I Am

-last year’s news

-a newspaper covered in coffee rings

-the things I give up to end up with nothing

-the kindest no-thank-yous

-overstaying my welcome in the hotel rooms of others

-all angel hair and confetti.

Jaundiced in this March

We’ve fallen like pennies
down into couch cushions,
with stomachs full of whiskey.


You, who do not belong to me,
but to her-- someone I have seen
just once, heard speak, just once,
yet I pretend does not exist.

I am a hostage, a runaway,
the thing-being-chased, stiff inside
a roll of carpet until dawn
when I wake up in my own bed,
realize there is no chase, no danger.

I look at my hands in dreams
and it never puts me in control.


You occupy a millimeter of my skin
and it itches all night long.


Under the yellow light of day,
I am jaundiced in this March,

this gallant season,
that rides in on horseback
but stumbles in the flooded streams.

mad flurry.

I don’t mind much if we blame this weather on my outburst,
my bombardment of honesty, the true nature of text.

It came from nowhere. I turned the corner of your cheek
and there was a mad flurry of things I suddenly needed to say.

The words tumbled out like gumballs from my chapped lips
and I should be saving quarters for laundry.

wants.

In this night, I want...

fries, I want love, someone to see the tops of my legs in this nightgown and think “wow,” to show you my tan lines, the white swimsuit I have on under all my clothes, to go for a drive, windows down when it’s too cold, I want to paint all of my fingernails black and then pick off all the paint, to wear long white button-up shirts with wide belts, I want to bake, to make jam, to water all of my plants over and over again, ride a silver subway train, read more, read a lot, read an impressive amount, drink some whiskey while eating an apple and listening to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, to undress slowly in front of someone other than the me in the mirror, to dance slowly with hipbones touching, to count my money, to clash fabrics, to learn what your mouth tastes like, to remember it, to ask for a reminder whenever I’d like, to write something that is about everyone/everything, to not be hungry after I have brushed my teeth, to ignore this growling, this stomach full of wolves, this yearning that is/not you.

3-16-09

this is what I refer to as
the explosive quality of waiting.

fingernails dig into the palms of soft pillows,
of the way we carry ourselves

down and out into the air, the afternoon,
this in-between season.

how fitting that it is warm,
cool, all temperatures falling
under the category of “not quite.”

Surface

I dive headfirst into the world
without worrying if I will
crack my head against the cement.

let red ribbons leak out,
climb towards the surface.

there are tiny cities in my chest, 

with rosy girls dimming 

their bedroom lights

one by one, 

arms outstretched 

from slender windows,

fingers frigid and white,

reaching out to find the core,

the point of emanation.

in waking dreams,
men in harnesses cling to shingles,
work to demolish a cupola

exposing the ribs of a great bell,
the hull of a boat that scratches the sky.

are there ghosts 

in our future?

are there stones glistening

in our heart-streams?

this is not a poem about longing.

I am done with longing,
says my pink swirling brain
and gnarled lungs.

My heart argues back,
hurling retorts, smashing glasses,
wheezing between its stammering.

do I stop and collect my cracked knuckles?
do I stand as still as a wide-eyed doe on the roadside?

Do I wait for the crash,
or leap back into the underbrush?