(Something With No Ending)

I have a recipe for the perfect relationship:
the miserable reality that I make it so hard for everyone
to love me that when I die
all of my children and spouses will be terrified
of not making it in time to reconcile:
“What if she dies and we never said ‘I love you?’”
I like blueberry pies, peach pies, strawberry pies.

Aren’t mothers always supposed to say I love you?
and I love chocolate chip cookies,
chocolate crinkles, snicker doodles
and gingerbread all year round.

Everyone at arm’s length, is my motto.
Sometimes my arms aren’t long enough.
Oh, and cobblers. Peach cobbler,
apple cobbler, and blackberry cobbler.

Or they’re longer than what I want them to be,
But I can’t shrink them into my body
with my husband and children in my clutches.
Candies are delicious!
Butter toffee, caramel peanut bars, mint and chocolate bites!

So many when I die I won’t be so lonely.
My bedside will be as busy as the fairgrounds,
Speaking of which!
I love frying funnel cakes and battering oreos.

I love setting the oven to 325 degrees or 450.
And I have sweated over this heat for so long.
So that when I die and they rush to my side,
I can finally tell my secret,
when I’m so lonely that my nose bleeds
because my heart can sustain the pressure,
I bake sweet desserts and dream of the glowing awe in their eyes
as I gently place the plate in front of them.
and secretly, I set the table.
and secretly, I wait for the doorbell to ring.

But I always put the dishes away,
and the chimes are always still,
and the desserts always fill my trashcan.

.....

The Track That Skips

But he told,
he told,
he told,
he told,
me so.
Background noise
telling me about your weekend
white noise, while in foreground
I ask, When did I start hating you?
But he told,
he told,
he told,
he told
me it’s normal.
And I have to believe,
believe you,
believe you,
because I love you
when I am not dreaming of anywhere else
but here.

Going Through It Alone

You said you felt strange on the drive home,
Rushed in the front door and into the bathroom,
Horrified to find your left eye crawling in to your hairline.
These are the pictures of you before you changed
The light behind you settled gently on your shoulders
Like dust while you cozied up to your son
And a motionless laugh playing: this was your defining moment.
Here you are, grasping the mirror while features use talons to crawl
Twisting skin, slacking one side of the mouth,
a storm cloud under the right eye.
We were all in the other room, weren’t we?
We were looking at pictures when we heard your second to last breath,
And it was me who said, “Did someone just hear that?
It sounded like paper being ripped in half.”

Solice

I hear sirens at night, from beginning to end. And nothing can cover that scream except searching the shadows played on my walls--pretending to be in the presence of what should be here with me, but isn't.

Not All Darkness is Terrifying

It wasn't until we kissed
when the inner most part of your bottom lip
started to kiss me back
and it felt brand new--after kissing you thirty times a day
two hundred and ten times a week
minus a few months here and there

it was our brand new kiss tonight
that made me realize
not all darkness is terrifying

Mixed with the fact that my brain,
racing, trying to flee the scene to collect my pulse
i stepped shin deep in a rain puddle
and stood there thinking,

"This is what I do now.
I step in the world's largest rain puddle,
and I stay silent. Because there is a warm
kiss on my forehead, just below my hairline
telling me it's okay to be silent sometimes."

Already Dark Room

Yes--there is something I remember
about family.

Overhead lights burn out and lightbulbs
are not replaced for months.
The one who lives in this room rallies
her army of little lamps;
four, five of them to create a glow
big enough to justify
the loss of an overhead light.
It's almost indecipherably different, except...

Still, months later--
upon entering the room, the switch is flipped up
upon exiting the room, the switch is flipped down.

Because we can still touch our beating hearts,
we continue to dream of our family's ghosts;
dress our dinner tables for six memories
and pretend it's a celebration;

after dinner,
the obviously empty plates are too painful,
the haunting has vanished--but if you look,
I'm still in the doorway.

It's not until you recognize
the dim in the corner of the room
that you remember how bright
you felt at one time.

Polaroid Smile

This frame is for the photograph
I took four years ago, standing
on my picnic table on a May evening

before Japan moved eight feet to the left,
moments before Katrina flooded New Orleans with demons,
I didn't know yet that tsunamis were real,
that children could receive radiation poisoning
from the bottles that their mothers anxiously fed them
while rocking on the curb and looking at the pile of wood
their lives had suddenly become,

at a time when the idea of the earth changing position,
the number of planets in the solar system become less and more,
or days permanently becoming slightly shorter--
at a time when all of these thoughts were pages in a book
I borrowed from the library,

when I used to be able to read books simply because
and simply because their titles gave me a thrill
before vices became addictions, before addictions were real
and not romantic stories from beat poets and idolized musicians

a time when all I had to do to make myself happy
was put on a sun dress, barefeet full of splinters
climb on top of the picnic table,
lift my camera as high as I could reach

and take one picture.
The picture of my world, through the branches of trees
the sunset on an evening of my life, moments before
I realized that every fucked up fantasy that's ever been constructed
comes from one very realistic fucked up moment
in this strangely surrealistic world.

Forsythia

The girl at the party with thick legs
and yellow cowboy boots, who never starts
the conversation but always shakes the room
with laughter before the joke is completely told.

In Bed With the Devil

She said,
and this is how he breathes
at night when no one else on earth
knows his heart beat but my hand

She said,
and this sound could be likened
to support beams cracking
under the city.

And we're all oblivious
and we're all dying young
and we're all fighting terrors,

but it's a dirty trick--
not to tell us the truth,
and most of us singing,
will be the first,
feet first
in your mass grave.

What devil are you?
She said.
His heart was the only sound
and the cracking of her brittle ribs.

This is how I know
we love our children;

after the disaster,
we wade in the flood waters
holding dim lanterns like warm supper plates
hesitantly singing lullabies,
calling the children to rise from their graves
and come home to the ones that love them.

So softly now,
the waves of the ocean that is your cradle,
your mother weeps because she remembers a time
when she heard you cry, and cursed you.

Opening Doors to Strangers

Passed out dead,
she said.
I think the saying goes,
Passed out cold.
Yeah, but I'm telling
the truth.

Look on to the dead body
in the apartment
not one of us pay for this place
don't know the owner

Wonder how did she get here.
We all put it up our nose,
in our arms,
we're the rickety frames
on their walls,
but she did not pass go here

Made me want to get clean
immediately
but by that time I was already flushed
from the heat of the junk
sifting through my veins
careening to my brain.

We all have a home
wonder if i could find another way
Have to find ANY way to call this home.

This just isn't home,
this is hell.

Just give me some space,
I'll be down in a while.

Call the cops, for her
after I leave, for her
I'm too fucked up, for her
too unearthed, for her
maybe I'll get clean, for her.

By the time I get home tonight,
you'll wonder who I am, what stranger
I've shared a life with,
I'm too fucked up tonight,
I'll sleep on the floor
next to you in your bed
with my veins and my grueling pull
toward the biggest cliff on this earth.

(Found, circa late Dec)

Surefooted Failures

Remember when the water line burst
in December and covered our street
with a thick sheet of ice, it happens
to be a hill we live on and each morning
was more treacherous than the one before
but mostly,

do you remember how hard we laughed,
laying rugs down across the sidewalk
holding onto ice branches hanging low
like hands from older brothers helping
us stay steady,

i guess the truth is that we are mistakes
bursting pipes, inconveniences just waiting
something like obscenities in steam rising
from our mouths as we hold hands and slide
downhill, our lives

are simply spirling out of control
but we were handpicked to be together
like making it day to day, barely but eyes locked
so we might as well fall and find our footing
come spring,
yeah
let's just wait
until the end of everything,

that's when we'll be steady.

Passing Thought

This morning, it was pouring down March's rain
and I woke up and slipped a memory of you
around my body like a warm blanket and stopped
to watch the color green grow across my yard,
I thought about how I had been dreaming
just moments before that you and I were drinking coffee,
I said, "If you want to look, then look."

So I looked deep into the seasons changing
squeezing you tighter around me,
I'd have to travel too far to find you now

it's been five years ago that you told me
you were in love with the woman you knew I'd be
with your canvases piled against the wall
and your Florida mug topped off with wine;

those were our nights, weren't they?
and this is my morning,
you are my moment,

What about the sand you brought to me
placed it above the fireplace and started to say,
"Each grain is for how much..."

(rd)

Thoughts I

Beth, your thoughts are...
so strange when you're swimming
in the ocean of rhythmic bodies
eyes closed, pressing side to side
like there's a breeze drawing you left
like that breeze turns and draws you right
a slight smile, the other people

the other people, where are they?

there are moments of drilling pulsation
from fingertips on vinyl, questioning
who are you and why did you come out to dance?

just listen to the man, what he's giving you
and the penalty is outter-ear extraction
when your true motives are surfaced.

Beth, when you open your eyes
Beth, when you open your eyes
Beth, open your eyes...
Yes... now who here has an ear intact?
None of you with your images,
all of you with your excuses,
none of you with clammy hands
snatching back from the beckoner,

and what have you truly got to lose?
Your safety in numbers.

Mansion Overlooking the Old Woman's Mind

With her finger tips gently posed
over her top lip, a sort of cage
to trap the gasp that she might let out
she closed the blinds to the last window
in her entire house and turning away
to go make her tea before bed, her head said
"There it goes, everything I've ever known
about the outside world.
Nothing will be the same come morning."

Night Gowned Vulnerability

The burning at the bottom of my throat
are the roots from the tree reaching to my skull
that told me all of that happened years ago,

"But this is where the dirt was," thoughtful little girl
watching pieces of hair and specks of black dirt float
in her bath water, she had seen me take the rug out
which had been thrown in carelessly,

but I didn't wash the specks down the drain
and now her little fingers were fishing them out
her lips punching forward, not criticizing
determined to clean her own bath water
"I just need to clean the specks out" she mumbled

The burning in my throat comes from my stomach;

If you are not kind, what kind of human are you?
To force a child to bathe in dirty water,
and if you are not kind, how will you stand on your feet
as your world comes crashing inward?

News

Every day is a person
and each person has his
or her
own eerie headline
and i
have written mine, it says
"Oceans calm worldwide,
people sacrifice their children,
2011."

Untitled

A forgotten February night,
dressed up in a spring dress,
sacheting around the city
hoping to be seen,
wanting so badly to be the night
that everyone wants to dance with--

there are thoughts on the interstate
in my mind, speeding from home to destination
after everyone has gone to their homes
with their lovers and their others
and I sleep on a couch that constantly pulls
me inward; with the patio door open onto Richmond

the wind is moving violently
it's sole intention is to get me to notice it
but the wind is so arrogant and doesn't realize
even if I looked, I couldn't find it
couldn't laugh with my arms around it's neck
and dance for just a moment,
couldn't kiss it on it's mouth gently to remind it
how deeply I would move it's soul
even if I looked, it hides so desperately

it hides so perfectly

below, the unknown neighbors are fighting
she thinks he's walking out on her
and he's carrying garbage bags to the dumpster

below, a taxi throws a laughing man and woman on the curb
they're drunk and red and dancing up the steps
she's leaning backwards with her heals
threatening to send her tumbling
he's leaning forwards in his romance
debating on how deep to touch

the couch is still pulling me inward
and it's finally when my eyes close
that the wind comes to me through the patio door
and whispers concerned in my ear,
"Why did you not search for me?
And if you say you searched,
then how, with all your faith,
did you not find me?"

come morning, i'll change the subject
so that i can move on,
but you'll never move on,

but you'll never move on,
you've never moved on,

you'll
never
step away from this
a whole man.

Particles

Just laying in the water
the tub, where I come
when I have writer's block
so thick I can only see fog
on the top the mountain
and no place to pull off,
terrifying to be so blind
the tub, is where I come
for relief from everything

the tub, belongs to you
and you come in and wonder
why I still have my jewelry on

but you understand when i say
i feel naked without it
you say I don't look real either
without my decorations

then you're gone.
an old woman in a bar told me,
always keep in touch with
the people you know
because one day they die
and you don't know until
they dont write back
and you don't realize they're dead
until you're eating breakfast
and the dust settles in an odd way.

it's a nightly thing for us, almost
you coming in and handing me a towel
the dust dances around the yellow air
moving constantly through our touches
and we touch constantly with one eye open
to make sure we are conscious when it settles.