This Place

Pressed atop your chest
I exhaled "I love you"

and you begged me
to "stay in
this moment forever"

desperately

as if I have a say

In My Mother's Tub

plugged in
the plastic radio I bought at last week's yard sale
and peeled my robe from sticky skin
as Meshell Ndegeocello's
growls begin to drip from the speakers

cut to

the double
indentations
on the bridge of my nose
from the glasses
i wear
on work days

today was especially long

cut to

However bitter against
raised tastebuds
coconut sure smells sweet
on steamed skin

cut to

me squeezing more
onto this tattered
wash cloth

cut to

my head dropped back on
cold ceramic
as my body sinks lower
into sudsy lava

nipples and kneecaps
all that
peak
above the surface

cut to

a thought of you.

and i touch myself
in my mother's tub

Where are you

Irene Grandi growls Italian love songs
as a backdrop for this conversation

90 minutes of "That's so true" and "You know what else?" and "What do you mean" and "I feel the same way" barrel from the other end of the reciever


Rivers of words are leaking through the earpiece

But where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

The metal absence of your presence
The heavy presence of your absence

Men who love to listen and a girl who loves to talk
Men with things to say and a girl eager to listen
A dangerous recipe
Don't you think?

And in the midst of it all I still want you
I want the food they feed to be fed to me by you
But where are you?

Where
Are
You

You are
the difference
between
metaphors and similes.

You are
not 'like'
or 'as'

But You 'are'.

Oh baby, you ARE.

champagne

color me deep deep gray
the gray so deep it's almost light blue
make me cry the way meredith grey's denoument-monologues often do


lick my skin and find it gray and rough like the moon.

Crowns and Syrup

Your fingertips taste of metal
and my split-ends line your bed
The last poem was meant to cut
But you called it beautiful instead

Conversation has stalled and stuttered
Yet my heart grows larger still
My head- its got its mind made up
But I dial against my will

Your love it leaves me red and raw
And syrup fills my hands
Let's wrap our necks like ostriches
Unless God's got other plans

Our 'after-birth' is sour
Yet and still I drink you down
'Cause while the birds chirp 'Mossy hat!'
My eyes- they see a crown.

My tongue dances in sugar
While thick lanes drip below my neck
Everything was sweet at first
But syrup leaves a sticky wet

My tears dripped on that golden piece
And 'oh!' what have I found
It melted quick as sand and soap
My tears melted your crown.

The syrup that fell from my face
Liquified your crown.


My God, what emptiness I've found?

Floating with Anchors

One moment- at the bus stop
the next- on hands and knees
in your garden;
twigs disturbing
the brown cracks of my palms
and shins.

and again i crawl
towards the cluster of
red sunflowers.
our meeting place.

and, as is routine,
i pull my dirty index
and plug one nostril
so hard
my nose begins
to bleed

bent over
i am running my nose across the soil
beneath the flowers
and let the pollen rush to my skull
so that my head begins to hurt
so good

rolled over on my back
i fail to notice the slugs
that made their way into my hair
slick and slow

i release myself to the
rivers of itchy grass
while
bits of bloody sunflower pollen
feast
on the 90%
scientists say
we never use

and i cough up flies
while you make love to me.