X: Rivers of Sky

three

_________________________




(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
-e.e. cummings





1

Terrapins coast backward in a river
heads pointing north
while their bodies travel south.
Soda cans, too, lean against the flow.

You are a mouth I turn my back to.




2

How many hooks does a room need?

One for the heart
one for the eye
and one for the mind,

so I can sleep.




3

My eyes are a window.
My fingernails are TV
windows.  And my moles are little
windows like stars 
are windows to what's behind that black.





4

TV casts its blue ghosts on me
more cadaver than sky more
bruise than moon but at least
it distracts from the empty
next-to-me.




5

She crunches kibble
from her bowl by my bed
with that sound like rolling marbles
in a mouth, and something
in the way she is alive
equals lullaby.





6

The alarm ticks off and I
miserably hit it then fix
on the ceiling whose white starts spreading
like a leak who slowly forms the shape
of an ocean liner I try
and try again to blink away.

I squeeze my lids a hundred times before I see 
it's me who's pressing up.




7

Dear Today,

Please let me not roll
my same old rocks uphill.
I want to be Lothario
who makes no wrong moves.




8

I'd like to think it's because
I look like a celebrity, or 
that I have a piece of lettuce stuck
in my teeth, to solicit such staring—
and not that anger heats to boil inside 
because you can't tell what I am.




9

I dream a dream 
where your eyes green
and your hair blacks 
and your skin is a visage of red
where I've put it in my mouth.





10

I go missing in a mass
of pens and pencils
the way a peppered moth
won't be seen on a bed of lichen.






Desire / Leslie Marcus





11

Kari says Desires make now 
disappear while I sit watching 
work wander like cows 
wondering when I'll get to feel like a boy again,
let your hip bones sleeve me.





12

I look up into blue so flossy
you can smell it.
A crow enters sharp left, 
and I wince,
oil on ocean.




13

We all have avoirdupois 
like Justice's arms
or a motorcycle's sidecar.

Mine is a devil of dirt
sanding down my eyes.





14

Wasn't there a poem once
that talked about the office
how its pencils marched
and broke the will of whomever
was sitting in that chair?

Didn't Wallace Stevens sell insurance?




15

I live in a city
where people who nearly kill you
with their cars
re-bless you with a wave
in the rear-view.





16

In the 50s it was
what if something goes wrong? 
My parents
bought so much insurance—

Now it's
who cares? 
I go months without health, 
never fancy long-term life.





17

I am a hero walking uphill in the fog
remembering when you took me 
in your car to Twin Peaks
and let the windows fog up
and me have my way.




18

Your stippling lips
tattoo me—
blade on my neck, heart
carved in a trunk.





19

And now is not the time of then
nor is it the time of next—
It is the time of waiting 

not long enough to start something new 
nor finish something old,  
but just enough to imagine the worst.





20

I press you into a rock
wall with my hips—

below us, cornrows stripe a plain
of fireflies tapping out an en masse SOS:

let's pretend we're stars at stage-edge
squinting into the camera flashes of fans; 

let's raise our sweaty arms up
and take them in, like a yawn.




21

Somewhere someone
didn't make it through today.
I am lucky in a room of 36
people just like me,
the only girl.





22

I accidentally ate e.e.'s small hands
and my mind has become an adding machine
at the mercy of someone really good
with adding machines.





23

My father Fed-Exed me
Conversations with God
1, 2, and 3— 

I keep reading it before bed
like a prayer.




24

I know it's wrong to make deals
but if you just let me sleep
through one night—

please let me sleep through this night. 



Next : Four - Melissa Fondakowski / Leslie Marcus

Ours in a Day - Contents Page
One - Fondakowski / Marcus
Two - Fondakowski / Marcus
Four - Fondakowski / Marcus
Five - Fondakowski / Marcus


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