Elegy

Have you ever seen a withered walnut?
When first met, it’s quite deceptive.

Straight backed and sturdy,
the walnut boasts invincible
like the chest of drawers
Grandfather built for me
when I was a child.

But once the nutshell splits
youth sputters into gasping age,
less a ghost than a corpse
more a corpse than a body
brown and slightly curling

like Grandfather’s hands
that once built a chest of drawers.

Stars and Stripes Forever

candy cuticles and splotched skin--
my right hand is stained with blueberry juice

a violet leprosy,
connect the dot constellations
drawn into one hand
-ily placed map of the galaxy
blue like boy blue's blue blue horn

if I dragged this berry
down and up my arms
would I look like a zebra?

I could parade out into the streets
like a flame thrower buxom bearded lady

fifteen cents to see the striped American
twenty two cents to lick it off

a circus sight to see, and full of antioxidants

Then I could light my hair on fire
and dance an offering to the goddess of fruit--
to nectar, to color
to sex and poison,
all sweet.

City of Sails

the folk song heard downtown
is the drum of sweet rain
glazing the cooled streets
like the donuts back home
but this isn’t back home

this isn’t Singapore
where chewing gum leads to deportation
this isn’t London
soaked in the stench of history
or Los Angeles,
that elusive country club

Auckland is a patchwork city
yarns of earth and bustle
snipped from each continent
and loosely woven into
the messy noise of this morning

If There is Any Religion, This Is It

my fingers smell like rust
silly me, I left them in the rain again
it was the most comfortable option
in light, last night
of air conditioning and linened beds
I knew I could not lay breathe or sleep

so I took my fingers
to the corn husks and their children
tiny crescent weeds all quenched,
empowered in their dirt--now mud, ever phoenix,
rife with worms
beating their wings beneath the sod
to make the earth move

like the wind
that swept like kitchen floor
into my mouth
till I hiccupped, a happy dustpan
my arms like superman
brushing against trees
like the wings
on the worms
with the wings

look how my hands spin
like loose weather vanes
who totter and rattle
amidst Noah’s flood, Moses’ plague

look how my hands stretch
like stalwart weather vanes
who forever crane their necks
in search of discernment

Entertaining What I Suspect Would Be the Joy of Anonymity

in a quiet suburb pretending
to be a blue color Midwestern city
I’m poised over this paper,
choosing to see 5th ave in the blue ink

to taste the city mice spice, scaffolds and cigars and street heckle
to greet the Indian man on the corner who sells me peaches for cheap
because I ask him about his new shoes.
He always has new shoes.

Listen to the slick sad midwestern blues:
table salt spilling off a table--imitation white niagra, slow.
slow. an exhale from the local stoner,
reefer pooling in the air around his hands
settling into his eyebrows, settling
into the pressed cement the smell of
settling, slow

settling into the red of her shirt
and the matching red of mine
the sound bites of their voices
crackling in and out of my reception
his blue cap, her sideways stare, blush, guilt, duck
this town will never be big enough
for any of us

Letter to a Friend from the Future

She’s going to waffle
putting your affection
inside the crevices of the setting flour
because she thinks you might stick
Well, she might stick!

She’ll be sorry about it,
I thought she might stick!
but not that sorry
not sorry enough to stop
cooking all together.

Because, she’ll muse,
staring into the lightly toasted flannel batter pattern
we could still be friends
with glaring and occasionally unruly sexual tension,
but you could be friends. Still?
Friends, could you be? Stall.
Friends? Stay. You? Stasis.
Could be

stasis,
would be the best way, this
could be the best way, yes
for her to handle (and she’s sorry enough)
for you to handle (is she sorry enough?)

the door handle
against your
best judgment
against her
better intentions,
slippery like glue
the knob in your hand, try
(not) to persuade yourself
dissuade yourself
I might stick

Personal Poem

And you tapped my table to say farewell,
here in Peoria at my place of employment.
I have only this cup of coffee, iced,
and a cornucopia of useless books
spread across the table like thanksgiving,
supposedly here to help me climb mount everest,
if mount everest were a term paper

let us now muse about mountains,
of climbing uphill, stumbling upon rocks (metaphors!)
and belligerent individuals,
or possibly sasquatch,
or possibly you,
(no not table tapping you,
the other you the you I ran into
or rather the you that ran into me)

I was not climbing, dearest you that ran into me
I was only sitting here, unguarded
having thanksgiving
and watching the sky get darker

if I ever climb mount everest
I would like to encounter sasquatch
yes that would be preferable
to an interrupted thanksgiving

and any real or metaphorical rocks--even diamonds
monsters like Big Foot usually have a heart of gold
instead of
a gold face with the heart of a monster
instead of
diamonds which are only unbreakable

it’s going to rain,
I can tell
because the cars have all turned on their headlights
I count the turn signals
and I think, anything that doesn’t break
must not be worth it

Mais Bien Sur, There Are No Strangers

--a response to O’Hara’s many eating poems in his book, Lunch Poems

But Peoria is nothing like New York, O’Hara.
People in Peoria eat at home
by themselves
scrunched into an arm chair
watching the movers and the shakers on TV
remain still and unshook.

In my scrunchable arm chair
I’ve considered setting my small table for phantom company
(not actual ghosts, rumor is they don’t eat)
just as Eleanor Rigby probably did each night
each night
waiting for strangers
like all the rest of us
faces like lightening bugs
in lightly perforated jars

Well, aren’t we? Spending time with our acquainted
who are not enough for us, nor we for them, still, we drink

lukewarm tea and inquire about kids soccer games
and marital woe (only the woe is interesting)
knocking off the hours,
looking over ears and under shoulders as inconspicuously as possible,
expecting someone
new
to parade graciously into our kitchen
sit,
and eat.

Judgement of the Hidden (Or, Consequence of Taste)

In Judgement of the Hidden (Or, Consequence of Taste)

You’re so far in the closet
You’re a sweater
Bulky, ugly, maroon (an ugly color, that)
knitted by a creature (let’s say, your grandmamma
or spinster aka lesbian aunt,
for whom this poem is also for)

in an effort to conjure
comfort
out of
crass materials,
warmth
out of
now very cold sheep, little lambs
who shiver
to provide you
manufactured safety,
this woven itchy shroud, silent
instead of singing!
celebratory skin glowing purple proud majesty, oh
for the love of honesty!
yes! the love of

the innate beauty between
those fingers
working frantically
at the sewing machine
despite the furor

of inconsolable fragments of verisimilitude
skeletons of what’s true
who are cranky and nude
who are
thumping on the closet door
like a riot of the hungry many
tilling the sky and drumming their voices
dousing Jericho with a holler a cry for
RESPECT! PEACE!
and no lives for oil, for liar’s fire and grease
the fossils of each
past person, like you
those who
never released
themselves
from the pastel prisons
and cellophane cells
you thread the needle
they roar they rattle,
your ancestors
in technicolor and sequins and lost blood
choking on rubble from Stonewall,
lines of Sapphic poetry,
shoved down their mouths
to keep them sedated

“So what?” you hiss.
you. are. tired. of all their noise
noxious nonsense
isn’t it your choice?
isn’t it your life?
Yes.
and aren’t you allowed to hide, deny, flee and lie your way out of and from
whatever you so choose?
Yes. In theory.
In theory,
had you not
dangled that carrot— (or was it a pomegranate?)
--that magic piece of produce, (apple?) ripe,
soiled with knowledge,
denied denial.

You snake!
You reckless Jehovah!
Self-imploding
out of
necessity and self-loathing
you shouldn’t have fed those Skeletons
that apple from the tree
that carrot from the ground

(those sounds, her skin, knees and chests in motion
pictures replay in your mind everyday,
the consequences, consequences, consequences
of taste)
should have let water
remain name-less
kept yourself blame-less

for now you know
they know
you know

May Flowers (Or, Morning of a Yard Sale)

I noticed you’d become a person
amidst rusting bubble machines
and young adult paperbacks.

We drank coffee through straws,
sipped early morning traffic like Folgers
in our cups, but better. The news?

I’ve been off making poor decisions
with women less attractive and less kind.
You’ve built yourself

particle by t-cell by tendon
into the woman across from me,
exceeding limits and expectations.

Sunday's Sermon, First Draft

You’re afraid of beetles.
"Not the band," you say,
"the bug." Different species,
spelling, minus or plus an A.

One singular vowel twists identity
into a surprise! gotcha.
The equivalent in humans?
A soft spot for heroine,

the book of Job, unfortunate
tendencies toward frugality,
that balding man you'll meet
at the gym? Yes, the very same

gentlemen who'll slip off his ring
and expect you to ignore
the jewel's nagging jab
in your pocket (he had none)

as he goes down on you
in the empty Pilates studio--
the one surrounded in mirrors--
where, while his tongue is going

the wrong direction,
(you're too polite to tell him)
you look back at you, hoping
to see a little more than dime

bags of groceries, marijuana,
dropped calls and causes
under your eyelids. Your youth.
Your forties. Both ever faithful,

unlike you and Mr. Nose-in-Your-Snatch
who, having gotten his rocks off
puts his rock back on
and leaves you on the blue mat
with your secret

around tired knees. Tell me.
Do you feel baptized?
Do you feel saved?
Have you found your 'A'?

If You Were

here in this docked captain’s bed
I would commit no sin, simply
feel my forearm against the soft stomach

under your tank top, resting
like a proudly sworn drifter who,
having been offered a fireplace

in the month of a particularly December
December, leaves his pride outside
with exhausted snowmen

Because She Caught It Last Year

As loud women in louder dresses use fat elbows
and hard hips to win solace in the spiraling dead flowers,

the lady near the catered cooling mashed potatoes
sips stale champagne, her fingernails hooked hard
into folded arms.

These Here Treetops

Dip and cross, the water drop, the hotdog stands, the dove. My John the Baptist a yellow eyed ex con in Washington Square who asked me for a dollar, said he likes “mah style.” Rather, he likes my full pocket but I’d rather appreciate the beauty of his empty hand. I don’t curl up to concrete but I need these pennies. My piggy bank still suffers from an eating disorder, my pockets are perpetually full of holes. God blesses me, I’m told. I see my guilt in his rotting teeth, in the subtext of his sunken shoulders. He won’t come-for-carry-me-home. My hard lived grit, swing low, fingerprint, voice tambour is branded on big apple cattle, in tock tick diners with soggy avocado bread, the entire family tree of bucked stars, cousin loving, holding hands across the grid, a mapped hammock, holding baby. Let the bow break, go on, let it.

Reach

Your mother died; it was raining.
You took your truck down 74

parked on the shoulder

stretched out on the hood

and opened your mouth

like a newborn.
People stopped to help,
assuming there had been an accident.

Refusing to dry off,

you slumped into bed
a wet rag, instantly still,

like the raccoon we found
behind the shovels last March.

I almost touched you then,
but recoiled, drenched

by the echo of your whisper in that cold garage,
“Is it dead?”

To Uncle Mark, Who Sat in His Car, Shut the Garage and Turned on the Ignition

I.

The upholstery—a bed, or so I imagine it became
as you reclined in the driver’s seat of your car,
perhaps laughing,
or tense, focused, waiting for sleep.
How long did it take?

II.

In my parent’s kitchen,
you pretended to make your eyeball disappear
and reappear
out of your mouth, behind your ear, behind mine.
At age ten, I believed you, agog.
I still believe you, reappear.

III.

The program from your memorial concert
is buried under floor clutter;
I find your face occasionally, grinning
sheepishly up from the pale yellow paper,
dog eared and wrinkled
like those eyes of yours, smirking,
worn and loved, oh yes—loved.

Mother's Day

Ashes, ashes, a Vesuvian victory.
People encased, human monuments
to the world’s inevitables:
molten rock, my mother’s graying hair,
death gently unfolding.

A baby’s first fist, grip, release.
I held the earth with you,
staining my hands with past hands,
past teeth and tongues and
mother’s singing, singing.

EULOGY

Eulogy

“If a bullet should go through my head,
let that bullet go through every closet door.”
(Harvey Milk)

I. At Home for Easter

Jane stood while her father smoked on the back porch, nagging her about his future grand kids, tick tock tick. “Unless of course, you’re sterile,” he said. The elephant between them drowned him out, trumpeting.

II. Spilling the Gin and Tonic

We watched it spread
across the tarnished wood like the heat
from hand to back to hand.
You wore my jacket when I offered,
like a 50’s quarter back to the head Doris Day
oh gee, me? Well, golly.
I offered because you said were cold, but you liar,
you were sweating like a pitcher of sweet tea on a glass patio table in Alabama,
drenched
beneath your denim and cotton.
You opened wide
and I went south, our bodies

a makeshift Alamo
remember, remember?
I covered your mouth as you spread
across the creased sheets like the heat
from hand to back to
my hand, a Chris Columbus,
disappearing inside your willing India
I knew then I would kill

you for this,
for your subtle, well adapted pride,
your trust in my ability to transform,
for scraping apart my hours of work
with your tongue and teeth,
my palms the thin of your arm my breasts.
We were we, two entangled roots,
stretching towards the fragrance of living.
I blame you.

IV. Hush

Jill, what did you expect? That in morning’s arrival I’d kiss you till the bricks of my beloved Jericho fell, fell down? Did you think we’d watch the release, exuberant, feeling our own?
No. You knew. You knew. You knew.