walk with me

Soon we’ll walk by rows of cedars, white

with frost next to the ice-skimmed pond.  I’ll reach

for your hand as cold junipers droop

with heavy snow.  A lone cardinal will sit

on a birch, against the pale blue sky.

It will be morning, when shadows are long but snow

is bright against your hazel eyes, and as

we inhale frozen air, our breath-filled clouds

will dissipate and then

form again. 

In June, we’ll become botanists,

sketching wild blue phlox, johnsongrass,

geraniums, and garlic mustard within

our notebook pages.  We’ll clutter bedroom walls

with water-colored illustrations and notes

scribbled about colors pigments can’t

quite capture.  We’ll record the smallest parts—

trichomes, cold taproots, filaments,

and yellow anthers full of pollen grains.
Even the broken petals will be drawn.

Bastion

I walk tar-chipped roads past rotting logs

and thick, chokecherry groves to the field

by Miller’s Pond. 

     Within the green and blue

echoing world of cornstalks and sky, I’m lost. 

Lost, but certain that corn will end—sure

of stirring switchgrass, wild bergamot,

milkweed and prairie dock next to stone-stairs

that lead to tarnished steel. 

       My childhood

train-bridge looms, and once again I’m small,

looking skyward towards graffiti and rust.

I want the view to be the same: brick homes

missing shingles, sun-scorched corn, tracks

edged in brush, paint-peeled factories

and windswept oaks.

                                  Last time, I climbed this bridge

to say goodbye.  But now, planting my feet

on crumbled steel, I need both black and white—

both tar and Queen Anne’s Lace, timeworn brick
and cloudless sky, the rust beside new blooms.

little by little

crinkled grass, cut hair—

the uncluttered morning

with your green eyes, with

sun on skin.  I had forgotten

how simple feeling can be—
how summerlike we are.

By The Beaver Dam

We crouched in the river

letting our mouths, noses,

flat palms feel the slight

bubble of water tension.

There was a carcass coated 

with flies to our right.  

It was perfectly cloudy

when we undressed.  

I kissed each freckle 

on your back until 

the oaks staggered

and the robins hushed.  

The air clotted, 

the thunder whooped, 

and I forgot you 

were there at all.

Couch Potatoes

His hands shuffle
next to me. I'm
looking for something

in the lines
that crinkle
from his eyes:

a tributary, a river
basin.  It has rained
for nineteen days—

the weatherman
tells us so, smiling.
Channel three

is flickering again.
Maybe love is selfish,
like too much rain.

Fragmented roots slide
from earth, ungrounded
by what nourishes.

a review of a popular dating site

dont have a girlfriend
and it doesnt bother me that much
in the moments before i sleep
im consumed
by a sort of circadian isolation
but otherwise im fine :)

create an okcupid profile
im a blank slate with an impatient flashing cursor
125 million blinks until im 30

i write things that i know how to defend
as stupid as that sounds
unconscious decisions are the most embarrassing

after confronting uncomfortable truths
i scroll through the selfies
and notice all the cute ones have kids

i learn something about myself
namely that i dont want kids right now :(
also im apparently into moms

of course a nice lady with a daughter
sends me a message
and i can barely face telling her the truth
even in this mostly faceless medium
and as i read her way-too-understanding reply
a hard knot forms in my stomach

a thicket of messages from various others
grows unkempt and barely pruned
as a mixed metaphor for apathy compounds over 18 months
and causes me to lose interest
(dont forget to account for inflation)

the profiles get more vapid and the messages more explicit
and its hard to ignore the thought that
maybe all i really want is sex
but part of me knows (the virgin part?)
that im too scared and untrusting for that
without a serious relationship

so maybe thats what it comes down to
i think im happy most of the time
just want to make sure im not missing anything

which wow
is still the shittiest reason to have a girlfriend

okcupid - 2/10

The Dairy Freeze!

Went to the Dairy Freeze

last night—dipped in color-

ful sprinkles.  Walked the

two blocks of back alleys,

past the rusting chair by

the curb, past the peonies.

Went to the Dairy Freeze

last night—crunched tarred

chipped roads as I walked

my coney dogs home.  Nothing

was clairvoyant, as usual.

Went to the Dairy Freeze

last night—tried to forget

the ice-cream, the numb
pinching force in my skull,
the lawless hunger of need,
needing someone, anyone,
to walk with me back home.

boarders

Left part by the blustering
bluebells on a cinder night
by the fire.  I was the beryl
fibers of light, the mountains
themselves.  Left part of me
in Kentucky—visited by
moonshine eyes that meant

too much, encircled in apron
ties, wanting and wanting
until part of me left for good.

summer

The maples always sway

together.  There’s cotton-

wood in my hair, a snake

coiled near the trash, a dog

barking, his left ear folded.

I told you I felt summer

opening—a hand needing

held.  It is almost dark as I
fold into white sheets, alone.

Conversation at 2:12 on Saturday Afternoon while Sipping Iced Coffee

She told me about blue-green

infinity and power in my big toe.

Stroke your ego by counting music,

she instructed.  She communicates

with the natives to heal them. 

She doesn’t believe in venus

fly traps, because she is a vegetarian. 

She told me that Moses made a law

to stone people who killed flesh,

that she cried the night they killed

extraterrestrials in Area 51.  She
is convinced that Patrick Swayze

is trying to overtake her soul.
She is afraid of GMOs.  

Twilight

My grandmother’s   sun    drenched     cells,

dead,               when everything budded light

green.  Jonathon Edwards spoke  of Divine

Light.  I   saw      it   once,     steady sunlight

on a cactus. I thought of marks  on my back

from  the  year     I      grew         four   inches.  

Years later, those marks    are   still      there.

Wild

I need out of this Podunk town.
Out of here, I yell as I trace 
hands along the barbed wire 

fence, watching the raccoon 
dart  into the neighbor’s trash. 
I walk to the edge of town, 

where the train shadows 
bend towards the Queen 
Anne's Lace. Today I’m rhythm

& chords are easy  in my fingers.  
I've been changing for awhile now, 
but today I'm packing my bags.

Cicada

 In August I shed with him, layers

of clothing.  I slipped into the pond,

and noticed the peach sky. Cicadas

only have beaks that suck for food,

but I kissed his lips when he told
me that he's a cicada.  I wanted him 

to be sincere, but he molted again

and again, green to brown to green.

I collected his shells and I lined my
windows, but I could not pin his wings.

Sing

1
When I was small & it rained,

 my brother & I shrieked

            while we raced paper boats

                                      in the stream
                                                               to the gutter.
                                                        
                                                      Our boats toppled,
                                                      but we ran after them 
                                                                                even so.

        When thunder came                         we weren't afraid.
        We answered clouds                         with screams.
        We harmonized                                 with roars.

2

I snatched leaves from the maple / to read the scarlet mite galls like braille, / as if nature had the answers I wanted.  / The spring peepers chanted. / A screen door cracked shut. // I once scribbled on a receipt, “I am paper / needing ink,” but what I meant was, / “My body needs a voice / or else I’ll die.” // Dolce.  I always smile. / Pianissimo.  I will be quiet. / Decrescendo.  Because it’s safer.

3

I waited for permission 
to be the thunder, the frog, 
the screen door.  When 
it didn't come, I determined 
to make my own melody.

Circles

Paper moths knot the street lamp. I graze / the tips of words I once knew but can’t / voice.  Audrey Lorde said silence won’t // protect me. I shuck bloody skin / to find the bold / animal that can speak. 

infidelity

Insect-peeled, cut

chatter, linen  

love.  I tried to decode you

on my kitchen table. 

There’s more.  The

magnolia tree outside

my window: the palest

pink against black
bark.  I don't deserve

this. I slept for hours
& woke to rain breaking
through my window.

When I read Orwell's, "Shooting an Elephant"

He detached from his bones

—a song, severed. I repeated

his melody over and over

The pages fell.  I made

tea for his anger.  I read.

He was left by the stoop,

haunted by his father.  

I told him so.  I was a healer,

plugging in Christmas lights,

shooting elephants.  I cracked. 

“George Orwell was paper

needing ink.” I cracked

from the spine of the book.

Beautiful ligaments in summer

lilac, blurred and fragrant,
I cracked.  Please don’t end.  

Fix Me, America

I made my man howl in bed like Cosmo Girl instructed, except it was accidental. 

When I tried to run my hand through his hair, my thumbnail scratched his cornea.

I cried about it more than him.  At the time I was experimenting with false

eyelashes and my tears unhinged the glue to my plastic-eye-antenna. 

Those feelers slid off my eyelids and stuck to my cheeks. I was an alien insect

from a planet beyond the Milky Way.  I was Cosmo Girl’s girl from the cosmos.

There are things I could buy to correct my wrongs. 

I could make a new self out of acrylic, plastic, silicone,

and a splash of mystery chemicals—like Iron Man. 

Except my superpower would be my noteworthy ass. 

First, I’d buy padded butt enhancers, then creams

for saggy eyes and cellulite, a push-up bra, new nails

to cover my chipping ones, a few pairs of spanks,

diet pills (that I affectionately call brownie forgivers)

and red lipstick to enhance my tepid complexion. 

Or should I go with the coral lipstick instead?

In Walmart, among the toasters, I found the perfect woman for only

$5.99.  Her name is Lady Dish Brush™.  Google it!  You can flip her,

grip her leopard-print curves (for better functionality) and scrub

crusty bits with her bristle-hair.  She will smile the whole time.

Dirty

On Mondays I go to the hipsters

for guidance on being casual.

I watch their red lips.  I measure

 

their indifference with a ruler. 
My mother says I’m neurotic. 

I got it from her.  She never

 

strayed from her disinfectant

wipes.  When my frontal lobes 

fused I started to wash 

my hands until they cracked. 

It felt right.  Like the time

I looked at Cody White’s

 

Chemistry final to better

understand oxidation-

reduction reactions

 

or the time I met the 

married man, loved 

the married man.

I scrubbed my skin

with bleach to make

sure my hands would bleed.

Rip Van Winkle

There are always layers I forget when I sink 

into my invulnerable bones. I’m peeling white 

paint and my buttery heart next to the magnolia 

tree in the future city—in our New Republic.

The citronella candle blinked and my neighbor’s arms ticked against his sides. 

He was on his front porch in only boxer briefs.  It was midnight and I remembered

his wife’s arms—the time she scooped her wheezing pug to her chest. “It’s genetic!”

she snapped.  Electric colors shifted through their curtains. “She has a collapsed

trachea, Jon.”  I watched him from my own dark porch because his nakedness was

a big joke—funny like the word cauliflower.  He sat down, tucked his legs close to his

body, chin to knees, heaving shoulders folding and all at once I felt sticky, untied—

for him, for his wife, the collapse, collapsed trachea.  Or maybe for me.  But I  stopped 
myself, went inside, because middle-class sadness is a dishrag that can be washed over and over again.

white male growing pains: to my roommate's boyfriend

Thinking your girl 

will wash the pan 

you boiled your 

bratwurst in? 

Well, she hasn't.

Your ass-

umptions smell 

up my kitchen.

Little Animal

Pee here.  I’ll turn away.  I won’t look.  The black

raspberry patch, the patch by the tracks where he

smashes berries on my cheek.  Sit there.  It’s funny. 

I think it is funny.  Long I echo.  Beneath my toes

there’s tar from the bubbling road.  I’m fizzy.  I’m

Victorian scratching my hangnail, blood reaching

for black, black-rasping berries like curdled stomach

shredded open.  Never seen.  Never seen one before. 

A groundhog up-close, hit by the five o’ clock train.

It doesn’t hurt, stupid.  It is a little stupid, stupid

little animal, so near the tracks and all.  I hear you

all say it.  You’ll say it out loud, moralizing to decay.

on perspective

 “I think you love more

deeply than I do,” and

I’m crying because he’s

right and there’s that

slowness that change,

a drowsy sort of animal

wanting to be alone. 

I’m long hair, careless. 

I care too much; that

horrible slowness,
skinning knees on
endless silent branches.

Shut Up, Benjamin Franklin

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

-Benjamin Franklin 1789

Where is the dead Benjamin Franklin?

I’d like to tell him a few things about

life.  Tidy one-liners may feel noble in

the mouth but they’re dust in stomachs.

Don’t fuck with me, with that dream:

the sprawling house, my money-husband

tucking 3.1 children into crisp textiles,

the sit-down salmon dinners with fresh

dill—my box without fear.  I've noticed

that in the Land of the Free, freedom

holds its twitchy hands with fear. Here

black men dangled from telephone poles

while postcards of the lynchings circulated

like Valentines.  Let the liberty bell ring

in unison with cries of women unable to

charge their husbands with rape, because

historically a man is allowed to claim his

property.  No, don’t tell me there are only

two certainties when 179 people have

been shot in Chicago since the beginning

of the year.  It is February.  It is only

February, and I must point out that even

cookie-cutter homes have fences.  Fear can

be merry and whitewashed in American

dreaming.  But it is still present.  400

people in the world have calcified

amygdalae, making them biologically

fearless.  For the rest of us, there’s fear.

my ghost's stream of consciousness

No playground shrieks, no sorting mulch.

No singing songs.

No jump rope strokes.

Dolls without eyes cannot be bothered.

Not once breathing.

Never watered.

Black light. 

Saline pleasure.

Phosphorescent sand dune dweller.

Cherish the desert.

Treasure the scamper.

Scorpions—they don’t get better.

Don’t tunnel anger—do what’s right.

Take your vitamins day or night!

Don’t give up the ghost; you can’t protest.

Calcified arms cannot transgress.

Rippling

Down the fragile limbs of the sycamore

time was gentle, softly blowing

when I was small.  It was easy

to stare at cornfields. But later I found myself

by the pond on the edge

of rippling stalks, tangled.  Time

was fast because I was as tall
as I’d ever be, because Grandma
had died in sunlight. I couldn't stop

wondering why, why,

why she looked through me from the hospital bed, why
 she clutched my hand violently.  It surprises me

         
that I’m still
devoted to her
fear.

if heaven would come

it would be like that time in the small

upstairs kitchen when I watched my new

friend as she slowly cut cucumbers. mint fear

stopped rustling like the pines in

my grandparent’s backyard. somehow,

between bits of tabouli, we sank into

acceptance—an oil that fried us

until golden and light.

unbroken by peers and recess, by

the two streams of snot that used to drip

to Andy’s lips, smudging “unlovable”

across his face when he was barely six. whole despite

the summer before Junior High, when I traced

milkweed and train tracks, burning

because I could never date Josh Hershey

without cooler jeans and a better ass.

that evening we forgot to be “good enough.” I twisted

lemons and it felt like heaven.  wingin’ it, like jazz, we

were free.