waiting one

nothing impresses me more
than a man who knows how to wait
because i am not
a patient woman
i know conviction grows on trees
but grafting takes too long
and sometimes doesn’t work

things torn and mended
are the lovelier for being one alone
the breeze asserts itself
how long you stood there
i don’t know
these places where i am
are not unbeautiful

the sum of slow ascent is oblivious
but this timely summit yours and waking
how ephemerality was arranged
coffee cups between us
on slow morns
these nights are disorderly and
there is no place
in this space
for me the way my presence demands
more than it requires

expand
accept your unrestraint
if you should unwittingly collect
unrequired evidence
that my reverie is playing at
the corners of your mouth and
the near distance of your gaze
flickering like truth
be certain
you return before me, quietly
i’ll come twenty minutes late
or never at all

inertia like revolving doors in winter
not to find you;
and i can’t think how we’d make a meet
of two passersby
if ever we should try
i’ve been the breeze long enough to know
we oughtn’t

flowerbomb

“but what else would i call you?”
                                 lovely ambivalence
                       by what other sentiment
                              would you taste as sweet
     your divine rhetoric
                          with all the force of self-
                                                               conviction
                   i believe you
                love
  on my tongue

hypothetical rooting

do i discern the taste
      always
familiar strangers
                          smile
because i am not of it
or
   i am
it?

i survey
smooth white and connecting
lines of America’s backyard
if we had one.

i offer all the dirt accumulated
film on my street shoes
from places i’ve been
                       in a thought
to match the gravity i sense
all around me
but can’t quite make out.

chasing the sunny side of the street
where i am
it’s always windy.
is it possible to take root
                         here?
anywhere
             i am?

somehow
open and beaming and
winking violet in the sun
i don’t suppose
wildflowers are indigenous to any one
place.

solipsism stepped out

     everybody is
not me
                    in good ways

                                                                                                                    understated.

smiling opaque

in reply

some women wear mischief
in their eyes,
the curl of a bottom lip;
still others
around their thighs, but—
no consequence
mischief isn’t telling
across the fluorescent night
i sense crimes being carried out
in my name

goodnight moon

summers when the money was gone you’d sing
all your little songs that meant everything to me…

i can bring consciousness
to situations
not mine
forgetful of headlights
in your driveway
with you
           the memory regaled
laughing
a hundred times always
       the moment still reeling

silhouetting the window
you commune with
                    the moon
give rhythm to the moment’s tide
hands on the hips of
       time
you dance the ebb & flow

where did i go
why don’t i know
to miss the moon
               when i sleep?

synaptic laughter

laughter is born of thought
the unfinding of your floor
is an intimate quest
seeking, stretching, sweating—
naked on all fours
i am certain you are attentive
to the surplus of my parts
it is really just
the simple matter of
january in paris
crimson lower lip reading
poetry aloud in fields of clover and
bubbles blowing over

synaptic laughter is parent
to bodies heaving;
the breathless
exhilarating descent
down one very long
flight of stairs
thundering after
that very same end—
our reeling teenage nights
the leave for which
we must first pursue our parent’s permission

january flowers

both feet toward
my bedroom door
winter-wear fit
i drew it closed
slow— heeding silence thick as
dusk-light
stalking open window shades

understand me:
i didn’t have to
steal away from an empty apartment
i did it
for playful onrushing
jubilance
and perhaps just a little bit
out of habit—
after all
sound and fury once
lived there

women can maim
without ever
telling a lie
the soul-tired can regenerate
graceful
having fumbled a thousand
and kept them

my sidewalk shadow confesses
nothing
save unbroken stride
my bottom lip conveys
only a smile
i think of
january flowers and
june-receivers;
conduits and secret-keepers
speak,
           ask nothing
for light is first
time is fluid and we
are only human
in this
great chain of freeing

short e’s

ink is permanent so
oblige me
read your lines
          aloud
i like the way
                   you speak
               &
   the spaces in between

i leave you
             leave to
burn bridges
abridge   miscolor   smile
shrug off, for
                   hindsight is 20/20 contoured
to this then that the
                                next moment

& old ink worth
what?
      when follows the mighty
non sequitur.

bed head

shades of past experience
relative age
& the rings & roots
of trees
aren’t worth one damn hair
off somebody’s head

the thing of it is
the texture of this
imminent moment

you & i
each
are only one-
half of this static-electric fusion
which itself is
freeze-frame boundless

self-definitions
line the pockets of your pants
your regretfulness benevolence
waiting potential
my everyday gray
skin accumulates soil but
let’s make nothing of it; for
your tomorrow is my today
& things may change
there is no place in
this space for summing up
but when this moment’s &
the next’s
everyday words spill out of me
can you envision how roomy i am
for you for now?

subconsciously resolute
smiling pause
i stretch my feelers to receive;
i run my hand through misdirected strands
subterfuge in the tip
of a silly cap
towards a gentleman of mist
scratch my scalp
& stare you down
‘til you’re tangled in
pomade and points of view

i carry you just this way
scour the city-day
through ’til i’m finished
i smile & sleep-revel
in tresses of my sweat,
your stardust &
the all-day fantastic-ordinary
& i wake
with the best
bed head.