Spacek is covering it up
and she escapes with Martin Sheen
 
to the Badlands her personality
disorder is secondary to her summer clothes
it’s just main character syndrome
 
wanting the entire film to myself
i tell Mom why my marriage ended
in ‘night Mother and why i must leave
 
and i’m shooting my father’s gun
at a wall off stage just before the credits
i’m Mercedes McCambridge again
 
secretly running the ranch in Giant
but i’m dead and my brother is mean
and my nephew is James Dean

Your ears draw back and feet dig in
not wanting to end the walk
and so we go round again
I try to sound 
authoritative
When I tell you to sit and come
and heel, steer you this way and that
I got this,  I say, when a dog comes near
your space, hoping you’ll think 
I’m the alpha and all’s safe. 
everyone watches when you
lose it and bark, growl and lunge
In operatic baritone
as I hold you back
I’ve lost the daily game
again…and again

after a line by Cathy Ferrell

ceramic inverted hug
holder of morning verve
joie de vivre
heat that can be cupped
held in nascent wake
desire that I slept with
woke with
smell of bitterness
turned sweet
with the sun
with morning commotion
when everything
everyone
wants to eat

On my bedside table, a stack
of stones, small and smooth.
I think of your
scholar. How he waits
stoic, serene.
We pass through many
moods. The stones remain 
balanced. In this moment, I flex
my mind. Imagine.
You tap your keys. You uncap
your pen. Words flow, these days.
How moving to converse this way,
back and forth, lotused.

We all have fears, right? My biggest fear is a failure to succeed and rats. I hate them! My mom, who’s my best friend, biggest fear is swimming. She never learned how to swim, so naturally she’s afraid of water. But she doesn’t realize she’s been swimming all her life. 

When my my father used his fit as flowers 
it would look like a storm hit our home.
There were no evacuations, no warnings, no safety zone. Just a telephone and faith. 
As wooden furniture spirals in space.
Glass splatter and shatter like showered rain drops,
This is daddy’s sweet destruction, this is daddy’s chaos!
Remnants of his saliva, DNA on my mother’s face. Her flesh,
torn from his scorn and bloody rage.

Even then,
my mother didn’t know that she could swim. 
Because she never surrendered to the current- 
current circumstances in her life.
She never kept our sorrow on the shallow side.
She always deep dived 
into vulnerable places. Damaged, but not easily broken or shaken. 
Seamed scars stitched on her skin, yet she didn’t train her words
or sweeten the truth with promise and pretend-she was real.

On the sidelines, I’ve watched my mother 
backstroke out of the gutters of guilt 
when waves of addiction 
almost pulled her into relapse
she recovered on her own with no help
no team, coach or counselors, without a lifeline of support  
while swimming in his pool of poison
called love without a choice.

My mother
doesn’t know that she can swim.
Like when the streets, belly of the beast Madison Chicago
tried to swallow her whole. She put one elbow in front of the other
surfed through the currents and depth of depression with all her soul.
Under the pressures of poverty and insomnia of abuse,
My mother put on a life jacket of Jesus and held scripture close to her chest,
submerged herself in Romans and shouted proverbs she knew best!
Remained gracefully in butterfly position even when life was hard.
She’s been breathing underwater all her life, saving herself
as her own lifeguard.

Mine is a red Pembroke Corgi.
A break from my packs of retrievers
and strays and mixed hero dogs.
She may be a breed that’s right for you.

Be honest with yourself – are you smart?
Because Corgis are. Talk to them
like a C+ middle schooler – they will
understand and maybe even obey.

It’s like mine has a wristwatch.
She keeps a schedule of breakfast,
play, treats, play, nap, dinner,
treats, walks – in that order or else.

Queen Elizabeth owned many of these –
but her vast staff handled the shedding.
Your humble Dyson vacuum will not
survive more than a year.

So what if they herd toddlers and cats,
barking to enforce order?
Their photogenic fetching smiles and
fluffed sploots outweigh all that.

This is surely not a purebred dog pitch
but believe me, Corgi dogs are
short legged fun to keep you active
and smiling, playing along with them.

the phone rings—
my grandmother’s voice winds through static,

light as the creek curling around her back porch,
where, as a kid I’d sit, catching fish 

on a thin metal pole: perch, bluegill, and trout
thrashing wild in my little tin bucket.

In the afternoon sun, I’d trudge my catch 
to the kitchen, and she’d fry them up crisp, 

smiling as they hit the cast iron pan, 
the iridescent pool of oil.

These days, I sit with greater patience, 
hoping weekly to reel even the smallest glimpses

of the porch, and the kitchen,
and my grandmother’s laughter,

before the hum of the creek fizzles out
and only the weight of the line remains.

Dear J – Supping on sushi in Santa Fe. Your teenager
could run this place & it’d be an improvement. The
chefs – an Italian dude & a Pueblo man in a tie-dyed
T-shirt – speak solomente Espanol; hostess is in a
mini-skirt & top two sizes too small. A boy about 14
speaking Farsi (maybe), a 30-something mobster-
type, & a languid woman I think is Katy Jurado
reincarnated are servers. The multi-culti chefs stand
behind a circular bar, hub of 5 adjoining private rooms
separated by shoji screens & shoes parked outside.
The boy & the wise guy zoot around the dining rooms
yelling at each other & reprimanding the cooks as
though the place were empty (it’s not) & they (the
sushi-makers) weren’t brandishing Japanese knives
that mean business. Katy stonewalls her orders like a
DMV employee. It’s Keystone Kops on crack serving
landlocked raw fish to tourists from Ohio. Food’s good,
though. Wish you were here blah blah. All this adobe.
How do people stand it? xxo, h.

come summer i hum

                pure color * my tepals open

                             umbrellal, in shades

                            distilled from gummy

candy * gumdrops * dum-dums * clumsy

                hummingbirds circumnavigate

my stem my handsome stem / strumming

heartbeat momentum over this jumbled

kingdom: pumpkin chrysanthemum plum

                                       * someday we’ll become

                 accustomed to dominion’s tumble:

                                       the fumble of human

     thumbs, the communion of common

                umbras, the numb

boredom of blossoming *

becoming * 

           becoming some

                thing

* becoming something

                that means

           something

to someone *

Sing me a night time tune. 
Something smooth,
         a little sultry
So when you touch me 
I’ll forget 
all that there is to lose. 
The music, 
is so we don’t feel used. 

Time is not the illusion, 
I am.
To be felt through your senses,
Perceived,
but not to be put in
Some box or some cage.
Our joining together is 
One most glorious transfusion.

That is, until the day breaks.

Until our bones crack and then
more than just our hearts ache.
What would you do if you could turn back?
Things like this fall far beyond me,
So I just wonder would you 
Sing a new song,
but keep the same melody?

I’d be there to sing along.

So give me my something sweet
I’ll swing my hips 
While you keep the beat.

so we climbed
toward a sparking wire
 
falling, returning
until the ladder’s creaking top cap
seemed beyond reach
 
we climbed, again
each year becoming shorter, until I slipped
from the lowest rung
 
and air glistened
with scatters of rain as I lay on my back
looking up at you
 
hope is wet
necks and arms
the spit of a kiss
 
if I could undress you
now on the peeling paint porch of your house
and search your soaked skin
 
after running
through the shining green
length of a storm
 
if i could undress
and know ecstasy without you

Day 4 / Poem 4

When I am 
an old man
I shall let my feet 
be free
to wander 
where they’d like 
to be
up rocky trails
of the Sangre de Christo
to wildflowers 
above Denver
in the forgiving blue
sky
to let go 
in lily pad lakes

into the himalayas
to walk amid the clouds

on Hermes’ winged shoes
into the halls of gods
and ‘cross the stars

into the wormhole
tunnel Of the heart
that
when you pass through
turns the universe 
inside out 
like a sock

After 373 by Emily Dickinson

A scholar sits on my bedside table
cross-legged for generations
he laughs at the simplicity of his wisdom
like a tooth that’s started to move.
                                                                                He tells me to pluck what isn’t working.
He rearranges his lotus pose,
cracks his fingers
(this is all a show, all for my attention,
he never gets uncomfortable).
I can’t unsee the simplicity
nor follow the instructions of a stoic,
stuck as I am—a moving tooth myself
in gums of pink-stretched desire
possession is sugar
laziness divine—
comfort the ultimate wish.
His bones don’t even groan,
despite his patience. He’ll try again,
tomorrow and tomorrow—
The World is not Conclusion

wake tangled
damp uncovered

Inside, a furnace

Salt moisture lick
of skin half asleep sweep
away valley rivulets wick
between swollen hills.

Inside, a Banshee

Sometimes, wake with
mouth wide open.
Swallow keen of
her echo h y s t e r i c a l

Mothers’ mascara-stained tears and
stitched eyes in a coma.
Trayvon Martin’s hoodie.
The sole of a jackboot’s
contact with tender flesh 
pressed against black pavement. 
A prison cell.
A body in confinement.
A mind in confinement.

Dark, dilated pupils 
in fight, flight or freeze,
a steel baton
pinned on the nape 
of neck, breath 
escapes from the mouth,
floating like invisible
debris. Discarded
Breathe or sink.
When God shows no mercy.

Black
like a scab hardening 
into a 
protective crust.

I limp sprained along a
dusty weed bordered
cattle road, its summer
seeds blown aloft,
no sign of a horizon
or forks left or right

A murder of crows
gathers with threats,
a scene I avert and
continue past careful
to venture onward ever
vigilant, a little scared.

Ancient barbed wires
snag human debris
impaled over decades
from other travelers,
almost decorations
waving in the breeze.

Arrival is not in sight.
It makes sense to heed
dark weather ahead.
I hope to reach an end
not too soon, not too late,
with just luck.

The Weerdinge Couple were found side-by-side in a bog in 1904. At first assumed to be a husband and wife, they were later determined to be two men, and their relationship to each other remains unknown.

Peat-clung, earth-sunk, we lay 
interlaced in the bog’s arctic grasp.
Centuries pass. 
They lift us into harsh light,
peer and ponder.
Before they claim us
father/son, battlefield brothers,
or perhaps victims 
of an ancient custom,
they see how we lean
towards each other,
your arm at my waist,
your hand on mine;
they say—husband/wife,
clearly a couple
of lovers.

Somehow
through time
our bodies held
the life we hid:
the nights my fingers trailed
the length of your back,
muscles flushed
with sweet, wet sweat—
a look,
and more than that.

So we rose
and were known at last, 
it seemed, as two true souls
in the open air, 
forgetting for a moment
all that deep, cold dark
and the world of men, until
some ancient custom 
rushed to cloak us— 
cast to the depths 
again.

Frank wasn’t someone 
who enjoyed surprises 
didn’t appreciate the trickery 
involved in his commitment
didn’t like being in the hospital 
that second time
although a still-cogent part 
of him, the part that romanticized 
where he lived
might have enjoyed 
that the Sheriff himself 
had pocketed the key.  

Because of the guns
Frank went to the top-floor
lockdown where another patient prayed 
to a door much of the day.  In his way

Frank prayed to the door as well 
that it would open so that 
with his funny gait
he could walk through
a free man.
No longer a believer
he hired a lawyer.

power outage => dragonflies
whirr forth from outlets & invent
language => an aguey
slow-mo
                        montage => ravaged
vegetables! => shadows snag

             on flagella => gigantic flagella(!!)

nibble imagination’s ridged edge => offstage
             => the fragrance of lace croaks forth from unzipped luggage
             into the saggy slag…
                                                 …crush this kitschy
                                                 bandage over your missing
                                                 rib
a voice counts down the looming
attoseconds
so softly even gnats
listen, whisper pink   
light, sift light into pink
velvet, sibilant
twilightsoften summer
dirt…
            ….& this earthworm planet…lichen-kissed, viscous,
            sleepy, sleepily
                                       ripped from silky
milky sleep &
                        made
                        to listen.
i rode here on a supermassive photon
across an ocean of supermassive gravitational waves
it was almost midnight
my optical tweezers fell out of my pocket
my heart fell out of my heart
it was just

me &
my organelles
wanted to make
             marzipan // invent
pickleball // paint
paint chips // name everything
             everything // devour
colors // carpenter
rainstorms // unspool
             the walls //

All I know of this life is love.
something beneath which mountains will fall
and crumble. holds the power to
run rampages and still make it home to kiss me
nice, and slow, and soft.
A joy no other could beat.

That’s what I thought until I lost my heartbeat.
Until I started to lose interest in the things I love.
I remember back when the world looked soft.
Now, yellow orange trees whisper of sweet fall
and it all looks like winter to me
cold, dark, and lonely too.

So what then am I to hold on to
when life starts to feel down trodden and beat?
I guess I just need to get back to me.|it’s true, all I ever knew of myself was love
and so back in love with myself I must fall.
Gift myself with a life still soft.

The most important thing is to remain soft.
Feel everything and never be afraid to
play this game of life. You might find that fall
is more than just the changing of leaves. Hear that beat?
That right there is the song that I love.
The one that reminds me of me.

I won’t ask anymore what’s wrong with me
cause I’m learning now to treat myself soft. 
still learning, well, what do I know of love?
I know it has the power to turn my bitter days into 
sweet ones without even skipping a beat.
The power to turn winter back into fall.

What sound is made if there’s no one around to hear when I fall?
Though the idea sounds strange and foreign to me,
I’d like to think there’d be some kind of beat.
Something a little sultry with a hint of something soft.
Maybe I’d get up and do a dance, or two.
Get back to doing the thing that I love. 

That’s the beat that’ll keep me breathing as my days fall
into nights and back, a reminder of all I’ve already got in me.
Remaining soft is the thing that I will hold on to. 

The mayfly’s life is so brief
he has no need for food.
He has no mouth.
 
During restriction phases
I gather belly fat
into my hands and squeeze.
 
Think of a balloon
deflated. Think of beige
crepe paper. I’m tired.
 
Editing seems like killing
myself. I’m bingeing
mini-donuts at my desk.
 
Sugar dust mixed with dried
saliva pastes my lips.
If only eating was simple
 
as wanting to live
wide as mountain range, millennia
passing before moon-
 
pulled sheets grind me to sand.
This is ambition’s
landslide, needing to quicken
 
discovery, when our brains are rotting
fig and we need to know
ourselves to heal.
 
I know I wanted
to be wanted. It was a disease.
My avatar devoured me.
 
Last night I bit into the swell
of a man’s shoulder
tasting oatmeal and sea.
 
I swallowed his illegible, bruised
moans, to keep his pleasure—
to die without dying.

Day 3 / Poem 3

she pauses
hovers at my chest
a petal away
gazes at the bright 
red shirt

are you the sweet 
I seek?

her wings hum so fast 
they’re not visible
her ruby breast to mine

I freeze

are you a power
a message
a connection 
to source?

can I with you
hummingbird
be other 
than glum?
                        glorious

          one with nature

magical

she darts away 
into the pines
the ground is moist
about grand lake

scurrying in turmoil
I am hurricaned
to sleep, the weight
on my retinas, goodnight,
shut off any trouble,
it’s better that I don’t know,
unstitched from a dream
maybe, or can’t
decide. My fingers crawl
to the next body.
I uncover my eyes.

(Hail Mary) The cranes called to each other
this morning, brass and timbre across field.

(Our Father) called this afternoon,
but I missed it.

(Hail Mary) In September, I am forced to watch
repeats of political ads, calls to vote one way or another

(Pendant) Heart yearns for all
things beyond window, cries

(Cross) Old woman learns the hard way,
prays to a sullen rotary phone

that no one will call

Onyx and Jasper
sit on a slender, brown wrists
as a suit of 
armor. 
Pure black 
like Tourmaline 
in unfiltered sunlight 
in the depths of a hole,
absorbing.

In ancient cultures, 
felines of night symbolize
good karma and protection.
I read once,

women in Senegal
tattoo their gums 
black
as the epitome
of beauty.

All that 
shit the west fed us 
about black being 
cursed
Was A Lie!

Has any funeral ever been honest?
Endings are rebirth 
like death, 
a second chance.

It’s my personal Spotify, ad-free
except for my Corgi’s begging.
A gentle tinnitus that wanders
in and out, hearing aided —
bonus being I can change treble
and bass and volume by app.

On some cold rainy nights
my furnace rhymes its songs.
Heat vent sounds in each room
no matter when or why are
somehow curated just for me;
play-lists played for me alone.

Sometimes vagrant ear worms
burrow in hiding, biding their
time to overwhelm me with
their oldies and jingles or even
thrums of my old ’67 Chevelle.
They improvise inside both ears.

Yaks with myself also intrude.
That’s okay most days.
The ears are mine, so of course
I listen to what I shouldn’t say.

Every year, I act surprised
to see the once-green trees
freckled gold and red.
I shake my head 
with a kind of ho-hum resignation,
wonder how much light 
we have before season’s end
but otherwise ignore it.

The morning we meet for coffee,
I can taste the coming chill.
We embrace, smile, sit—
the usual. 
But this time, I notice
the jerk and twitch
of your limbs,
the strange angles they make
and the losing force 
of your will to refuse them.

You mention an increase
in your medication. 
I nod, though there’s a limit
to how high you can go
and we know
you’re closing in on it. 
You say,
Parkinson’s is progressive,
shrug with a kind of acceptance.
But I could only think
of the sun when it sinks
and seems to take 
everything with it.

Daughter to father—
I wish there was more 
I could offer,
I wish we knew
each other better,
and I wish
we could do something
about the weather.

Muscle memory, there’s the mystery –
how it travels through the body
on little nervy runways stretching
for miles, flies between generational
landing strips, body to body bringing
instructions on trauma, for how to hold
a spoon, on the love of collecting
or whiskey – all written on a cell,
that microscopic recipe card,
not in words but electricity.
The body remembers
not just a special meal but every breakfast
& dinner your ancestors ever ate,
every drink ever drunk;
the way a grandfather stood & moved
the way his grandfather stood & moved.


Sometimes talking to you feels like
I am an alien & you are
an alien from a different galaxy
or maybe even
a different dimension & a sheet of tin-foil
is suspended between us & we have to keep
shouting what? what? what???? until finally
we realize we’re both
from Alpha Centauri both from Rigil
Kentaurus both from Proxima
                                       B, all along.

It’s always been easier for me to talk to you 
than other people because
                                       I always feel
                                       like

I never know    how to finagle            what I want
      to say into            words other people   can     
understand       exactly in the exact way           I mean
them to mean, & with you, for once, we both
had to do
the gymnastics of translation
                                       if we wanted
                                       to be understood.  

Sometimes when you want      
to tell    me something but you don’t know     the words, you find
a song with words you know I know & a feel
the real feel that says what you mean. You play
me the song, on the car-ride home from work. Sometimes
I get it. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I don’t.

“Jump up!” yelled Autumn
“You’re in for a great Fall!” Still,
I didn’t care at all

My phone’s shiny screen is a night lake.
Come and stay awhile.
You visit once a year and expect me to entertain you.
 
The staircase slats have gaps like a smile.
The more time you spend healing, the less time you spend travelling.
You tell me I’m too emotional.
 
The surface of the windy lake is the blade of a bread knife.
Here is a place to retrace our steps.
We’re afraid of anger.
 
The den is full of stacks of smudged paper.
Walk backward through castles and ruins.
Hold onto decades of elastics saved from the mail.
 
The kitchen has a stove with a bubbling volcano pot.
This home offers everything we need.
Souvenir knick-knacks, a love language.
 
The surface of the windy lake is a ridged fingernail.
A variety of wildlife, including loons and lilies, live here.
You never call me.

Day 2 / Poem 2

If only he could leave
the dust of the toy shop
the little wooden cars
ships and dolls
bears with moving joints
and journey
as she did
a quark in a supernova
experience the collapse of stars
chaos
whom he thought she was
a Siva creator destroyer
and as he pondered this
the doorknob squeaked
as it turned
And there she was
to let him out
come on, she fired
he shrunk for a sec
then followed her into the night
where an owl said hoo
maybe now I will
feel, he thought
as they leapt falling
into the moon

After Ritual for a Traveler by Cathy Ferrell

The rotary phone is rose pink
or maybe it is crepe pink
tinted with memory infused with the grey
of nights we have
locked up. You had to lift the receiver to confirm
that no, no one was trying to call.

My mother’s fingers on a rosary,
beads of sweat stick on the dial
O, Mulej. Half sentences,
words also jammed. Prayers sent
into the salty night, who knows
they get carried on land breeze.
A litany of saints evoked to help—

St. Anthony’s on speed dial,
Madonna, omm Alla, itlob għalina,
għamel li jaslu b’wiċċ il-ġid.
Nothing wishing to ask for favors,
asking and begging all the same
to bring back safely
blood lost at sea.

(in response to Those who have sinned and repented by Miriam Calleja Shaw)

We singe the slump off our shoulders, spark the ends of our hair. 

Try to tell us “Look away from the sun” and we’ll eclipse our own retinas.

We reach out and grasp old stars in a chokehold, burn the scars off our thumbs. 

We cauterize regret. 

We feed hot white light to words stuck midway up. If you could hear how we open our throats       

we could douse you, too. 

Watch ringlets of smoke curl from our nostrils. Touch us. Soft skin, armor. 

We baptize ourselves alive, flame blue.

 
 
  1. Wet your hands with humility. Look into the mirror and affirm you are not alone.

  2. Apply enough compassion to cover all your scars and worries.

  3. Clean the corners of your mind with a new and positive perspective about your life.

  4. Lather your body with love, you are valuable.

  5. Gently scrub toxic beliefs about yourself from your skin.

  6.  You did not deserve mistreatment.

  7. Wash off their dust and the damage done to you.

  8. Wipe the wear and toll from your body.

  9. Cry in the shower for as long as you need.

  10.  Exhale.

  11. Rinse your wounds thoroughly with your tears for at least 30 seconds.

  12. Pat your tears dry with forgiveness.

  13. Turn off the memories.

  14.  Squeeze the pain of your past from your towel, hang it to dry.

  15. Breathe.

  16. You are now safe

Sphere comes first
try to draw it round but
don’t worry
scribble a moon or sun
up above, left or right
imagine
beams down below
light and shade
the endless curve
a perfect sweet spot.

Next draw a cube
dimensions on paper
lines teasing perspective
foreshorten, distort
control the vertical
the horizontal
control all you see —
make building blocks
like a wizard.

The store’s black roof rasps
a crackled tune—another week
of such thick heat, it swallows
our morning dew, 
crisps our fresh green leaves, 
silences the rain’s sweet hum
on our windows at dusk. 
Still, the baby must come soon:
an autumn child on the edge of winter, 
while summer clings like an angry lover. 

Slowly, I shuffle past collapsible strollers,
playpens with bluetooth speakers, 
a shelf of heated wipe holders
before reaching the blankets. 
I press a palm to the back of my neck, 
wipe the sweat collecting,
inspect each plastic-wrapped tuft 
of fleece and cotton 
covered in stars, stripes, squiggly hearts—  
an ark’s worth of animals, too,
living their lives in a world 
where lions always laugh 
and bears relax
in silk’s soft folds. 

I pull one package down,
unzip it to trace the linen,
pausing at the last thread of 
a river stitched, blue and bright
with gleaming fish.
I hold it close, imagine years, 
a life, almost—until
I overhear a nearby conversation:
They say the Colorado’s drying up,
and the Mississippi, too.
Quietly, I put it aside.

Our hair grew according to 
the Farmers’ Almanac, rhythms 
that brought one full moon 
after another, which brought dreams 
each night – coyotes, Egypt,
small, troubled boys vexing 
their mother.  A beloved cat,
missing for years, turned out to be
alive, slept standing up 
& did not remember me –
a hurt that plagued the whole waking day.
Our hair grew wavy & thick
as you studied your forecasts.
How we noticed the moons
one after another!

i learned the word 乌龟 :: we were sitting in traffic
you said everyone      is a turtle today

i learned the word 月亮 :: you said don’t point
at the moon :: the moon will come cut off your ear

i learned 星星 :: 星巴克 :: 派大星 :: you said look
at the night sky :: i’ll have a matcha frappuccino :: i watched that cartoon

spongebob too we called him hai mian bao bao
i learned 海绵 :: 宝宝 :: you said sponge :: you said baby   good job!

i learned the word 身体 :: you said your body is broken
:: eat one banana :: drink jiu jiu jiu

i learned 九九九 :: you said it’s in the kitchen
in the place        sorry i forget the word for where

i learned the word for drawer :: to tell you
where i found it      i forgot :: where i put the word

不要忘记 :: 不要记得  :: don’t remember :: don’t forget
:: i don’t remember                              which means which

you said sorry :: wo bu ji de liao too

If we begin at exhaustion
and work our way back, 
perhaps then life will 
cut us some slack. 
With sandbag eyes 
tied on a rope
You’d think they rise
And give us some hope
But nope. 

Our Blankets beg us be bedridden. 
Sleep remains, and now without spark 
I find my resolve is left hidden
My will to live is left in the dark. 
Easier still to come than go
I’m learning to accept 
Life’s ebbs and flows.
For however it was that night I slept
A summer breeze blows
And my soul is kept. 

pretending i’m not afraid
of ladders because people might fall from them
onto my head is like chanting
 
i love my scar
though i wince when i notice it
looking down  
 
at a scale
weighing myself after a year
pretending i’m not afraid
 
pigeoning and squirreling through
traffic splashed with rain
frustrated horns
 
on this scratched green
bicycle Moses
parting puddles
 
pretending i’m great
full
tires kicking up mud

Day 1 / Poem 1

what if I could feel
said the wooden boy
if a scrape drew blood
if I could be sad or mad
or want to dance?

what do you feel now? she asked

good all the time he answered
chipper, positive

she gave him a kiss on the wrist
then reached in and pressed her lips
to his

how do you feel? she intoned
just the same he exclaimed
what am I supposed to feel? he said
I am the perfect boy, he continued
always ready to pitch in
my hair is short and neat
my clothes properly proper
all muted tones

what do you feel?
he asked the very real girl
with kaleidoscope hair
disheveled and spare
a patch on one eye

he thought he knew
because her eyes were amber fire
that she flew to the moon
when no one was looking
and adventured out
a mischievous cat
with lives he envied
from his quiet room
In his father’s shop
where all was tidy
and wood, and a clock
ticked each minute
each the same length
every toc same volume

so he wasn’t surprised
when she started to sing

Open a cap, a lid; lift the crust of the earth. Now, lower a baseball-stadium-sized antacid tablet gently. 

Scaffold it down while chanting, dancing, saying a prayer, shouting. Bless it before sliding it down. Curse it. 

Choose the wisest women to push it with their hearts in their throats, their hands joined. Don’t ever burn the women. Choose contortionists, shamans, and those who have sinned and repented. 

Choose the fizzy cure made by hand in salt mines or the clay-covered, red-dirt dusted. Press the emergency exit button when the tablet has drowned in the earth’s core. 

One dose may not be enough.

A father, a mother, a son
A road trip
The Mother
The car
Red cliffs above
Santa Madre de Dios, las piedras

She rocks a figure
between her knees,
a statue plucked
straight from the garden.
The Mother

rocks back, forth
frozen folds and stone robes
back, forth
heirloom rosario

One hand clutches,
taps, rolls beads between
murmurs, signs
father, son,

espíritu santo
One drives on, sighs
One soothes the back 
of her seat,
The Mother

small nose presses against window

My people!
We are a quilted blanket 
of beautiful African hues, 
A broad palette of melanin shades.
               We are children of the sun,
               sons and daughters of the rainbow 
               who seek shelter 
               in the rain, 
absorb radiation, 
               anchors us
               to the earth.

               Like velvet petunias,
               my people
               still bloom even when 
               buried in dirt.

We are vitamins, we revitalize this earth.

Nature lives in our skin-
more than pigment, 
we exist everywhere,
in water, in the heavens, galaxies, 
even trees reflect 
our wooly hair.
               Melanin is found in
               everything that breathes-
               we will breathe!
               Where there is melanin,
               where there are true colors of the sun, 
               the creator is also.
               We are black diamonds 
               shining in the 
               hues 
               of the cosmos.

Across at the Farmers Market
a perfect season’s produce array,
tomatoes and new potatoes and
ripe figs so soft and precious, not
to mention fresh croissants and
piles of every shape of red pepper.

In the low angled autumn sun
Liquid Amber’s crimson leaves drop.
Yard guys will have their blowers
chasing after their impossible fall.
Those are electric now, so scents
swirl oak and walnuts, not fumes.

Gardening here is about grape vines
to be harvested on their perfect day.
Along the two winding highways
giant trucks haul the picked ripe fruit,
laboring with their shared ancient
prayer: may juice become fine wine.

In line at the gas station,
one girl leans on another,
whispers something
then laughs.
Her fingertips move
down the other’s spine
like light on the water.
Briefly, they kiss. 
I turn away. 

A man holding the handle
of an open cooler
glances at me,
eyes primed
for the smallest spark
coming off my body—
to him, a flare in the slow dark
of a summer evening.

Standing there, I sink 
back into my 12 year-old self
cross-legged in front of
the living room TV.
How many times
did I practice
pulling the heat
from my cheeks,
train my gaze
to glass over
at the sight of a woman
on the screen,
afraid to be seen
wanting, without knowing why?   

Older now,
I watch the couple leave
hand-in-hand.
I ache to ask them,
How did you find each other? 
For a moment,
I imagine their response:
Somewhere in the dark,
the smallest spark.

Almost to Hunstville                just outside Hempstead
we could buy                            watermelons for a dollar           
but by October                         it was too late for that.  
Daddy drove straight on         to the prison
to our cheap seats                   facing the sun   
that extra dollar                       spent on cushions.  
Convict cowboys                      (a moniker I hear 
they hated)                                there to entertain 
& shock                                      let the people enjoy
their schadenfreude —            We can leave when 
this is over                                   you cannot.
Rodeos can kill                          even a criminal
as though their lives before    weren’t dangerous enough
these ropers                               & riders 
but many had been                  cowpokes even before jail
or came from prison farms     (state-sanctioned slavery,
some said).                                 They knew from cutting 
horses                                          could tie three legs 
of a calf & have it stay put        for six seconds on the clock  
risk embarrassment                   or death.
Trustees wore white                  moving through the crowd 
little books in hand                     & popcorn.  Like cigarette girls
in noir movies                             on TV after school.       
From Daddy                                 I had a quarter for a program.  
I read lady prisoners                  sewed shirts (some striped across 
some up-&-down                        like prison bars)
that the crowds loved.               Weren’t they – the inmates – 
supposed to                                 wear stripes like
cartoon                                         jailbirds?  
Mother said, Women                  in prison
aren’t ladies,                                 Young Lady.
It seemed they could have       seized the opportunity
to walk through the gate           live again on my side 
of the wall                                    a change of clothes, amends.  
Every life is like a poem               the popcorn man told me 
through a dangling                    cigarette.  It has at least 
one turn.                                      You have to try
to choose                                      the right direction.
A bull kicked a barrel,                a clown rolled out.

i was half an electron cloud & you were becoming physical :: your body was a paper valentine & i was not ready to cut you out :: i was a palimpsest & you were too primordial to be recalled :: you turned your back & i was already turning back to ether :: ions :: ionized :: are you naturally so tall, or are your pretty winged sandals, their pretty seashell-pale wings, just so happy to be seen? :: the wingbeats feel like heartbeats :: do the wingbeats feel like heartbeats because you’ve always been a paper valentine? :: do you see that matrix of angels? :: flying overhead, of course, but if you close your eyes these canals we love under us feel umbilical:: almighty :: remember when you were the largest circle & i was the smallest matter? :: you were centrifugal force & i was not flying away?

There is a list of joy
synonyms in section 4 of the dialectical
behaviour handbook, including
bliss and cheer, euphoria
and hope, zest and zeal
gay, elation.
 
My favourite is bliss
because of the sibilant s.
Can you imagine a snake
smiling after a big meal?
 
I’m returning from hospital
after week 2 of rTMS treatment
ear ringing, eye twitching
shoelaces double tied
so I don’t trip over myself.
 
I facetime Joan as she walks
near the sunny North
Sea on Sylt, Germany.
 
The water is grey cellophane
and wind flips her new bangs
back from the glorious wrinkled
forehead she hides.
 
She says animals known
for hopping never suffer
from depression. Quick,
someone tell the elephants
it’s impossible to be sad
when you’re close to the sky.
 
Can you imagine jumping
on a grave like a childhood
mattress. Quick, someone call
the cops. I’m a crying kangaroo.
 
I’m skipping past rows of taxis
and patients smoking cigarettes
with tall IV pole companions.
I wonder if they’ve been nick-named.
 
I’m skipping home, swinging
my arms. I’m a coiled spring.