A Year Turns on a Dime

you and me are two for one
banana bread with extra sugar

special coffee from the last
of the non-coarse grinds

talking about tulips and
coming over anytime

truth and honesty
and illusions

you're sporty sweaty
and I can't stop staring

park at your own risk and
take the shortcut home


2011

A Self-Contained Unit's Blues

Walked down the tracks to
the run down mill, stood
under the gazebo as robins
pulled worms, a lone goose
in the stream behind stones.

I held your shoulders, you
asked me to let you go and
sat on the red brown steps.

What if you weren't in control of getting away,
couldn't just go get the fix and drive with it.

I take in folders, sit at my desk
and send them back. I reflect, in
the comforts of civiliation bred.

I don't climb through trees or
wrestle with nets. Instead I
have leisure and ledgers,
feel tension at rest.

What must the boxer or the pro wrestler know that
I haven't felt about being oneself in violent ways.

You finished your bear attack book.
She killed herself five years later.
I did a sudoku in record time.

The library felt cold and lonely,
the restaurant noisy and stuffy.
I stood up early, got out my
house keys in the parking lot.
Like always like we do now.

Holding back the truth is so cool, letting them
hang themselves while staying savvy and safe.

We were both creative, then
my legs got stiff and my body
started feeling restless.

I spend a day in my head, it can get a bit weird.
My body heads toward yours -- can you blame it?


2011

Sing Through the Part that Resists

I'm a bear, do you know what that means?
It means I like to eat honey, I like
to scare campers

I felt terri-bull
horri-bull
awf-bull

you stomped off to do yoga and
lock yourself upstairs for
four hundred years

my scream knocked down the curtains
yours made the doorbell ring
no cops came

Thank you Lord I lay down
my sword for you
Jesus



2011

I Guess the Answer Is Me

Who will hit the ground first,
leave the other.
No more.

Is the question, that time goes
forward. That seasons
never change.

They're out there lurching
around their yards
for spring.

So I swept out the shed rafters,
broke the hammer on
nails.

Had an apple ale, frozen chicken burgers,
sticky rice with greens,
salad.

Used lettuce for the top bread.
You asked if I was on
a diet.

That tuna toast I took to the shop.
Moved the dropped chunk to
the neighbor's step.

I remember how I used to eat cheesecake
in very tiny bites, wrote so small
that no one could see it.

First a quick round. My secret weapon,
the bounce serve, still works.
Son of a whoor.

In bed we sleep. In beds we dream.
Everything comes back in
colors.


2011

Like a Windchime Inside

 
I put the phone on your side of the bed
you thought I was predicting your father's death
mistook a letter from my mom
for one from your dad
said what was SHE going to do with some
corpse in the house?

you play tennis with grace and placement
I serve like your old man
and trap the ball with my racket
two best of fives
plus some

a man who couldn't command
and wasn't trained
didn't know how to study
properly
and liked junk and was still trying to
pawn it
who vacuumed the street
to get it clear of dirt

bracing for the punch
expecting me to start yelling

instead I said
how he's probably more dangerous
now than ever

it's wrong to lay into the dying

Dad, I'm
not upset at you anymore
for not having what I needed

but I just don't want
what you got now

Your email said simply
"Has something changed?"

asterisk:
order flowers


2011

Yet but Kept Looking

but I couldn't see the screen through the sun
and what I wrote came out
in weird colors
and not what I wrote, but
what was unsaid
squinting

you held me from behind in the doorway
which was nice
and my breathing filled the alcove
like we were the
same person

you have orange hair now
the canary singing in the sun
pink hooves on the futon rug
sunset to the south

gets hot upstairs
I put the screen back in


2011

Joan of Arden at Logjam Lake

How much abuse can a cracked gasket Pontiac take?
Still with white smoke from the exhaust pipe, though
at least the red radiator light went off. A sign.

You guessed black jack on the black joker face down.
Check that air tire, check that spare tire, gas up.
Nobody around for K's. Breathtaking beautiful.

We had two life-altering moments then. Going on,
not knowing if anyone's looking or not. And taking
the initiative to walk toward me instead of waiting.

Spurned the neighbor's garage campfire. Stayed home
and brushed and parted your hair instead. Looked
at the new backroads map in bed. Born for trucking.


2011

Like the Scene from Halloween

Nights like these we
wake up gasping, calling
for the light, looking for
our glasses. But this night
you were on the sofa
muttering

"I can't go down like this,
can't go down like that, I
don't have the stamina for it,
I don't got the heart" and
you started singing your
little honeybee song.

When it comes it's a flash
of being cold and alone outside
touching cold metal, a cold metal
bar, being alone outside touching
cold monkey bars. Falling asleep
rolling down the home stretch.

Then the second flashback
which goes straight to
your parents' bedroom.
Because you could kick in
the bathroom door. That's
exactly where I'd hide in.

Then a spider climbs down the
white eel curtain from the dark
while you're looking out the window,
so we play backgammon instead. You
win the match but I take the set
and you come back to bed.


2011

Maybe if I Was Stupid

Hoot hoot hoot
here comes the news
hope you like it.

Your girlfriend is crazy
you got a wild one
how could you have known?

Got nervous, got upset
got all hot,
cold clammy hot.

Causing all this attention
tits were probably flying
rode her fire on the rail.

Yellow flowers on the sidewalk
whiskey cup by the sugar jar
who is king at rocking it PG style.

Nothing nobody thinks matters
I answer to the one armed bandit
and I've got my safety fingers up.


2011

Daddy Approves

Weevils in the mantle.
You fall on your face,
bleed off cycle.
The senator calls,
recovering from unknown surgery.
Your stomach turns.
Meeting soon to sign papers.
Husband renting a room.
A vessel,
flat on your back in a field.
No locks on the bathroom doors.
Therapies, panic attack.
Going to the lawyer.
Ambivalent, not feeling stimulated.
Help, reassurance, to be heard.
Lied about the garden show.
Spider in the shower.
Got your period for
the second time in a month.
Cleaning out granny's apartment.
Two cigarettes.
Raccoons in the tree.
Love to eat the mousies.


2011

Magnolia and Hyacinth

Used to be there were
toads everywhere. I could
go get a toad anytime I wanted.

Then we killed the red
ant scout.

Now I'm tentative and you're
cautious. And I

don't really want either
of those things but it sounded
like a bargain so I had to
take it.

I'm not something to cling to
in the storm, baby. I'm
something that runs.

I hear ducks. I must be
hearing things. Here they
are again.


2011

A Fresh of Breath Air

Dark clouds above the jagged treeline,
only a thin ribbon of clear light. But
I know there's aqua and white above it,
gold with red behind us. Purple, pink
and blue along the sides for miles.

Crisscrossing wires intersect clouds
below mountains on quiet streets after
the rain. Low full moon with a shy face
for this morning you had me going you
were pregnant, an early April's fool.


2011