People say
I'm poetic and
calm
with blue
eyes and
aura.
My fingernails
shine with
midnight
oil, like
paint.
All this sounds
mysterious, like
a woman
eating
alone...
you see the
mystery and
smile
like a child
at a
red
balloon.
I try to force
the words, to cut
these feelings into small
unassuming
categories. But I can't face
dissection yet. Leave my
emotions intact. Leave the
fangs for now.
They slid
into my heart
long ago:
Fastening tight,
securing my
fate.
Yesterday reminded me
of a sad french film we saw
once in paris, about a woman
and there was an ice storm that made
even the Champs Elisee look lonely
and cold and too tired to be angry.
The woman's hair was held by frozen fingers
and her sweater was like a chandelier
of water beads and ice shavings.
and she looked like a cliche
of a lost angel, and someone tried
to repent and someone tried to find her
and save her. And even though we
didn't have subtitles we knew
the woman was in pain and we knew
the ice wasn't going to melt,
because we could read the tea leaves
and besides, thats how all french films end.
And i remember how you held
my hand all the way out into the street,
and i huddled up next to you knowing
that soon i would be lost
and that soon it would start
snowing again.
I know when
your head gets
heavy on
my shoulder,
when your breath
moves in and
out slowly,
you have found
comfort in
my embrace.
You are safe
here. Sleep comes
invading
quietly,
like my thoughts,
a poem
about your
dreams, about
how your curl
up around
my body.
A poem
about how
our bodies
curve into
each other.
Resting with
arms holding
so tightly;
this is how
I want to
remember
you and me.
I wake up
everyday.
I take a hot shower:
remember when you
took showers with me...
I can't seem to get rid
of the plaguing internal monologue; day in,
day out. I talk to myself, to her,
even to an outsider, maybe God.
I don't know how I'm going to pay for
the hospital, the doctors, those
damn coctails they say will help; I
don't even have grocery money
and the phone was cut off yesterday.
I had to convince the doctor
that I was your closest family
member: our wedding rings
didn't bind us through red tape.
I told them we never knew
AIDS was a possibility for us:
who knew and why weren't we warned?
I want to believe she'll be ok, but I know that
tonight, when I fall asleep, this will still be my reality.
Stumbling out of my
bed towards the bathroom
I squint my eyes against
the harsh light.
I turn the knob and
I am pelted by sweltering water.
There, hidden by a curtain
of steam, I open my eyes--
one,
then the
other,
to see your
traces everywhere.
A hair, certainly yours, stuck
to the clear shampoo
bottle.
A familiar smell of soap
rises to wake me and I drown
in the sentiment of your skin.
I accidently use your conditioner,
but it will make me think
of you
all day.
I wash my face
gently,
quietly,
thinking
about your lips
and your cheeks
and slowly
here, alone,
in the heat,
in the shower
I forget my body and remember yours.
My Love: Unfairly Judged
Based on "Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quit"
No one asks
who she is,
She must be
one of my "college friends."
She always stands so very close to me.
Baby, you are an enigma
Outside the scope
of their understanding.
No one will speak
her name,
She hosts a multitude
of flushed rumors,
Smiling with the grace
of a queen.
The validity of our love
is lost
when the religious right whines
about family values
What they say
must be true:
It doesn't matter
so long as they don't have to witness it.
No one knows
what we did tonight,
Maybe America
will shed its clothes without us,
Sighing and sweating on the kitchen floor.
You are dark in my mind,
black and purple swirling
like a spell.
You conjure poetry
a spirit inside you
being released.
Your smile is
deep,
your hands
adorned
with silver rings and blue painted fingertips.
Everything I know about you
is an ethereal
fabrication
of images,
thoughts and colors.
I piece you together,
one
by one.
I find reason
for my intoxication.
You choose the setting, wrapping
the night sky
around your body,
and the world bows down to your judgment.
You create
a realm, one where you
can rule, letting people in and out.
Who comes close
to your image
of them?
Who can be as mystifying
and enchanting
as you’d like,
as the smoke
flowing from between
your lips.
I see a woman wondering
if she can make it, worrying
if she has the strength
to get on the plane, to stay
with her daughter over Christmas.
She’s not sure she can be away
from her house for that long and the holidays
are always so hard. The panic
is rising in her lungs, the depression,
a black hole in her stomach.
There is a girl,
she is pregnant and
her parents don’t know.
It was an accident.
Next Saturday night,
her parents will go to mass,
she will go to the clinic.
They will never know,
she’s going to tell them she doesn’t feel well,
and when they get back
she will be sick and alone.
An old woman is dressing
in the familiar black dress.
She fixes the clasp of her ancient seed pearls,
it gets harder every time.
She will walk to the church down the road,
carrying a casserole she made for the family.
The woman in the casket was her schoolmate,
they worked in the factory together,
side-by-side, they went through the war
and five pregnancies together.
Tomorrow she will weed her garden
and take some flowers to the grave.
The buzz
of the streetlamp brings
a sharp veracity to the air.
How did I get here?
Waiting for a bus,
I dodge cold rain and listen
to the dogs barking
halfway across the county.
They dare the nobody there to
come closer,
closer.
Put up your hands, they bark:
fight fight fight
Cars flash
by, unapologetic
for the rain jumping up.
I can see
the headlights
of the Greyhound in the distance.
I have to say goodnight
to the dogs
and the town.
How did I get here?
When the sun comes up, I’ll think,
it wasn’t so bad there.
I would open
myself
up,
let you slide
your hands inside,
and feel
around.
Push your fingers
deep, palms
down,
searching through
my secrets.
My cavities
dark and
moist,
growing and
changing,
a pulsing creature.
I would let you
hold me,
wrap your hand
around
my throbbing self,
the part that
grows,
my eyes wide and
faltering.
I would give you
this,
and you would not
know
what to do.
You would push too
hard, open
me too
wide. You
just might squeeze too
long, and still
you would not
know me.
I spread myself out,
clean, smooth; my
body pale in the dark, my
hips and thighs bloom from the moon, my
hand drifts and I let my
fingertips caress the silent, dusty seas. My
palm cups the pale orb,
pulsing and warm,
fingers smoothing
the curves, the ocean starting
to move, salty water encroaching
on sand.
The tides pulling
and building,
swirling,
the wetness swirls, my
fingers dip into the water,
ripples circle outward.
The moon sways,
matching my
fingers' movement.
The sand turning into paste,
moist and thick,
syrupy,
like balm for my skin.
The moon, constant and strong,
the wave, crushing and sweeping.
The saltsea pours forth,
soaking the sand,
sticky salt, sweet water
the moon gives me release
and i moan praise,
my lips wet and quivering.
Grace be the sea, the moon,
the fingertips
that kiss them. My
body lays silent
again,
no waves,
no moon,
smooth and clean
I spread myself out.
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