HEAVEN’S LEMONS
MARX SO FAR/NO ROYAL ROAD
HOUSEKEEPING
DETAILED OUTLINE: 3 OR 4 OR 7 NOTEBOOKS
WILLA RED SWEATSHIRT
(AFTER) CAPTAIN AMERICA
(AFTER) COLLECTING POEMS
TEACHER-GIRLFRIEND/BITTER ANGEL
SICK NOTES
I WASN'T BORN YESTERDAY BUT I WAS BORN THE DAY BEFORE
SUNSET
loons riding on their mothers backs
hungry cat sounds like a dove
soon the babies will learn to cry haunted woman
howls across the lakes
yesterday we watched the crows
tear their sibling apart, birds and humans screaming
and watching, we could hear it as we
kept going
biting down the apple’s scalloped snow
seeds fall out the giving ribs
take away and away
scrub the walls in rust circles, swastika in certain
angled sunbeam, hole from a fist smudge from
a foot, pencil love spell for
a ghost
the wet core spins like
a dreidel jack, then falls into
its heap
last rites out the window
spark in the seed
this dying toyota
i used to dream my teeth came out
in righteous apple bite
then, so stoned i actually
got stuck
waiting now for car and teeth
to brake before i get to
fixing
away and away
blanket out the window
to dream awake some vital
death
away and away
to the offramp
secret garden
we were talking about ice, how long the people made do without it. i was finally reading the famous chapter of the famous book where ice is novelty treasure the village comes to see
they think it is a diamond, or boiling
scalding is the closest feeling
ice cutting festival in the adirondacks. ice castles in minnesota. trapping heat
inside the burn
in the public bathroom a poster says to call homeland security if you find are being controlled. a shadow of a man looming grey into a grey room where a grey girl sits crumpled
ice forms stunning spears from the roof where good smoke plumes, melts into a pool, hardens back over. the agent slips on it, the people repost, more traps from
more pools
we were talking about ICE when we saw the cops with faces in the alley. the one i spoke to seemed like he was crying, but maybe just dead depressed or tired from
his screen
to the east and to the west the neighborhood blocks eventually touch water.
i want to smell truth like someone cooking in a house i am outside,
like freezer burn before the door is opened. i follow the scent inside, want not
to have a reason to, just hunger's closest
feeling
muslin curtains leaking warmth. little sketches of horizons stacked as drafts,
or tucked in lacy nets like asian pears towered in a crate outside the diorama
winter village shop laid split across the sidewalk.
I drive by and wonder if anyone will put it back together.
maybe wood glue, with clamps
one could build a moat, a snow cave, a bassinet.
one could hoard nightwear, like I do.
pilling flannel lily of the valley. big snoopy t-shirt that says score
the wood chip child wants to know which is better: with or apart.
separate safe, or what the teacher said,
that someone else’s problem
is your own
i want the truth to smell like rotting flowers ready to return.
to trace itself an arrow losing its tail along the way
lands the pressure point of worry lines slack
between telephone poles. window to window.
squint across. you might not need to furrow
to see
knock skull
the kernels lodged
cup palm to buzzing jaw
the hardness asks just
something simple
a faucet on and
streamed through
pinhole white
now melt
any urgent answer’s
questions
neck swept to aid
the drop
a skirt that floats
to cloak
tantrum's noble
heartland
sealed soundless
in her metal box,
nothing to do here
but nod and knock
at that
melt the more
more down
no intermission curtains
the dark valley always moves
restless under
attention’s heat
now syrup to the metal
now metal to the stream
now circle swap in pairs
hands in spinning
rolodex
switch and place
and press
the channels open
now linked, a circuit
now broken brief
now the circuit
on its own
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
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
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
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.
i do have some relevant
experience
stealing tips, switching tags
cheating on tests and
semi boyfriends always
partial just a few of the questions
just a few hours
too long too together
legacy of a pet monkey
charming shop owner’s for candy
thin chains snaked into
easy pockets the
square kind
do you want to get married,
do you want to make a plan,
that is not a reaction or curse
but the risk of a dream?
i’ve tried before/ no success
but maybe i’m ready
i have some relevant
experiences
really strong soup and a knack
for making matches
that lead to reward
and I'm coming to know
what only sickness teaches
that things happen most
from the side
never shine like a prize, but
the scrounging builds
strength
in troy i ripped seams
in a bathtub of cold water
beyond the wall the kitchen window
looked down on the ex cop’s astro turf
sanctuary, where he power-washed
his air conditioners
each summer day
at night his jacuzzi raged
with bubbles
the shopping cart lady pushed
her leaning tower
a man’s stabbed neck cried out through
the same light beam that bathed
my neighbor's idling truck, new country
and commercials drowning out
4 am
you wouldn’t stay with me
you didn’t like how my couch had no
arm rests
snapped my tights and whined
and made perfect documents and
hated life and deemed me
doomed
alone i shook out and refolded all
the piles, cut cloth, nested vessels
swept and drank and stained
and ate tomatoes and spilled salt
found a round mirror in the alley
to hang and watch myself
mend the wretched
to the fine
my mother’s mother is dying slow motion.
she thinks her father’s skull is in the rock wall
outside her window, she wishes she’d
packed her scissors, she’d
rather not
say.
i asked what her mother or her
mother’s mother fed her. rumors of apricot
thumbprint cookies. i don’t recall.
i ask about the graves all swallowed
by the Paradise fire.
I’d rather not say.
she does not fit the cookie cutter
and she does not make cookies.
Al Jazeera on low volume, dead second-cousin/husband’s
jeans hanging off her hips. all women called “females”
like the flies she tracked in
the lab.
the cats collect on the patio. she shows them
saccharine kindness. Keke, Marilyn, unnamed mischief.
they look back to her, permission to stalk
the deer.
burdened by visitors, she rejects chit chat.
mosquitos smashed to pollen screens.
considers giving us things: in rations, with stipulations.
stale bread sticks for dinner. painting of a warrior on velvet.
orange pill bottles full of metal washers, pillow cases
saved for quilts.
when my mom left home at 15, her mother rathered
not to say. soon she will either die
or keep living, forever. she'd rather not
say.
my mother watches her mother.
blood pooled like smashed rose, her skin stays
the shape of the feeling before
the last.
it’s not about her, she says when i ask.
if she’s taught me anything,
everything is.
warding off any possibility
of being misunderstood
or cracked under the weight
of a soapy heel
i make myself hurt
to step on
shots fired
emergency yellow
lush descriptors woven to scramble
the gulp, flood to distract
on-comer threat, dragonball z eject
flaccid perceptions
flat poison risk
bacterial infiltrators that could
swamp
what i’m put on this earth
to protect
we don’t know and we do / people walk in pairs around the lake / did they find each other on the internet / the water like sugar glass / diving boards and ladders gathered from all lake's corners / pickup stick pile/ glad hey get to be together / a rest from summer’s brocean / jacket passes someones else's ski dad / 80s teal and purple with the red velcro / what does everyone have to say / today on this murder morning / holding paper cups, nodding through steam/ the only time i went to jail was coordinated, still underdressed / hours with Margaret Human's tangles/ skinny white braids and warnings / her brother who stabbed his coworker with y2k rage / Meghan the next cell over / selkie songs searching for another voice / rejecting the mutual aid soup after / i did not feel proud or a part / people talk about not giving your anger / like it’s orbiting a white elephant / one time i thought postage stamps would be a good gift / no / a knife set was well received / at what hour of what day is everyone making their decisions / out of contradiction comes creation/ yes / but you cannot determine the shape / yellow soap makes yellow shadow / tinker bell / rainbow ribbon on the shower tile / cornstalks we didn’t grow / people talk about giving gifts to your future self / i had a tamale in the freezer/ true at some point i chose to eat one instead of two / trying to remember the principles of protection / the knuckles of the acronym / could have sworn that i took notes /
suzy’s eyes are
kind spies, think of them timeless
brown but they are child blue
she reminds me we are doing
more than ok, she has a fear of
fomo so we walk to the ice
edge in our slip on shoes and screech
into the water, shake and laugh and
meet back at the kitchen table vitality restored
not totally dry but dry enough for
what’s next since nothing
matters more
did you know that under
my oatmeal sweater and plastic coat
i am an amber
ribbon twisted?
leopard triangle hibiscus heart
clanking charm
suction
cold wine in a plastic cup with the
lip to bite teeth
strong
black box collegiate focus
soft fish spines
crumbled in oil
plaid skirt stained
and a mop sketched
in graphite
ready to be
erased
you know i don’t want to write this/ you know i have to. i was working downstairs and you were working up, when all of a sudden your voice got much louder, because you were talking about me to someone who wasn't, speaking into existence the disposing your becoming required. a pixelated phoenix formed and the decorative wood woman, frozen in impossible arch, bounced a bit of blocked winter light at me from her hipbone. despite how her body had been carved, she became my only friend, as you became the opposite. trained compassion spit on the blue ink of everything. whisked the two coiled tadpoles floating in the bathtub so they spiraled down the drain like wind. and when i told you i had heard your chilled calm claims, you fell to the wood woman’s ground, crumpled like a toddler who wants something not enough on sale. i tousled your curls the way a demon cat purrs, my heart a choking faucet, wishing you had learned to steal, to fight, wishing you were brave enough to cut off my sleeping hair and make from it something beautiful beyond betrayal. inside of me, blood soldiers loaded their boats and vinegar churned. i did not become something cosmic miraculous of earth of god. i did not become a butterfly or a mother. i was the mixed color of everything, growing harder to see. but your hair burned that terrible smell and mine turned lightning white.
that day after teddy bear cove
after sitting in traffic and feeling some erotic power
only known in the fuck-it interstitials
of a high risk pulse
after swimming and eating
love potion potatoes
back in the tiny house making
filler conversation surrounded by
unfortunate octopus art and
wax stained windowseats
you got scared
til i told you we were both adults
which was the right way
to pardon us into
ageless tissue beings
pretending the nearby fountain
was rain
washing us
clean
dad says lying is one of the great
human arts – greasing those
premonition wheels
strategic, faithless, fateful
warranty
saving face while
muttering grace
not so much intercepting the baby’s head
from whatever sharp edge
but also not so unrelated –
mundane morph for safety’s sake,
telling your friend she looks immaculate
so she’ll back off from
reflection
or just polishing
the gossip
i tell dad about the bear that died
in the wake of a collective lie
not cause of death, but
something
how after the guest cast her protection spell
around the easement’s edges
the garden started to smell of death
a young bear found right outside
the boundary line
dad thinks it must've been
a sickness
they always find the orphans
in spring
but it was summer, mere feet
beyond the circle, and who would leave
him lonely?
no-use debate as we cradle
eggs into warring
sister baskets – magic vs. logic
though the only lie told then
lay somewhere in
between
(that bears are “rarely" seen)
(knowing the fact of their shyness)
never suffices
(plus omission of the spell’s
clear success)
withholding also being
art, steering the power
of the secret itself
to swerve truth’s
bucking bronco
after the garden and before the upper tennis court
before the road flattens out but far enough up the crest
so that you can see the fairway channel
if you pivot there in the garnet gravel
there is a red portal
walking through the softness and sinking
the blur declared itself distinct
wild blueberry drama for winter
i want to tell you
all about it
and walking past the garage i also want to tell you
how i still always look for toothless Bill crouching behind the dumpsters
waiting to scare me with a secret and call you Adonis
behind your back, his slur for daring to pick me up
in your truck
well, it wasn't even your truck
but Bill lives traceless in town now, with Judy
who I thank by blinking when i see her out buying milk
for all the hamburgers and space heaters she gave you
when you'd come back to the garage
from the cold
walking up to the wood pile clearing
my chest sings to itself:
I am dead and you are alive
a deer leaps out to make my heart leap higher
urgent correction -- the other way around --
I am alive and you are dead
but who is alive and who is dead
when i become the angel visiting you
here in the grass and gravel, here in the everywhere
dirt
I remember kissing you and I kiss you still
steps trudging the pillow mounds
to the old horse shed, eroding bridles and
ghost nests
i want to tell you how I learned through a typo text
that you had killed someone, when really
you were killed
well isn't that perfect, you’d say, eyes too
dancing to roll
how i fell to the far-off manicured grass, mountainless
how the world slipped from its tilt
and flattened
you laying down
me laying down
all ground