She’s Like the Canary in the Coal Mine for All of Us

breath drawn back into perfect circles,
circumference of heart and beating wings,
we can survive in this black.

who decided to crawl down into these depths,
these places where songs
trip and tumble to the center of it all?

clenched jaws in sleep,
thighs tight under covers,
sleep is scuffed shoes,
things you meant to pack but didn’t.

we all need some saving grace,
a glint of a future that hums like harmonicas.


we have lungs,
so we use them to make blossoms,
to pass our breath into another rosy mouth.

Of Root Canals and Stalled Poems

..like so much perfume in your mouth
a flurry of chalky moths fluttering in a small space.

my nerves are rattlesnakes and tooth-smoke.

there’s nothing worse than a poem,

hurtling into your ear, mid-written,

as you recline in the dentist’s chair,

a room full of licorice and

fingers empty of a pen.

wings huddled in china,
cupped between trembling hands.


     my tongue is a silken building in the middle of
      momentary hailstorms, star-showers.

Ricochet

We ricochet. Come back to this blue where we began,
our oars poised to crack the water’s surface. is this where
the humming started? Where our overstuffed hearts, crammed
into Buicks and planes, converged in Pittsburgh, a city of even
more convergence? Happy is as happy does and I’ve stopped worrying
for the time being. Being is what I want & need & I will fuel our
upcomings with full lungs and a song-heart. Forever means for always, evermore, for ever and ever, for good, for all time, until the end of time, until hell freezes over, eternally, forevermore, perpetually. This.

8-6-08

the outside is dark and it is early. dark on my insides, my hands.
the cats are climbing steadily, stealthily, into places they do not fit.
put paw down, retract, find a bell and shake it.

we are loungers this evening, stuck between a fire station
and a hospital, & there’s no absence of sirens in our lives.

a perpetual waiting for you to come home, hoping your bones and thighs
will still vibrate with the clang of the drums, the ring of metal encased in sound.

pressed face to glass, I think about heading down many flights of stairs
to the liquor store, buying a bottle of wine, showing you my purple teeth
when you get home. you will kiss me anyways.

Route 8, Pennsylvania (revised 6-4)

My sister sits behind the wheel of Betty,
our yacht, our silver Buick
and memories seep out of us like golden sap.


Remember how Dad used to burn
the webs of gypsy moths with his lighter?

With ribbons tied around their trunks,
trees were selected for cutting.

We made the sign of the cross as we watched the flame.


Remember how he set us on the backs
of horses that didn’t belong to us?

Our little legs felt the tickle of coarse hair
as mom stood behind the fence,

crooning Rhinestone Cowboy,
recalling her own Appaloosa pony.


Remember how we thought
I’d never be able to drive?

I’m quiet in the passenger seat.
No need to mention the fainting,
the unconscious stretches of silence.
All that blood to test, to fill up tiny tubes.


We miss our exit on the highway,
wind into the terrain with rivers
like open incisions between the hillsides.

I glance over as you run your fingers
over your scar, healed just above your heart.

This City (revised 6-1)

flips me upside down
shakes my ankles with rough hands

instead of loose change
I’m full of antique pearl buttons
red thread, and ticket stubs
for movies I haven’t seen


right-side-up and red-faced
I smooth my skirt against my thighs



I want to drift back
to the white of what’s left
the white where I began

and close the space around me
like petals in reverse

Sweet Season

who are we in this berry territory,
this forest meant for fur and eyes
that shine like marbles in the sun?

this sweet season yields melons,
syrup and sap, all of which
make sticky hands, sugary regrets.

the sun overhead rips my world into
skinny wisps of silk and burlap,
and weaves them into my hair.


if you could see me now, coated in light,
in the rainbows of oil spills,

I would kiss you as if cherries
grew in soft bundles in our fields,

as if tart meant something else.