my snowshoe kept breaking

the shadows stretched long
across the fairway,
pink sunlight sculpted angels
in the snow in between the
doppelgangers of long and
bare winter branches,
like the angels he said are in
his head: caged next to demons
that he sets free
when he writes them down,
releasing them like birds
for the
world to see
or not see.
he says the same one
shows up in all his stories,
a fictional someone continually
trapped
in his head, no ink
able to proclaim her
emancipation.
avoiding questions of who
she could be, we
made small talk
about who we want
to be in twenty years and
clamped webs
to our feet and set out
marching through
the angels and shadows,
letting a dark wind clip our
cheeks as the setting sun
blurred the pink and black
into a January gray.

DLS

dreaming under sleepless nights

his stubborn

beard grew a little

in wintertime-

white on white,

like snow just starting

to fall on the sidewalk.

sometimes i wish we

could still dance,

or i could sit

on his big lap

when bored

at cocktail parties

in the days

of lacy socks under

patent leather

mary janes.

i still sleep in his

nighty when it's

cold out,

slip through the

silence of a

sleeping house

with faded stripes

down to my knees

to boil water

for chamomile

tea in bowl mugs

during sleepless

nights, floating

past snowed in window

sills lit up by

yellow street lamps.

sport was probably an

occasional insomniac

as well-

leaving empty, snoreless

space next to dear sally

to sit in his lean back

chair in the den,

and catch early morning

scores from the steelers

and overnight under

the table stock exchanges,

or maybe return to

his hand held yahtzee

or those trashy novels

he loved.

when i run from sleep

i sit with hands

on marble kitchen tops

and stare blankly

into my tea cup.

or lie in bed and

write down words

and call them poems

next to my humidifier,

her hum rising and falling

like a snore.

DLS

Driving Home From an Eclipse

Lucy is home from

China and we drank tea

that unfurled

like secret messages, talked

about entrepreneurship, roasted

garlic and then, huddled

in parkas, watched the

moon molded by

light until it seemed a

sphere hurtling happily

from outer space.

At 3:17 the moon turned

red to our firelight, just like the

stoplights on the drive home at 4,

telling no one to stop, no one

to go: no one but

me toying with ignoring

them, loving the driving where

roads wind black in your

rearview mirror. I don't need

him to drive around

late anymore, I

can do it myself with the music

a whisper and wonder that

anyone could ever be unhappy

when there are moons

to watch, frosty

fields, a perfect skeletal tree

under Orion's bright belt.

I journey round the curves of

the Bernardsville

mountain at a perfect

45 MPH, I kiss

my mother

goodnight, think

I am lucky and look at

the moon one more time, a

shadowed crescent, still

tangible.

CVP

Lunar Eclipse

Lightless, exposed,

the moon looks closer now.

And awkward, suspended there,

hung like an ornament, a trapped balloon.

Lifeless, in milky yellow,

sits the moon reduced to relativity:

the moon about the Earth, in lock-step,

like Eve to Adam.

No longer the warden of night,

the marker of months,

no Clair de Lune, no Moonlight Sonata,

but a hunk of rock—still, how spherical—

bound to us, and kept at arm’s length.

EWV

Dear Reader

Unseen now, it once meant,
highly esteemed or regarded,
of worth.

So we reinforce our days.
Good morning, 
Good afternoon.
These are commonplace and regular.

But think,
if we lived in a world,
the recitation reversed.
Empty day. Awful afternoon.
Meaningless existence.
Lousy night. Nightmares.
Worthless reader.

If they sometimes come too easily,
if they are habits,
they may still be daily proof
of a structure that urges the positive,
that insists upon it.
Small courtesies,
repetitions of the good.

CDL

12/12/2010

In anticipation of going home, I smelled roses

preparing for bed this night

Like my mother’s face cream

that I use, always, stealthily

And roses, which I love too,

in the bathtub

Gardenia-fragranced body cleanser

: another item of my theft

Gatsby smells like talcum powder

And my room smells red, always,

like skin that is soft and comfortable

But a little bit damp or musky

It hides in it so many snow globes

Old diaries from childhood

The butterfly that Brian made me

That flew when twisted tightly

the rubber band is cracked and

broken now, though

And it sits limpidly only as a reminder

of my nostalgia even before I grew

memories

Dad smells sour and smoky, like his cigars

and something more human

His hair is curly and mostly black but a few

wiry blades of white peak through these years

He always starts his stories with:

“What happened is”

Which makes me sad because of who

always noticed it

And we can’t invoke the past now

Sometimes, I’ll go down to the basement

Which smells cold, of fresh paint,

and an old mattress that sheltered secrets but is gone now

I pick out a bottle of wine

or dig up some relic from infancy

My rock collection

or

the story of the Chinese Siamese cat

When I was thirteen I made myself wings

of twigs from the forest

They were crushed from too tight packaging amongst other

objects

And I cannot tell a wayward stick now from the things

that birds coddle around their taut bellies

-BHN

an ode to the pandora christmas station

caroling pockets of sunshine on snow
chime bells on red hollied leaves
rosy cheeks, chapped lips,
furry hats and hearty laughs,
as children race through the night-
and my heart is younger
than yours,
you know.
i dream of snow
days in july;
of slipping under sheets of ice
and mattresses of snow
angels under laundry lines
of frozen flannel
nightgowns
and warm syrup dunked
marshmallows,
sitting by the fire
under heavy blankets with phrases of happy
christmas to all.
so be my joy
to the world, tonight, sip
hot chocolate
beneath dreams of an elf filled factory
in a candy cane forest
far away.
let's share
a silent night with inundating
organs and crunchy footsteps in snow,
running towards miracles and
wonderful lives of
dear, dear snowmen and women;
may they wear silk hats and dance
with us to jingling bells of horse
sleighs passing through this
deep wintry darkness,
only guided by long candlesticks
illuminating the silhouette of a petticoat pilgrimage
tiptoeing across frosty paths
to the beat of a young children's choir.

dls

This morning I drank a giant cup of coffee

This afternoon I drank a giant cup of coffee

Confusing time as transient

Ready to spend my day not living or working , unable to commit to either or both,

Resigned to non-splendor, an

unceremonious torpor.

Two giant coconut-covered mochi crawled into my mouth

They taste

a little bit

like

nothing:

plain, sweet, doughy,

with a treasure at the center: chopped peanuts and sesame seeds, honey and a pinch of salt

This oversaturation of energy left me feeling nauseous, determined never to eat again

Because food is just stuffing

For a piggy like me.

I am:

Wanting for lacking nothing,

Taking for hopes of rescinding.

There is no nourishment or substance beyond substance in you, mochi

There will be lots of visitors over Christmas:

I listen to “In Love, Not Limbo” and remember what it is to be a creature of love

I would like to be a particle

In a wave, an oscillation, maybe not streamlined, which isn’t really the nature of motion: it isn’t moving in a uniform direction but rather an amalgamation of me going a little bit this way and you a little bit that, and all of us ending up in the same place (together)

I fell in love with another creature at the coffee shop

He was dark and unkempt,

Wearing a knit sweater that was big and baggy like anyone else in town,

But he wasn’t much else like someone from this town.

….“agile and clever because …of the melancholy in his eyes”….

He spoke in an accent that was slow and thoughtful, scrawling and slanted, to a girl whose accent was bitterly squeaky

I read about Rasputin and Musa al-Sadr, transposing them with him,

Confounded by the absence of sides to a warped coin, enveloping polarity.

I became fond of unknowing.

When he stared it made me uneasy

But when he left I regretted not talking to him

There will be a time for remembering

Once I have gotten past this present stagnation and ineptitude

But it becomes tedious to live as a cataloguer of the past

Old melodies chafe

And when I succumb to our New Age Fun with a Vintage Feel,

It isn’t my vintage

So it doesn’t matter

(anymore)

-BHN

cream and sugar

because
limber lactose lullabies
of ice cream slipping
down elbows
with tongues to laughily
clean up this mess
spun circles in my mind's
eye last night,
weaving sugary
cream into a loom of jumbled
thoughts and words
until soft eyelids lit up
with dreams,
of santa
claus coming down
the chimney in my
dorm room
and the crooning voice
from my headphones
sitting on the desk chair
next to my bed with
a banjo
(last night
he dreamt the whole night
through and
woke with a head
full of song).
these uncertain realities
blend
like milk in my coffee,
slowly marbling dark
and light
into a lukewarm
caffeinated delight
that i morning-cuddle with,
softly coddling the ceramic
mug with
full palms,
smelling the rich
poisonous potion with deep
breaths and
soft eyes.

dls

Lights

There's a reindeer

in the courtyard!

Lights around pillars

and under eaves

wind through coat

flaps and maybe

tomorrow it will

snow! We can live

on cookies, right?

I think that would be

lovely. I also think

we should go

sledding. And

dancing. And a-

caroling!

Meanwhile

(can you interrupt your

own thoughts?), I

type

and think

and think

and think

hoping soon for

the soulful tremor

of that voice singing

Ohio, the warm

vibration of guitar

strings, the pure

shot of song

together sung.

CVP

hands

I remember long fingers around my waist, skinny and long, matching my ribs one for one, squeezing that pink skin white.
I remember goosebumps and grass stains when we snuck out of locked windows, where time was only kept by the dew on our backs.
I remember nuzzling in your neck, smelling where vertical veins meet collarbones, green apples on freshly baked bread.
I remember hands held running between trees, tripping over roots, finding the spot where it cleared to woodchips… a collapsed tree, a dance floor for two.
I remember the sound of jangling keys as we shushed each other’s laughs sneaking through illicit hallways and forgotten dressing rooms and dusty storage castles.
I remember mandolin strums on my voicemail, small tears on my pillow harmonizing those lovestruck lullabies.
I remember the first time you said you loved me. Mumbled it rather, into my hair as we lingered outside my door saying good night, and when I walked away, I kept wondering whether I had heard it right or not.
I remember the lone swing by the graveyard, where you pushed me with those long fingers, in silence at dusk.
I remember your laugh. You always laughed at me and I hated when you didn’t, when those long lashes went sad. When I would compromise so much.
I remember the first time I walked away from fingered ribs, a two-step, away, away from a mystery once lost and then found.
I remember remembering then, carpets in your arms, the unspoken words sputtering below, hands holding my wrists.
I remember the hand written notes after, of your sorrow and tales of your dreams, when you would wake with my name on your lips.
I remember sitting under the auditorium, saying to stop, it had to stop. It was enough. I couldn’t compromise anymore. As always you switched my words around. It’s still not enough, for you. You stay here. I’m always remembering and re-remembering you, and your scarily strong hands and my skippity, defenseless heart. It was too much. Just too much too soon, when we stopped being a couple of smitten kids frolicking in grassy fields and starting ruining each other's lives.

dls

I remember

I remember the first time you kissed my hand, mumbled and turned around

I remember the smell of the ocean that day, dried and polluted

I remember when you told me the first time, and I called you back

I remember when I found out the second time--I had been expecting it all along

I remember being alone, and feeling too big

I remember how many times I forgot

I remember how short it was, all those times

I remember the fringe of the car's ceiling, in the park with a receipt's ink filling my lungs

I remember your mother's words

I remember the park, on the first time I saw the name Harry Potter

I remember the time you stepped on me, and I on You

I remember the time I tried when you couldn't have said yes (but we've all forgotten that now)

I remember when I wanted to be a rapper, and you laughed

I remember when you said you knew me, and it wasn't enough

I remember when you wanted me to be taller

I remember when I stopped caring

I remember the Strokes, and the strokes

I remember wanting to kill you

I remember wanting to kill me

I remember the first time I hated my self

I remember learning your name

I remember your smell (all of you)

Assignment (a.k.a., procrastinate productively)

For my English 120 class, we had to write 21 sentences beginning "I remember." When we read them out loud in class, he had us cut it down to 12 or so. It was my favorite piece to write all year. Let's all do one!!!!

LOVE CVP

empanada de memoria (breakfast prose)

I remember the airport in January. For the first time, Dad didn’t come inside. He dropped me off at the curb and I shouldered my purple backpacker’s backpack and thought how strange it was, when I met Lauren at security, that we had never met before and were about to travel together. We ran into my neighbor at the food court. He gave me leftover Argentine pesos and told me it was an amazing fucking circus down there, had to be seen and experienced to be believed.

I remember the flight, the slight fear, Lauren’s life story and wondering where I was going, exactly, when we switched hemispheres.

I remember the Buenos Aires airport in the morning, bustle and sunshine and women selling perfume. We were just two in a boisterous line of kids with big backpacks, a parade of youth, a line of eagerly anticipated adventure.

I remember the cab ride in, the city materializing into slums and then skyscrapers and then Peru y Estados Unidos 866, a building sky blue and squat with a balcony and a courtyard.

I remember the cab ride out in April and it all looking different. The cab driver asked if I were going to study abroad in the U.S. “Sos argentina, no?” he asked. I like to believe he was being sincere, because all that dancing, all that mate' and que lindooo had seeped into my blood.

I remember on the plane ride home, I pretended I was Argentine, and refused to speak English, because no one says in English, que tus dias pasen hermosos, may your days pass beautifully.

I remember beauty of a tingly, sharp sort. Everyone says Buenos Aires is like a European city, but at dusk mystery made itself magic in street names like Mompox, Sarmiento, Teguchigalpa.

I remember trying to read Borges and not really liking it. But still all those streets with indigenous names, the only way I could describe their mystery was to say “it’s like Borges.” Labyrinths and jungles, no need for bug spray.

I remember we all started writing. All four of us had journals. Amos’s entries, the ones he read out loud, were the funniest, but I have a feeling most of them pulled at all the edges of his high school assumptions and thoughts. I think all that writing was a self-conscious effort—all of us looking for something, teetering on the edge of something, about to precipitate into something that might have been ourselves.

I remember the feeling I had the first time I walked around the city by myself—and all of a sudden I want to go back to those concrete blocks by MALBA, graffittied walls and the sun on my shoulders.

I remember the order of our playlists. We listened to a lot of GirlTalk in our apartment, but it's "Is This Love" and "I Shot the Sheriff" that sound most like the smell of the A/C, the stark sun outside, the meals of crackers and dulce de leche. The tubs of it—on our faces, on the computer, gone in a day.

I remember the day Lauren and Bo were out. Amos and I went to the covered market in San Telmo, duraznos and zanahoria and a million new words for me, to be weighed and carried home blue plastic bags. We were so happy when we thought we had made friends with the vegetable guy.

I remember we tasted chili peppers and spit them into garbage cans and our laughter had heat. When we got back, we chopped vegetables in that tiny kitchen and it seemed there was less space than before.

I remember the way the careful, quiet way he chopped cilantro.

I remember things that never happened. We kissed that afternoon while Lauren and Bo were out and then kept making guacamole and sangria and laughed secretly when they returned. Then what really happened was we danced, in April, returning to that moment when nothing actually happened, and wondering if maybe it did.

CVP

the widows of pittsburgh

today

some late bills, charity solicitations, raisin bran

for breakfast.

it’s okay, here-

i had to leave there. it was just-

well, this is where the widows

of Pittsburgh go.

11, breakfast endures,

third time through the Pittsburgh gazette,

same sad faces furrowing the same

concerned brow.

three minute loop

doodles our circular

tales in different colored

pens and sometimes capitalized letters.

oh look here,

Sport on the fridge!

55 years, can you believe it?

don’t tell anyone! I just can’t believe we were together

for so long. I must be getting old!

a military collar,

greys and browns smiling back,

what straight teeth.

how long ago did he die again, dear?

through squinty eyes

three longing fingers

check the wrinkled paper

for a pulse,

pressing his chest,

collapsing in exhaustion

over his face,

after years of attempted resuscitation,

or appropriate commemoration.

6 years.

That long? Oh it just kills me.

three minutes pass and

her stare goes blank,

why these fingers,

draped with such melancholy

over this increasingly unfamiliar face.

up and opens the door

just checking for something.

rotten eggs and mysterious apple sauce

say

hello? good morning!

time, time marches on.

dls

the breakfast game

breakfast

was baked

eggs

this morning

next to miniature

plates of

sugared almonds

and small bowls

of blood orange

peels

with heavy cream

slowly marbling

in dark coffee

as 9 grain

toast popped

up asking

for maple butter

and slow news

in the sunday times.

and no phone

calls today,

too, please,

they'll only

be replete with

caffeinated tales

of prosciutto wrapped

baked eggs that

look like cupcakes

on top of melty sourdough

toast-

not our

typical breakfast

game.

dls

Summary of Meaning of Poem in Succinct Phrase or Reference to Poem or Allusion to Concept or Image Related to Poem

Expression of how I'm currently feeling
or have been feeling for some time
or recent thoughts and sensations
or memory of past experiences
using images and objects and words
whose sounds I like, whose sense appeals to me,
juxtaposed, following some version of poetic form.
Expression of the ego. Appeal to higher meaning,
attempt at philosophical statement.
Secret message to friends, reference to events of day,
particularly breakfast
because that is the theme of the series.

CDL

what research shows

a birch tree shimmers
outside in metallic shades
of grey and gold,
because November rings the 11^th
bell in the 12 steps out of trauma
into bareness,
or better,
clinically that is.

each leaf is a tear
cascading down the cheek of
some nothing,
and what are tears
anyways?
besides steps 3-6
on the treasure map
behind the clipboard?

leaves are just soft music
dropped beats
slivered sunshine
drops of gold.
i love them and i miss them
already even when they are still
here lush gardens of temporal forest
falling from an infinite sky or heaven above
as rich firmament catches their elusive ways
on their inevitable fall
and you I love as well i know
i will i am just
waiting
for step 12,

when the
leaves will
have dropped.

for now I wake up next to
a birch tree
singing me sweet lullabies
to go back-
back to sleep
live in dreams
slither under a comforter
of wet leaf piles
and stop taking
steps to
a pot of gold
when these leaves
shimmer better than
what you’ll find at the
end of any rainbow,
or step 12
in a game of hop scotch
to happiness.


dls

giggle:

i google

searched him,

found him,

sunshock hair and

megawatt smile

because otherwise

he's not real,

just a shoulder

i didn't

touch.

cvp

i love breakfast

I wonder why

sometimes things like the

Persian word for plate

get stuck in my head -

everyday things and yet

extraordinary

(bosh qu'ab, and click the Q),

build the

backbeat to the

thoughts that don't seem to

have coalesced all semester,

no spinal cords

for coherent essays and

exercises in

ideas. Idea:

open up - Idea:

breathe up - the air after

Sterling on Cross

Campus is crisp and

clean like only

air, or water, or the

Beatles. Full moon

soon. At the gate,

a bowl of cereal sits

abandoned, an

offering to the

Gods of

whimsy?

CVP

does no
one eat
break fast
any more?

(today an
asiago cheese
bagel and
pine apple,
exotic)

poems need
not be
so difficult
as papers.

EWV

The Brussels Sprouts

Wait: for that time of year when the ground is hard
and the sky is lower on the horizon than it has ever been—when you can see
the crows roosting in the empty trees. Then go to your garden and
walk among the plants.

Here you will find spoiled greens (burned yellow
by the frost). But others
will be tight and sweeter for the cold.
Among these is the brussels sprout.

How shall you approach it?
First, strip the shaggy leaves—
expose the brussel heads. Next, grip the stalk
and wrench it up. As you like
take pruning shears and cut away the roots.

Bring this crook, with its thick knobs and
leafy periwinkles, back inside your home. Are things
where they were? Wash it. Scrub away the dirt,
loose leaves, and insects.

We are ready to twist off the sprouts. Your fingers are strong
enough for this: pop each knot, pull away the outer leaves,
collect them in a pot. Rinse, again. I’m sorry I still have your steamer.

Steam them, lightly. Just until the curls are bright
green in the heat. While they cook, fetch garlic from the basket
by the bay window. Remember to crush the cloves with the flat of the blade,
before dicing.

You once told me that you loved the smell of cooking garlic
more than anything. Mix with butter, lemon, salt—
drizzle over the brussels sprouts. It was the wind today
that made me think of you and last November.

good morning to you

i woke up

with a carpet burned back

and memories from world war ii—

what an awful war world war ii

was, I exhale with my grandmother’s

faraway look of nostalgia for

how bad everything

was. different times, she whispers

to herself.

three alarms set in intervals

of four minutes

allow for insightful discoveries

in the endless exploration of damp and dark caves

that make up the past—

mine, or hers or his and theirs or ours.

and here in these caves

my touch is like mida’s

but everything here is behind glass walls

like my dear aunt’s china collection

that sits uselessly in her dining room,

purposefully placed for continuous lusting.

another one rings,

and i am still searching for a thesis

to link his how did I get away

with that and my

giggleless manifesta to an audience

with watches on their left wrists

and the paragraph in the world briefing

from the congo yesterday

in addition to the summary of the continuance

of settlements freckling the cheek

of a one day Palestinian state

of peace.

snooze once more because

the leaves outside smiled the other day

in a variety of oranges

and now they are dancing—

twirling without gravity

above tussled hair and hands on hats

and their twister spins

don’t need a partner to lead

or a caller to call—

they just tuck and dive

spin and grin,

i bet they even close their eyes.

pathetic fallacy

strikes again as another alarm

enters my half dreamed dance floor in the

sky and i wonder if i am sad because i

miss him—

or these sudden

flashback to the war and sport’s

letters from japan where he

would have died if we

hadn’t bombed hiroshima,

my mother told me once. so many people

died there, i sigh.

racing the on call clocks

I squeeze my eyes shut

like bulldozers knocking over intricately

doodled caves where lights suddenly

go out. I didn’t even do a roll call this

time, didn’t even check to see if bodies

remain,

like those Chilean miners.

I wonder what they thought about—

in all that darkness for all those days.

feet up, for the future awaits;

sneakily it slips through my veins into

a history i will try to write down

tomorrow morning upon the beeping

of my first alarm

and sum up with very conclusive thoughts in the fat part of the

triangle in my conclusion paragraph--

instead of an inside treasure map of

a web, a maze, a veritable labyrinth

a coast with an infinite length,

a cave with too many contours

making too many shadows--

simple sentences

that makes sense

to me.

dls

her heart beats on

i squeezed you tightly

hair covering eyes

arms adjusting

for length

suffocating my neck

trying to absorb

your internal bleeding,

mopping up wet red

with a used paper towel,

wanting with eyes

squinty shut,

to make you

better.

his hands find length

with ease

rearranging the lines

of dissent into some sort

of sentence of some sort

of death.

her heart beat on.

we sit cross legged now

backs find floors,

eyes find lids,

and tears sometimes won’t find cheeks,

and other times just won’t leave.

i prefer a daily dose of rage

to a sadness that lingers,

so let’s explore,

and find a volcano.

i want it

in me,

a mystic energy,

a life force of molten liquid,

fire in my belly,

and red hot hands.

something to keep my heart pounding

alongside hers,

and all the other hers

whose skin slipped off

into greedy, senseless hands.

dls

driving in the dark

the light blinded my eyelashes as i walked down--

making the dark black ends

extemporaneously white.

my feet kept marching,

each one

a bit lower than the other.

with every step,

the light splashed more in every direction,

parallel, limitless lines moving behind me,

until i fell out of their plane and

it became dark.

--

we sat silently in the car today,

until his hand rubbed my shoulder,

as he told me that rape would always happen-

no matter what i do.

long exhale or loud sigh

with eyes squeezed shut.

how helpful of you to point out, dad.

--

their shouts echo through my sleep, you know,

the words haunted my dreams with an unbearable reality

in the free time in between ferocious tears and a letter to the editor.

i made my face public. i spoke-

about misogyny and hate speech

and free speech and rape and anger and let's make this

better and

group mentality is really

hard so let's

not blame the voices.

language, we said,

is difficult.

--

i'm tired now.

exhausted, rather.

out of words.

and even though my mouth goes on speaking,

and my eyes go on blinking,

and my hands go on shaking,

i'm stuck here;

stuck in this locomotive, automatic, reactive

vehicle.

(the temporary displacement

of fury and mourning

did not disappear

because it's the day after

the yesterday

of my nightmare.)

instead of an engine fueling my steps with

anger,

i feel docile and empty,

out of gas.

i'm lost in this darkness,

unsure of my sadness,

or next step,

looking for one that goes up.

dls

Despair

Dear Cora and Emily,

I am very sorry

that I

missed

our

movie date

tonight.

I do hope

that you will (find it in your hearts to) forgive me.

-Me,

Most apologetically

the great migration

love

is like a little bird fluttering in the sky

with urgent, fast moving wings

(for it did not flutter so, how could it fly!),

but slow movements

on its long migration

to Florida.

similarly,

love migrates each winter

to Florida.

today i woke up,

flustered, as always,

fluttering my non-wings

on my way north,

or more accurately,

nowhere,

or at least nowhere i'll remember

tomorrow.

i promise my morning brain

this morning,

that i believe

in love.

and birds.

but who doesn't believe in

birds?

they are so easy to believe in;

their flight bearing a miracle a minute

unlike santa's elusive sleigh,

or love's invisible

annual migration to Florida.

like the birds,

love flies in a flock.

to Florida.

after trying to stick to young people's

suntan lotion on rocky beaches

over the fleeting

new england summer.

its many contradictory dimensions

synch strokes of feathers

fluttering in small and urgent

flutters

back home

to a state full of certain someones.

i only know this love

that i do believe in

from Florida,

where Sally and Mabon

held wrinkly, indistinguishable, hands,

(for it would have been stranger had they not),

walking up stone steps

for Sunday church.

(for where else would they have been,

but going to church

in Florida

on a Sunday

with birds flying all around

and love unfluttering their

hands,

just slowly swaying them

together as one,

after a long migration

south).

DLS

So Much, So Many

I am nothing

more than a pad

of post-it-note-

labels and

ideas in

two funny coats.

There's an un

expected tin of

zinnias, the

sudden desire to

spiral to the

floor.

CVP

Oct 6

Half awake I murmured good morning I love you because we'd fought like the Russians and Americans did which is to say we built up our defenses and counted warheads but only ever sent letters and spoke on red telephones and made spy movies
And it frightens me when I can't remember the in-between times when I can't account for how moments are spent
So we made our way to hear the judges and the feminists speaking at the forum she wore a corset and had stumps for feet he made her write him essays
Today the trees were under my feet reflected in puddles that were actually mirrors for all the greenness it seemed like the days were getting warmer and everything was growing brighter and healthier and then it came back to me that it's autumn not spring and you can't just forget the direction of things like waking from this nap and thinking it was tomorrow or waking this morning and having it be five years ago and I'm deciding to pick up and leave home like some kind of runaway
These days I pack light,
carry one suitcase to the train station

CDL

let us rejoice while we are young

the beats from the years when I tried
to fix you
rang back,
blurry echoes pinging back and forth
between panther and little moose,
skimming the water like a startled loon,
flapping webbed toes against the
still water.

it never worked.
we wake up in cranky beds with light hearts
and stumble on a museum of her heartbreak
and its present tense in the kitchen,
even with its newly stripped walls,
as her hands rub each other frantically
over and over,
her long fingers lingering together.

three ferns still
sit framed in between four candles
on our long table.
unrecognizable dogs
lick feet and chase each other
beneath our toasts, graces
and the stories of her sisters,
and junrite and senrite kindergarden
she tells us.
over and over,
these days.

we slip down to the dock
after these circular tales
harmonize the
ice cream scooping, ping pong playing,
and living room laughing.
the silence then becomes quite loud,
the volume of sound filled with
vestiges of what was, and the uncertainty
of what will be.

as the darkness catches my tears,
i listen to the echoes of coldplay’s forgotten chords;
i gaze at us, sitting in the car,
pulled over
like tourists looking to feed the deer,
your face in your hands.

it’s slower now.
she strokes her own hands,
sometimes touches the headband,
as if to make sure that after fifty plus years
of resilience,
it won’t suddenly disappear,
like he did.

the turquoise and forest green pastel
remain rich and immortalized on our walls
even as she drifts away
stroking those hands,
i wrote as a middle school scholar.
today, i wonder
where she is now.

DLS

Tryst

The last time things came easily
was in the tall grass by the dock in June,
near where we used to pick raspberries
with their sour juice, little hairs, and black thorns.
Sometimes we took handfuls back home
to cut the tartness with scoops of ice cream,
but more often we couldn’t wait
and ate them standing in the tangled brush.

That night he wore his father’s jacket, hung about
until the others had gone into the house,
then tugged me down beside the canoe.
He held himself the way they do sometimes,
as though you’re something easily ruined.
I would’ve liked to be a branch, I said,
on a birch tree where nothing with petals grows
or a hollow carved deep into the trunk of the tree
with a hunting knife or tomahawk.
But these things are coarse.

CDL

Breakfast Oct 1

He said that fictional imagination is timid and the world is bolder and I would agree except that I have been living timidly in the world and perhaps that is why I prefer journalism it allows you to seek out the bold people

They discovered a new planet and we celebrated we put stars on our ceiling and beckoned in our alien-like friends and I missed most of it but they had champagne where I was too and also people who wished me luck in sincere ways and who I'll miss I know very shortly it's just I haven't quite decided why yet. Perhaps the dancing and the way the writing was always accidental like winning the lottery or breaking a vase

At least now I can hide between tree needles sneak into caves and huddle like a boulder hunched and confident in my shape, talk generalities and pass me a beer and would you like to go for a run. Go to a place where everyone knows you and nobody is speaking to you in that worst way or not at all are you sure you exist

I remember stomping our feet and blaring the words shouting there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. After all timidity is the easiest thing to unlearn all you have to do is at breakfast like Frank did recite oh god it's wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much

CDL

flat on cc

As the sun dies around me
it exhales its last good graces
on anyone who is keen enough
to know and yet not know
why it has happened
and before you reach a single
conclusion, the night steps out
from in between the stars and
the buzzing fades


BDR

NMMP

A conversation with you is mostly a failure to Comprehend
Either tongue, the native which renders Expression childish, or the
Learned, which renders feeling dull and flat

Si, somos putos adolescentes, sobrealimentados y narcista
Pero tu angustia para ser conectado, con migo o con nadie
En este momento no lo puedo Entender

Comemos los cigarros (tu mas rápido que yo)--la muerte nos conecta a todos
Que por Saber, ya están Muertos.
Tal vez no hay solución,
Y por eso te digo-andate a Barça,
A beber, fumar y escibir. Lo unico en que yo creo
Es la Palabra escrita. Es Tu palabra. Y tal vez asi te conectaras en la unica forma Verdadera.

Tu me haces querer no vivir por otros,
Y por eso, eres mi Mejor amigo.

timeline

yesterday
i was a modern woman.
my boots clicked against wooden panels
and i hurried off to
the many places
to meet the many people
i was supposed to meet
many minutes before.
i scuffed my hair,
and the passerby
broke my intent
and shattered my gaze
away from the pavement.
the meetings i made
meant moving hands in stiff gestures
like perpendicular palms
and straw, crinkling fists.
but i had to run-
so with uppity verses
and upward ending
intonations,
i left.
(the linear intensity i stirred around me
distracted me
from the forgotten memories
from days
when lines of control
blurred into a soft fuzz-
all blankets and lotioned skin.
unspoken patterns
of dissent now
echoing back
dissolved words or thoughts
that guided
years of disorientation.)

DLS

judd i'm scared

judd, i'm scared!
the water's more than 15 feet down but it feels like more and we're all the way up here,
it'll be so cold and i'll be shivering in between thwarts while you warm yourself with sentimental strokes
we'll go together
just count down
five, four, three,
stop!
david's in!
i can't. judd i don't know why i'm so
scared.
what's going to happen.
okay, stop, you're going.
i can't
three
i'm going to scream
two
you know-
one
hesitating while they're flying and then splashing and then flying in the water like fish and birds are one and i have to go now because if i don't i will think
always thinking, yearning to
fly
and here's the air
fuck it:

s e c o n d s
elongate
as i near
the this is it
breath
or lack
there
of

LAUGHTER.
eyes closed, beaming wet face droplets on my eyelashes and your confused or amused gaze is nice so i avoid it with active determination.

again! giddy greediness and slippery rocks up muddy non paths back to the fear and counting down and judd i'm scared! you just did it! i'm counting. i hate you. really i do.

i
jumped
again
miraculous
fleeing
of
rocks
and
feeling
of
gravity.

SPLASH!
slippery skin and saturated smiles. why do you get so scared, you are incredibly happy after that. shrugs. eyes averted. one more time!

hurry, the cars are waiting and the peninsula is far so no fear this time. okay? not that i can help it. but soon your knees will brush my back in the stern of a canoe as i shiver and smile so it's time to jump while we're here, so far.

flailing arms
hit air
then water
then swooping
motions
like duck
feet
from
underwater
eyes
still
falling.

mmm. that's the best. isn't this all the best. i love it all so much. eyes rolled. ready the ship. i fall back in from slippery rocks. we laugh. my bruise purples as we head back. my lip goes white from biting and my cheeks hurt from beaming and my bone looks like it's sticking out a little more than usual but such is life.

love life.
love fear.
fearing love,
but wanting to
live in it.

dls