one more

I have one more tear left to shed

for the pomegranate seeds stuck to pith

for the squirrels I kicked out my crawl space 

for the broken wooden box filled with love notes and whiskers 

for the tireless curl of ocean on shore, from which our bodies drip into salty shape

for the coyotes trotting through the graveyard 

for the person I didn’t kiss at the party I didn’t go to

for the music that revives me 

for all the worlds at curtain call

for my aunt who can’t afford cancer treatments

for missing them, all of them, and so much  

for the too sincere poems, including this one. 

I am sorry. I lied.

I have so many more tears to shed. 

But not tonight, despite the full moon and this warm city rain.

I saw a comedy show

and it was actually funny. 

they who found my wallet

 

I hope they go fishing

some time in the next 4 months

I hope they buy waterproof shoes

for gliding over slick stones

in their travels upstream

I hope they have good knees

ornate flies

stillness 

guile

and sure wrists

I hope they pack a nice lunch

and a few tangerines

I hope they fumble around 

a canopy of oak

and find beneath the leafy crackle

a school of golden mushrooms

I hope they attend

the fortune of forked ridges

part way down the stem

I hope they have a friend

who knows what they’re doing

when to cast

when to drift

when a pool is still and will be

I hope it’s enough

lying on a boulder

in the heat of winter

with a foraged license

pictures of a staggering baby

a few dollars more

When were things better in my day?

I remember being forced into drinks

for my 29th birthday, everyone was 

being weird and I aimed several

kicks at a traffic cone

on my way home,

why would anyone celebrate me

and then celebrate me like that.

That was the last time I asked

my creator would chase me

to their demise,

until I was alone, floating

away on a sliver of artic

ice, fate unknown.

There's so much they don't tell

you. You can enjoy the work

of someone else without

having to read yourself in it.

You can actually just 

live your own life

and feel pain and joy,

all the bloody things 

in between and they

are yours and no-one

needs to help you make

sense of it.

You can just respect that

Mary Shelley* is buried 

in your hometown and

there the connection ends.

*I drank in the Mary Shelley

once, I was 18, an ember

dropped out of my cigarette

and landed on someone's coat,

I at once slid through the

front door on my ice,

whilst watching the pyre.

January 31st Golden Shovel

January 31st Golden Shovel

    after Ariana Van Dyck

I wanna upside down myself in February, oh

I don’t mean flip full nocturnal and forfeit the 

sun's little kisses. I mean I wanna speak frankly to birds,

prune limbs, draw a rabbit for two straight hours. What I’ve

been megaphoning to me is to homecome myself. I've been missed.

goodbye love bugs

fragile and precious 
mysterious miracles,
may we meet again <3 

I haven’t been able to write a poem I’m proud of

Hesitant with old tableaux I’ve crouched 

Curtained and seam-burst

Passing through rooms of riches simmering

humbled like a winter wet stump

I linger.

Maybe it’s because today

I saw huddles of purple crocus so fresh they glowed

early crowned this last day of January

 light reflected off a stream in a new city

 hallowed spring so coquette and green.

Perhaps the way my sister and I spilled our hearts together

our shared pain given like gossip

calcified secrets clicking chiclets in my rattled center

It’s so fucked up,           she said,

like we’ve chosen the death of one of our parents. Like, was it that bad!?

And we cry slow

It was. 

Maybe it’s because in a city where I know

 I can phone a friend, get an answer to the final round

 I can loosen my tongue.

 Let me scatter 

pistachios,     walnuts,     dates,      sharp cheese 

to feed you, reach with your living hand

to pluck sweetly 

from the abundant 

ways we can share.

Summing Up

You're a shut in if you're at home

and you can't be sold things

even though you are quietly

rebuilding your jeans collection

online, but it's apparently a

problem to take your drinking 

to its natural conclusion first

and pick up the pieces later

and discover that picking up

the pieces is discovering so

many worlds can exist for 

you at home if you just open

your mouth and let them out.

And once you realise that is

not a problem you realise the

real problem is you go out

once in a blue moon and your

immediate response to everything

going on is to be surprised by it

and wanting to know more is

a net result of surprise not

curiosity. Just holding 

that curiosity and welding it to 

whatever it is you're now getting 

up to at home, gosh there is 

so much there for us in here

if we just leave our coats

on the hook.

RID OF YOU / OF ME

rid of you 
i stayed in a all night 
to make a foil 
star

some days i wake  
to a pale blue peace 

other days the bile 
gains power with 
sleep

could i love you as you are, 
rid of me? 

purged and pure, on course,
that book about being
a king zipped up inside the back 
of your fleece?

i flip through the stations 
and suck on hard gum
safe in my car full of half crushed
cans

beneath the surf the
yellow fish graze
a rusting anchor

today i waste no time 
pretending i have 
lost

take all that you have 
and be poor

The Bad Morning Came and Went

Too deep under the blanket, tangled,
it was funny, ha ha, I was stuck.
Forty times it looped, around my head
and down, around and down who
could it have been? Who 
wrapped me up like this? Who
saw me peaceful and, chuckle-it-up and
pop! You’re stuck. And so I was.
By noon it was a problem. 
I began to blame myself. I’m sorry
Mommy’s head is in this blanket,
it’s not your fault, you know
how grown-ups are. But secretly
I didn’t know. Perhaps it was. His fault.

But fault is not the proper
concept for a pickle such as
never breathing unfouled air
again. For such a pickle it had
become. My own wind blowing
in the microclimate of my new
and darkened life. Will I ever
laugh again? I asked the child but said
it’s not your job to know. But having
asked and referenced work he saw
the long sad hallway of his once
and future life I know he did, I know. 
It is my job to know, but see
I had this blanket on my head.
You’ll notice, with hope, I hope,
my past tense usage by this line.
Yes, I am using this unfettered form
to write from some near future time,
Hello! Well, I won’t bore you all
with what came next but know
this time next year will come
and I
will see you there. 

Fragment

I want to teach a lesson.
Or this heavy-bunned 
hairpinned feeling
is for nothing. Slow moving
jack-in-the-box,
up, up, up,
oh shit,
She’s not stopping...

The weekend is so scary (after Philip Larkin)

The weekend is so scary. It moves on without your consent,
unimpressed by the agony of the ones who are living it
as if parenting our tantrum. Instead, content
with nobody to coddle, it blossoms sunlit
onward, having no reason to slow its descent

into Monday again, deciding we've had enough,
and packing us into our carseat, screaming,
and driving on. The rest of the days fly by through
the window, and lull us back into daydreaming.
The workdays loosening us for Friday, like a plough.

He deserves an epic love poem

After this year from hell
(Which we don’t believe in)

the double grief severed the life 

He used to walk around in

From this one he’s got now

One sudden cut 

still a mystery

Like

Plunging into a frozen lake 

From nowhere

And then the last mother strand 

Hanging on pulled apart

To a too stillness

From what was a body

And mind always in motion

He mostly holds it all at bay

Wandering hot and cold nights

Eating pizza and movie popcorn

On sidewalks with the other

Lonely lost souls

While I’m home mending

That sacred tethered weaving

Which teaches you to wrap 

The wounded and weak

Tend to them 

With an eye on the person

They were are will be

FROM LOOKOUT

down there I learned 
how to drive 
pulled by a charge 
to the transfer station
how to climb into a backseat
bathed in ruby tail lights 
in a parking lot hugged by 
the Hudson
yes I am known here 
on this bald rock
for my labored breath 
never afraid to sit until i'm cold or old
knowing the walk back will be a gallop 
every orange plastic ribbon
every pink plastic ribbon
a valentine

Rattle

Apparently it’s a cliche to say,

“Japanese has this particular word for...”

or at least it’s a pet peeve my friend has

since her friend’s dad always says it.

I thought I was doing something novel

when I was eighteen and started studying 

Japanese. That winter break I learned 

that half my friends had had the same idea.

So much for originality. Anyway,

the saying is ryūtōdabi. The lines

above the vowels mean that they’re drawn out,

like this poem. Four characters make up 

the phrase: Dragon. Head. Snake. Tail.

A magnificent opening that slithers down

to a whisper. (Only one letter off

from a “whimper.”) January thirty-first --

I wanted to go out with a bang;

I’ll settle for one more little rattle.

Maybe it’s enough to have known

the ambition. To have got the smoke 

going, even if you never breathe fire.

To feel that I am loving

Is a dream I often forget to dream

While focused on having love,

being desired, etc.

But feeling loving

Truly feeling loving

Is like 

Is like

What is it like?

I’m closer and closer

With every step  

I let my mother go

Snow Removal

Snow Removal 

Martin doesn't drop the snow heaped in the bucket of his front loader. Five minutes 

now, hovering, while the diesel rumbles. “What the hell, Martin!” That's Dwayne, 

his breath a cloud puff in front of his face. The crew has been hauling snow from 

streets for days. Dumping it all on a stretch of Bay St. -- a whole block, avalanched 

with dirty snow. “Drop it, man!” Dwayne, arms out, dumbfounded. Last night, 

standing in the hallway of his building, Martin's brother called. “Dude. Travis’s dead.” 

In the kitchen, Martin told his wife who'd said, “Martin, you never even liked Travis.” 

Martin backs up the front loader, spins it around, and picks up speed. The bucket 

wobbles out in front like a child holding a bowl. When he gets to the middle 

of 3rd and Court, he drops the whole grayed mass. Every car and truck creeps 

their way around it.

protest

 

once you find

the agency to be naked 

on a bed of wood chips

and spray yourself with a hose

of winter water

to stand in a rusted basin

in a muddy puddle

of marigold leaves

and the backwash of buttery moths

as the wind carries jasmine

and lemon blossoms

like innocent victims

it’s hard to step away

put your clothes back on

ARTIST'S WAY

olivia says how you know you're a real artist
is if you keep surprising yourself

she’s six, purple eyes from kicking the wall 
drawings of huge circle heads 
shaky long lines radiating out from beautiful 
spider labubu eyes

if i try to tell her what i see she says 
NO like a switchblade

or squeaks helium glee
sighing luck on
my love

RIGHT!
a family! a castle!
a fairy computer salon! 

in her maddest hour
purple eyes flutter in time
to traffic, drunk on cars
icing out all dumb
questions

she hates it when we stop
the car for gas
or home

KEEP GOING!

that’s the blinking red
you know you don’t have to listen 
to that one

POEM A DAY II

this year in feeling unknown I 
started to remember. new bras, old lime juice, 
the vodka cut down its middle well enough.
racing for poems against daylight, against the dimming
fancy teardrop bulbs delicately twisted into
their webbed screw necks 
beneath the ceiling yolk of this
loophole, where we go round and round 
our sleepless sudden understandings.
this year i decided doing was better,
even trapped by metal, enough to make me climb,
like can i move myself with myself,
can i shove myself with myself, 
can i steady myself with myself, 
can i betray myself and savor the drama,
lychee candy after salt coma, can i taste it 
and taste what tasting tastes like?
I could go on forever and i bet you could
too, it's why i never want to let you go.
it turns out trying to weave a willow basket
is very hard. some of you are highly skilled and
highly intuitive and might disagree.
making an emotional sculpture with a safety vest orange
onion bag was more available last time i tried.
saying the right thing is also very hard.
my slippers are as red as the blood that surges
in striving. the clock is an hour late but the seconds
never slow. the lime makes my lips taste their original
fullness, the fullness of numbing as prerequisite to
kissing. now, i don’t kiss. barely drink.
but this is friday, january 30th. 
only one match left in the treasured iridescent cup.
the candle a grease pool.
new options for living have made everything
fill-in-the-blank thesaurus arithmetic,
or something worse i would not dare
say. but nothing beats a simple phrase
said out of mind. thank you
for saying those to me, 
sometimes.