I loved her entirely:
her too tiny toe-nails,
the freckles on her collar bone
the shifting sorrows of her face-

It made me stupid- this want-
to burrow into her bloodstream
and travel through her veins-
fever bright I stood
on the tallest spires
of my mind
and shook my fist at the sky
jealous of the sun and the wind
and the stars,
all trespassers-
mine, mine,
I shout and then whisper-

So of course it ends:
nobody can bear it
when I get like this,
least of all me,
and I've had twenty years
of practice- so of course
it ends like it began
in a thunderclap
in a burning building
everything in flames
and then, the rain. 

Jerusalem

"..and it's brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel.....the city of pure gold, as pure as glass." (The Book of Revelations/ Chapter 21)

Yes, but-
Consider this-
a pavement of patchwork hearts
trod by feet that leave bloodied prints
because the walk's been all uphill,
all the time, and 
as they walk past pillars of tears
holding up roofs of desperate prayers
that rise higher, and higher
farther than their eyes can see,
they bow their heads, hands trembling,
their parched lips stung by words 
of an ever reckless song,
and still they walk to the cathedral

singing. 

Neon blue

This city is the secret
You whisper to yourself
Remember when-
Remember you-
then, when,
once before,
now again,
this is not your year
it never will be
you suspect
but will not admit
to anywhere
but here,
the concrete and glass,
this neon night
hot and still
like the ones before
and the ones to come.

//Title from the song "Neon Blue"

Hoarder

Run away with me
I say
and you laugh
and I am a king,
but the words
get all tangled
when I tell you
and you laugh
some more,
and look, I am
the dragon too,
hoarder of moments,
waiting to be
slain. 

Some days-
some nights-
I put my hands on you.

It usually ends badly.

Fire or water
Eyes burnt holes
Lungs filling up.

Once, just once
our fingers
tangled
held.

We were on a beach.

Correction-
I, on the rocks,
You, walking into the sea.

This place sucks.

I pretend it doesn't.
But it does.

Moonrise:
Let the dead bury the dead.

Some days-
some nights-
I let you put your hands on me too.

The Daily Report

I don't have the language for this.
To bridge this distance;
instead, there's the usual inventory-
Things I did today.
Things you did today.

I want to say:
Today I finished a book,
and as I re-shelved it,
the thought came,
unbidden, like the sun:

I want to eat nothing but words
swallowing entire libraries
of them whole
nothing but that
for a year or a decade
or the rest of my life.

Instead, I tell you
about the price of daal
and tell you to stop
making excuses for your
lack of restraint
when it comes to carbohydrates
my voice self righteous
and unforgiving
as only a daughter's can be.


I don't want this kind
of inventory:
let us instead count
my life in teaspoonfuls
as the poet so cannily advises
and because if there's anything
I've inherited from you,
it's the full appreciation
of the word hesitant
today: shallots crackle rose
and pepper blooms on my lips
like a bruise, sharp, purple.

Blink

Sometimes, sometimes,
in that twilight
between awake
and asleep
I turn and say-
yes or I do or-
Nothing changes
around us-
the night-pressed
silence,the distant lights,
our shoes scuffing on the gravel,
our fingers sweaty,
still entwined
your face all shadows and angles
under the tree
the summer heat rising
clinging to my shirt-

Specificity

Sometimes I ask myself why I don't just chuck it all and go back to school.
Study the Romantics, or Homer. Read. Draw lines. Deconstruct.
And then, today as I walk back from lunch I know.
Because all that's on my mind is the precise warmth of the sun on my left temple, while my right remains cooler as I walk under fledgling trees, and the difference between those two feelings. The slap of my slippers against my soles, and the feel of the road that seeps through to my feet.The soft whoosh-whoosh in my ears that's the breeze. The pale pale pink of the hibiscus across the road.Voices. The weight of my spectacles on the bridge of my nose, the dent of it.

Some days ago, my friend said: you don't see the big picture. Everything is personal.
It's true.

All that interests me in that five minute walk are the things that I can sense. The ping of my id at the card reader. The force of my hands as they pull the cold door handle.I'd be an utter failure at philosophy because I'd be distracted by the sensation of cooling sweat against the nape of my neck as the artificially cooled air comes up against my sun warmed self.

I suppose this is why I like poetry.
Because I suspect that when she said hope is the thing with feathers, she meant that literally.
I may be wrong, but I don't think so.
Perhaps doubt is the way my brow crinkles right now.
She held the little bird and felt its heart thudding, thrumming,felt it slide beneath her skin and through her veins like nothing else in existence, beyond words really, but those are her only refuge and she said hope is the thing with feathers.

Limbo

What's the word for it?
The cracks into which
bits of data fall
pushed over the edge
by karma, or a bad connection?
I imagine that it's a cold
dark place, buzzing with static:
listen long enough
you begin to understand-
howz you, bye-bye, hello,
busy right now, lots of
lols, silent funny faces
rolling yellow
robert pattinson <3,<3,<3
how to get rid of toothache,
how to kiss, what is the meaning
of life, hugs, xoxo
talk to you later, mom's calling,
aren't the beatles great-
you get the picture.
And what about the words that
never find themselves thrown
out there, into the great cosmic void-
I'm lonely, stop treating me like a child,
I hate you, so you think you're all that,
this conversation got boring three seconds in,
are you beautiful, are you bored with me,
do you want to meet for coffee or a movie,
I've fallen out of love with you,
you make me happy.
I wonder if they die out there
or circle, in an eternal, useless orbit
that burning star of memory?

-For K, <3 x g-t-b

The Gift

They both clung to him, dangling off a cliff, their faces upturned.
He felt the muscles in his hands stretch.
He could save only one.
The blood pounding in his ears, his breath ragged.
Their hands slipping.
He could save only one.
Time slowed down.

She smiled at him.
And let go.

Debt

Did you think, then
that it would be over
three words and it's done?
Not yet, not yet.
A debt still remains-
Forgiveness comes cheap,
Forgetting, not.