Superstition

Two silhouettes through
The windowpane dance
The thirteen step, heel
To toe.

Milk and salt, inauspicious
Whiteness, lie spilt atop
The tabletop, the lesser
Of a wishbone, drowning
In the white.

Pitch black Mitsy, ‘neath the staircase
Kneads the oriental rug: her
Claws popping like static
On a radio.

You say you will wait with me
The seven years it will take
For this curse to subside.
Each shard in your hand,
a year, you croon,
Eyeing the reflections of
Your eyes’ reflections,
Slicing into the pulpit
Of the trashcan.

In my own shredded hand,
an umbrella blossoms,
Shaking like a palindrome, its
Endless beginnings ending and
Beginning again...

A single fracture underfoot
Touches each of our toes
Across the length of hallway.

A tempest politely raps
At the door. You tell me
With a crooked grin
You’ll float face down, and
I, with my face skyward
if I don't help clean up
this mess.

What Is

On a bridge

I am not the sky

Nor the bridge.

I exist in both.

Hovering

Above the water

Which also is not me.

When I stand

On the edge

I become

The edge,

The possibility

Of the air and what

Is beneath.

We all come

To this edge,

Hovering, becoming

Instead of what is not,

What is.

Hindsight

After the Prince

Now, hindsight has come:

Once passions in the blood
Have congealed,

Once I have been wheeled,
Ceaselessly wheeled
Through hospital corridors, fluorescence
Overtaking disinfectant days, filled with IV drips
Dripping, slipping down into the blood
Pumping, burning the inner skin,

Once salt and citrus pooled

in the gash of my open heart,

For the loss of love,

Once dilation contracted
And eyes could see
Up nostrils of objective men
When the needles were cut
Like umbilical cords,

Once the fetus sleep, etherized
On the tabletop, broke, seeped
Each cell into consciousness
And the pain of being born returned again,

Once the paper dress ripped clean away,
Crumbled in some urine stained corner,
Was replaced by my pocketless rags,
Dirty, dew stained at the hem,

Once I was elbow carried into
The sun, bright as the side of an eye,
And heaped on the bus bench,
Told to wait for the uptown.

This is when hindsight arrived:

Pinned beneath the gawking
Cadaver of the sky, your picture fell
From a stitch in my cuff, face up.

And I squinted to see.
And I finally saw.
Saw your smile was crooked.
Your smile was crooked after all.

Sleepwalker

Somnambulist in crinoline, 

wandering my condominium, 

to a symposium of ciccedas, 

singing through the dark.

Sunday

Smelling of morning orange peels and

Lackadaisical nectarines,

you found me quiet, snuggled

beneath antique furrowed linens and

dusty ruffels.

"Don't hide, but seek and ye shall find,"

you say

and set me unwilling and upright,

wiping Sunday sleep dust

from my eyes.

The bedspreads you've knitted

lie bunched and dirty,

tangled around my skinny unshaven

summer legs.

The day is too young for hymns, Grandma.

But none of that. You stand tall,

enveloped in your own fine linens

no thicker

in the peachy breeze

than your lenses.

I breathe shallow when I am near,

you maker of story time,

harbinger of daylight

in the slumbers of my innocence.

I will put on my dress

and wear my sterling cross

I will not let dust gather

at your orthapedic feet

for it, as darling and dainty as you,

will one day be swept 

with an orange broom kept

beside the impatient washing machine

and all the linens will wake.

one of us

the house was dark behind us

and the moon had cheese grated all its 

whiteness

onto the winter ground. snow covered everything

but us. It had stopped snowing.

we held cigarettes in gloved hands.

a dog barked in another yard.

one of us was saying

we thought we were in love with 

someone we met in a different country, with

deep eyes and humor and hope.

we begin to believe

love is attainable after all.

one of us was saying a radio was playing

down the frosted road, probably from a passing car.

then one of us said something about how

late

it was, how we should turn in

before the sun came up, before another day

began.

Tristesse

I have been in arms before, arms grown
Oaken ‘round my flesh; Neolithic limbs,
swallowing the sweat from my skin,
the dew the body makes for love.

And I have ridden the swelling chest,
o’ergrown with wire black hair, face craned
away, so that even in sleep I may not see
the amnesic flashes of nose, razor cut, tooth.

There is an art to drowning. To be swallowed like
a pill is healthy, some say, to drop into
the gullet, to churn, grow seasick with the motion
of love, of the feeling of love, without ever possessing it.

Simple Math

Arithmetic question:

If one plus one equals two

Then where are you?

Art

Please understand, I

had to hurt you to write the

beauty of your tears.

Le Garçon Sans Visage

Lend an arm for me to hold

Kiss my cheek and walk me through the door

Wrap me in your arms, the air is cold.

Look at me, without blinking, if you can,

See me radiant, glowing, as you did before

I am the weeping woman and you the man

Soft in shadows, pitiful to behold.

I would rather turn into the night

And leave you standing here, alone.

Take the candle, leaving just the white

Of the unblinking moon staring down.

If only I could not know what I have known

Sleeping beside you in a silk nightgown

When you refused to switch on the light.

He didn’t move, but with the faint light cast

Upon the trodden leaves, crisp and departed,

His shadow stretched across the ground so vast

I thought for just a moment he would follow.

Silly girl, longing for the way things started,

Naive to the infinite depths of the hollow

Boy, left alone on the dead, trodden grass.

Liar, Liar

if the rhyme is correct,

your pants should be on fire,

burning you alive.

Nocturne; a Sonnet

Anon! A note, anonymous and new

Anoints in me a nameless naivete.

A nocturne, anecdotal nimbles through

Noiseless first, and nervous now – but nay!

Its noise alike an angel’s native voice

Needles into the naked ancient night

A nascent, nearly nonchalant rejoice

Nurturing nocturnal memories to ignite.

Nostalgic, negating nefarious exploit,

This nocturne nestles near my very soul

Nomenclativly Neoclassically adroit

An amorous nod to nightingales on patrol.

As Neptune navigates night upon the sky,

This nocturne negotiates evening needn't be nigh.

Bookmark

i've left this here because
i know you love this book
and that you would pick it
up when you had some
time away from me. i've
changed my number and
moved away, and i don't
think you'll go to any trouble
finding me. i hope you enjoy
this book, as you've enjoyed
the way i've honeyed your
tea each morning, and woken
you with my mouth, and
snoozed when you asked me
to snooze, and woke when you
bid me to wake. now you have
so much time to read, dear, and
you no longer have to feel that
pang of danger that you felt. that
danger of letting me get too close
to you. i am gone now and you
should rest easy, and read your
marvelous book. that danger you
felt is the danger felt when
champagne is about to bubble
over its bottle. that fear of spillage.
that fear of waste in poverty. this
was your fear. and it was despicable.
as horrifying as the shepherd seeing
his lambs slaughtered, wondering if
his smock would be stained. though
i have stained your smocks, dear,
you are safe from danger now. at
last, you can honey your own
chamomile, kiss your own hand,
and snooze awhile, for now there
is no one distracting you from yourself.
this book was made for you, my dear,
and i'm so glad you have unearthed it.
put your feet up and enjoy. go back
to your book, please.

Undertow

The bed ebbs, pulls us

into the undertow. In

each other, we drown.

No Answer

Of all the things

you could have asked me, I will not

answer this question.

Arachnophobia

In each corner darkness

Grows an hourglass, red and

Hungry for my flesh.

Single Mother

Screaming for candy.

Bedlam in the candy aisle.

What if I just ran?

A Toothless Man's Jealousy

Wet snap of green skin

White apple-meat churns in the

Sea of his young teeth.

Nana Folding my Late Grandfather’s Laundry

Underarms flap like

Seraph wings. She prays to finish

Her final chore.

Polonaise

He waits for stillness,

Eyes lidded, breath calm as a cradle.

The slightest silent metronomic motion

lifts his face, as if waking from a dream,

as if having mumbled a murmured amen

for a prayer he needn’t have prayed.

Such hands could crush a woman’s heart.

Such fingers could carve faults into stone,

Pry apart cogs, jaws, teeth of factories,

crumble mortice locks, or shatter bone,

but his

anoint the heavy trodden keys,

soften, settle. Listen! He breathes

and the first note of his reprise

begins.

Such cadence alters the beating of the heart.

From a promontory of black and white slabs,

Strung taught with wire, all in a row,

Rises ecstasy itself, making drunk the air

And quiet eyes moist in adoration.

Each note, a wholehearted assent

His face flickers with such content

For this polonaisical compliment.

He courts the keys, woos them,

Teaches them to sing, to break

Like hurricane waves on a stunned

Chromatic shore. The more

He plays, the more

Impossible this is, these precisions

unfathomable faultless tender decisions

Which dance in air like elated visions.

He is a teller of tales, an oracle

Who, unmoving, rises, lifts himself,

With furious and tender violence.

He creates a reason to break the silence.