to my sister, who was three

Can you remember the day the sky went
cartoon Martian green,
the birds’ song stifled by the heat and wet?
I sat holding your little hands by
the technicolor pink dogwood tree.
The woman we called Mrs. Apple
(because she had no name
but plenty of apple trees)
told us, “Go inside before the storm,”
but I waited and watched you
watch her thirty four year old son
peddle a rusty overturned bicycle
with his curving muddy hands.
She stood, dry-eyes crying.

Can you hear mom cry
like choking
through the back screen door
when we found out our dad didn’t
have a dad for himself anymore?
It came across long distance
phone call echo and I told her
our teacher said not to use the phone
in a storm because it could hurt us.
The dogs next door began lunging
at the striped green metal and plastic fence
when the rain began to pelt
mint and lavender aluminum siding.
Their owner Jack, who must be
dead now, gave us Sugar Daddies
but only when his wife wasn’t looking
because he was a dentist.
Since you were too small, I’d get
to keep yours and give you
anisette toast instead.
You don’t remember
how I brought you in
went outside alone and sat
on the front stoop that began steaming.
Rain hit the concrete cracks
under my feet and shorts,
the chipped black paint
on the iron railing where I traced
curves with my hand like a wave.
I broke dripping with my fingertips.

You slept inside with the green sky
coming in through your yellow
winging butterfly curtains
and your eyelids pulsing
to the sound of the rain.

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Disorders

sleep is her time for hesitation. She dreams of you,
occasionally thinking she still knows enough to care.
amnesiac lips and fingers delight in discovery.
maxim: Self-interest blinds some, but enlightens others.
blink & you lose nothing if you’ve seen it all before
underneath the velvety coating there is always foreign matter.
licentiously she slithers spilling streams of mercury at her feet –
I am not her. I walk and I trip.

in most cases, I could forgive your
need to divide and conquer, subvert and clarify, eat
shit and die. Absolution comes any hour, day
or place when you realize I am your altar and
Messiah. When they have me drawn and quartered
will you still take my day, keep
it holy and have me canonized so that I can fall
asleep – knowing you returned the favor?
are all the paintings of fat women called Odalisque?
perhaps they told them, “… and such a pretty face” or maybe
not. I surmise they were quite comfortable that way.
except that they’re dead now
and have decided to stop breathing

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Monologue

If she moved any farther away
he wouldn’t recognize her walk any longer
step-stumble of a misappropriation of foot to floor
his fucked-up muse feeling something
slightly less than absolute purity
to which he would never admit
like the sweet things forced into his mouth
(and the crocodile said to the mother
of the child in his jaws, Guess what happens next.
If you guess wrong, I’ll eat him.)

She’d always been terrified of wooden puppet sidekicks
lacquer-lidded eyes and tenuously strung limbs
the men with their arms up inside focusing
empty heads on well-powdered faces.
Staring ahead into heavy-hanging red velvet,
pondering the sport of ruining someone’s life
wondering why they don’t dream
(it was commonly known that she didn’t
realize the difference between day and night.)

She’s working along diagonals
showing off her frost-flower breath
and butterflying the eyelashes that can feel
like a shard of glass on the slick eyeball.
Toying with the words he’s given her
fitting jigsaw pieces of love and beauty
into her board and border
cracked palettes of sand
assembled in empty fingers slipping apart
in the rain.

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Raw Umber

In first grade they gave us
boxes of eight crayons and said
Draw a picture of
your feelings and use
any color you want.

You wrote me a love poem.
You warned me
Don’t turn the page over
unless you really want to know
how I feel
And so I didn’t.

And there was that song -
Red yellow and blue…
Red yellow and blue…
I didn’t like how they left out
all of the intermediary shades
but I guess that was
the point.

You asked me what I want
and was it you or
if not you, then what?
As if there were a right way
to answer or a wrong way
to take it.

I bought a collector’s edition box
of one hundred and twenty crayons
complete with brand new colors
and the retired ones
in a special little box
inside.

And I don’t like how you left out
the intermediary shades
but I guess that is
the point.

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Mobius

*This is a fun poetic form exercise. It's based on the idea of a Mobius strip - which is basically a loop with a half twist in its structure. As a result, there is never a clear front or back, beginning or end; it has both one side and one edge. M.C. Escher liked to use them in his artwork. The way this poem works is that one verse is written on each side of a piece of paper (hence, sides a and b). The paper is then twisted and taped end to end, resulting in a neverending combined version of the verses. I don't think you'll take the time to write this down on paper, so I've combined them for you at the end.

side a

what little exposure have I in the ways
of men and machines. what works for them
means nothing to me. my strength comes
from the knowledge I possess of matters
only a young woman will contemplate
while applying her makeup and trying on
clothing to make her appetizing to the
optic sensors of the opposite race

side b

you keep yourself occupied. the games
I will not play. Your touch, your word
bleeding through the blackness, only
I can comprehend. So you may think
death – of an innocent, of a lover,
funeral shrouds of shredded dreams
only man she’ll ever learn to desire
focused on the one thing unattainable

mobius

what little exposure have I in the ways you keep yourself occupied. the games
of men and machines. what works for them I will not play. Your touch, your word
means nothing to me. my strength comes bleeding through the blackness, only
from the knowledge I possess of matters I can comprehend. So you may think
only a young woman will contemplate death – of an innocent, of a lover,
while applying her makeup and trying on funeral shrouds of shredded dreams
clothing to make her appetizing to the only man she’ll ever learn to desire
optic sensors of the opposite race focused on the one thing unattainable

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Pantoum I

Indecent things, difficult to remember by morning
Puzzled by pioneering lips and love in penumbra
A sleep-sickled marionette sprawled across night
Invention of silver burned deep into tongue

Puzzled by pioneering lips and love in penumbra
Crescent of a fingernail, smiling white-pink in skin
Invention of silver burned deep into tongue
While cut-paper snowflakes curl slowly and die

Crescent of a fingernail, smiling white-pink in skin
Mother and father, any witnesses bound to forget
While cut-paper snowflakes curl slowly and die
Ice-tipped fingers probing, her vacant throat burns

Mother and father, any witnesses bound to forget
Indecent things, difficult to remember by morning
Ice-tipped fingers probing, her vacant throat burns
Sleep-suckled marionette sprawled across night

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Pomegranate

She split the thick fibrous rind
and slowly tore back the thinness
of the smooth rippling membrane.
Seeds pressed together, grown into
odd faceted jewels of juice and skin.
The blackness of the tiny centers inside
reminded her of fish eggs she’d once seen
when a brother or cousin sank them onto a hook
to catch some bigger meatier fish.
Her fingernail pierced one seen.
Colder than blood red juice leaked
onto her fingertips, staining them.
She looked at the seeds and thought
how small they all were – though larger
than what she had come from.
So tiny and sour, containing all they needed
to become the mothers of themselves


She pulled them out, one and then another,
placing them on her tongue, marveling
that they would have no taste until she broke them open.
Her teeth came down around the first one
and crunched against the hard seed center,
as if she’d begun to crush the small skeletons growing
inside and kill them. And she began to cry
thinking how her rind was split and
the small skeleton growing
inside her left.

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Electric Angels

If sound makes sense and that makes sensibility
then mine is shattered by the sudden loudness of an explosion
of white noise and your new age aromatherapy candles in patchouli.
You see, I’ve got a pair of brand new roller skates and I don’t think
you’d ever want the key because it’s such an awesome responsibility
to hold in your hand the one thing that can remove the ember hot
red shoes from my dancing dancing feet of flames.
So you singing pseudo sussudio primadonna dive – of sorts –
dislike my dependence on your independence because it leaves you
sitting home alone on too many nights without anyone to do
the usual sitting home along on too many nights things with.


If previous experience is any judge, you may want to reconsider
the following to prevent further unhappiness: your taste in clothing,
your taste in women, and your timing as far as letting cats out of the bag goes.
But you never liked felines to begin with so my little scratching claws
have never been your proverbial cup of tea inasmuch as you don’t like tea
and prefer the bitter blackness of coffee instead.
The unmarried connubial convivialist in you longs for a little take-on-me
take-me-on roll in the haystack (watch out for the needle) in a definite
Clockwork Orange moloko bath to smooth your skin the way Cleopatra did
or that countess who used virgin blood – little did she know about
the executioner and his necrophilia which may have thrown
the whole virgin thing out the window, but it bounced back up, shining
like a red rubber ball – like a little red Corvette or a raspberry beret –
showering the rest of the world with shards of liquid nitrogen-touched balls
crashing against my wall of virtue or voodoo and even you can’t touch me
so we know our hearts will go on and on.

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Age Seven

I gutted their insides and
their yellow powder-covered antennae
fluttered to the grass
shining against the green
tips of my fingers
crowned by fuschia and white flora
I’d hollowed out
to create fairy caps
so my hands would stay dry

the salty metal
of rust
drops of water budding
off bent and hollow bars
the swing where
yellowed plastic shed water
in rivers
before letting me
sit

toes drawn
apart
by the watery silt
of mud and
softened apple cores
with inverted mottled skins
stubborn hidden seeds

my brown feet bound
with thin blades of grass
dogwood blossoms above
pulled down
by weight of
rain

feet slid across
the slick cold blades
until my small body clad
in wet bathing suit
was pushed away
from a tall shadow
dry and warm with sun
saying in another tongue
--get off of me don’t get
me wet wash your feet—
I slipped under
his strong arm and onto
the soaked hard ground
by his brown leather
covered feet.

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Oubliette

On black and white television
The girl is feeling terror in the alley.
The wet footsteps quicken behind her.
She’s relieved when she learns it’s only her lover
And a voice asks us to believe
the lover was the killer in the end.

With your somnambulant spells you asked
me to believe you hadn’t forgotten about me
Even while your new lover was hearing the same.
So it seems you’ve been telling me stories
I’m not standing in a tower dreaming; I stare
into the darkness until I wake the next day.
Salt-flesh smell of the shirt I slept in
and the taste of my own mouth.

I’ve lost the time I kept hidden for you
The letters and stories and glasses of wine
Now even the process of sleep requires some forgetting
I succeed until your voice interrupts me
Calling to ask how I’ve been or if you can talk to me
though you know I will always say, “fine.”
And I will tell you the story of the oubliette
a nice small place for you to be forgotten
Believe me, you’d have to be inside to see.

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Gaia

grass mashed
into a pulp
beneath
between my toes
clouds heavy
with fat droplets of
an alien sea
technicolor
leaves and rooftops
we pale
in comparison
our rainbow-striped
swimsuits
nowhere near
an ocean where
waves would slap
engulf us
or the sand scratch
and burn
our limbs
so we find paper cups
build castles
in our sandbox
I build evergreens
play Gaia
dripping wet grains
between my fingers
along the edge
of your kingdom
the wind blows our
hair sticky
despite the
lack of salt
we run inside
I grab
an umbrella to
shield us
an extra layer
of sky
our feet become
dams along the curb
as the clouds break
open and oceans
begin to fall

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Dobranoc (Good Night)

Light sucked out of all four corners
Firework flowers dancing on the insides
Of my eyelids
The quiet I can remember.
“I’ll tuck you in like a cocoon.”
The warmth of something soft
Tucked beneath my chin
And wrapped all around me
“Will I wake up a butterfly?”
Sometimes there is music
Songs that make me cry,
I play them over and over

She and I used to cry together
But now she only cries to me
About pills and prophylactics
And things that go wrong

Early morning phone conversations
Catch me delirious
Leave me pressed
Against the pillow
What am I waiting for?
There’s no bedtime story
No tooth fairy
Or sleeping powder

The words I hear at twelve past three
“I was thinking…” he says
In the stupor of drunken honesty
Of late nights, of rumpled truth
“…about you.”

And I hate being the sober one
Who remembers everything
But my dreams.

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