I see her from the window.
  She ruffles,
just once, then settles,
back
still.

Her eyes
                             whisper
truth,
and she
      seems to hold at bay
       even the breeze.

Only the screen stands
between us, and she beckons
me to know her.

Just prior,
the creeping in of
                    everyday
had
peaked,
but now, absorbed,
I swell
with
      her subsistence 

A cloud dims
the ray I need,
but she
                                stays.
 I could dance
but fear her
flight.
                            Fresh
                            found,
I
wonder at her breed.
Unfazed, she follows my gaze
when sea of svaraj
breaks my concentration,
and a
wall turns me sideways.
Not a peep of reprimand
when I return, so I relax
          reposing.



At
  the window, allium, three in a
                                   row,
this side, on a metal rack,
the
                                   raw aroma, perhaps,
ruffling just once,
then perching.  A
                                                                stranger with eyes of truth, keeping
                                                                          even the breeze at bay,
                                                                                         beckoning through the
screen
to be known, to
absorb.
A cloud dimmed
a needed ray, and yet still
                                  stillness.  Feet tempted
                                                           movement but mind resisted.  Fresh
                                                                                                          found
of unknown
breed,
not a peep or reprimand,
so
self-rule reposed.

Omnium-gatherum

of what ifs and erratic suspicions:
               Such as:
Will you always want
                                  to kiss me - and only me - for the rest of your (ever living) life? (Yours)
                                              (Mine)
The usual fare- you off gallivanting with some girl.  Yes.
              And then
                       the more peculiar:
"What would
you do...if...,"
my legs
          stopped working.
And I ended up in a wheelchair. Indefinitely.  But the
prognosis was good.  But we
                 weren't yet married. Would you leave?  What if the prognosis was not so good? Would you stay?  And if so, why?

I could
          describe the storm.
Its completeness. The scenery of its impact-
                        the devastation
                                           or sketch,
in detailed imagery,
         a picture
                                           of the calm that came before, parading, flaunting
an illusion of peace and
           safety.
Tell you that the
sun illuminated
                       dewy grass, and the sky was bluer than blue-
                                                  than usual.
That the
    air was 

          warmer.
That for just a minute, every
living creature and
               act of nature held its breath.
That there
was a hush just before the operatic swell.
That for a fleeting moment,
the planet stilled
before it tilted
before the meteor hit.
And it was chaos and the picture was not pretty.  

Do you want
                    to hear about the
smear of people struck lifeless where they stood, about
                            the pooling blood, sticky red, where their heads fell against seared

                                                                     rocks, their bodies tossed with force and 

                                                                                then the corpses, laying in an
               apocalyptic, barren landscape for days on end?

I could draw
you in this way and hook you with harpoon of view and speak for pages of what it

looked
like,
make you queasy from the poison in my pen, and all
                                              the power wielded in a story.  I could haunt with
                                                        words, foreshadow what you know is

coming
but I think you’ve heard all this before.  I think it’s worn.  And this
      is just a metaphor. And what it felt like is more my

             specialty.

So I want
             to tell
you what happened.  Before and
           after.  I want to
                tell
you that it was unavoidable and had there been a warning, still it could not have been prevented. 
I need to tell
you the price we paid, simply for believing
in the picturesque – in the fairy tale,
for not
noticing the side streets
littered along the way, or the solemn mockery of the ornamented, bawdy lawns- the pink flamingos
                       stuck lopsided in the sod, or how the sheen on the green of the grass was strangely bright – unnatural.  The pleasant-ness of it all.  We ignored the prophecy of those prepared, those who stocked their pantries, crying out that the
          end was near.  It all reeked of that sharp, distinct aroma of rotting dreams amidst denial.  We chose instead to look away from what
                          we lacked, to inhabit what wasn’t
                                                 real

and I think, in fact, it rained the day
                                                                                                                     you left,
and I think that
it was evening. 
And I don’t remember what the sky looked
                                                                                    like,
or whether or not it was

warm. 
But I know the planet tilted and that it was my voice that broke the silence and that your absence left a crater in all I ever took for granted and that
the shock came in waves for months and months and that I was blinded.  And when I regained sight, I saw our house in pieces, and had to pull my body from the rubble and instead of we, there was only me, and that just the idea now of us seems far away.

Maybe, it’s melodrama.  But, maybe it’s all I know.  Maybe how I feel is my landscape and the scenery of what you left behind is stark and more
                          real
than the
ground I stood on when you were here. 
 

I can't write the squinted vision of the splay of sun
through the tree outside the window.
I can't write the knowing of other women
when we kiss.
I can't write their mimicked movements
or their twin sorrow twining with our limbs.
I can't write the matte eggplant colored walls
and brass headboard set against,
the facade of greens cascading; rose candescence
lighting; the wispy romance.
I can't write the taste of your tongue
or the scent of your quiet.
I can't write what my memory knows or feels
or sees, what my marrow anticipates.
But I acknowledge presence and my soul
is soul of woman and so my soul is soul of poet.

There is peace, even in the middle blue of daisies,
                  and they still know how to dance.
They breed
creeds as varied as their delicate, complex steps.
Believe in breeze of day as well as death of night.
Dressed in every shade,
their feet feel the moves
                    like a boy feels out a girl's desires.
My center bends for you this way,
       caves to your lead.

You found me motionless
under a heat-sapped memory,
blind to
         the eye
of dawn,
moored in taunt of moon,
                     undiscovered
until you rescued me.
You hung me upside down to dry,
and then pressed me to preserve.

I waited,
unsated,
           dated.

I thought you meant to kill me,
                                         lock me in a memory,
box me away
in the rear of your mind,
twirling ballerina with bloody feet
             beautiful, mermaid, shored
clipped winged angel
                       drowning in the dunes of lies that once I promised you something,
cage me behind some rickety purity

clambering

but you did not forget

I was only seed clay covered
guppy child child, loverless
feathered, unpaired, hovering

failing

but you knew you could fix me
breathe me back to life
that I needed you to swim and dance and fly

my toes slant
and my arms bloom
                       like anemones

on love and writing

writing is a sharp
                    sharp
                           pencil
or a colored pen

swimming strokes

the first bite of a brand new journal
the entire longwide
              space
of a blank white page
     a favored worn thesaurus
                                the wading through
serious

game
gearing up
buttoning up
plowing through
dressing sentences and hiding clues
                                                   like up a sleeve
ceding seeding stealing
                               like kisses
chewing  like on gum

writing is staying
    inside too long on a sunny day

writing is
               scrawling on the back of receipts at a
               stop light
                       like a fiend
                the rouse of the morning muse
                             nursing noisy nymphs
ideas high on caffeine
insomniac stirring whirring thoughts
                                                      that smack of brilliance when
                                                              sleep deprived and only half awake brain frazzled ruse

seeking

 obsession 
too much  not enough slivers of wisdom
and what’s been repressed
depressed
regressed

 invention

writing is
comparison contrast
     inversion paradox exaggeration rhythm feet
                                                                tapping blue like jazz elevation

writing is caring 
shading not caring blotting steering tightening tripping
  hulling sharing
  hard
    loosening and a
                     restraining
                     a raging pondering
filtering

writing is a whore depraved redeemed
a jolt or jab
 a filtering a filling gag
                        of
intention cute
dreaded reaching
   rooting

writing is a good book and
                  a want
a kindling
a catching fire
a café a bar
a calling
   crawling
a madness

writing is a kind of mothering and a
     thievery of sorts 

it’s getting lucky

 it’s finding a return for words  the finite in the infinite finding where you went wrong
saving giving slaving slimming wedding stewing all day slewing harping spinning
finding a return to you
a return to love

is need is not
           need
came
telling
is real
is keen

buds
runs
stands

love is spotting your smile
          sprouting
lit up
you smiling at me as you pull into our driveway
me seeing it from where I’m writing on the porch

love is my luck

falling asleep in your arms

love is the package of then and now  is red like the roasted leaves in autumn
                                          not leaving not gone
not late not proud
can’t be jinxed

love is a nest
   our house

my heart
beating wildly back and forth

is poured out
knocks
leads follows
camps out rides in is
                     pinned upon my chest pines is written stenciled pales next
                                                        to nothing bides unlocks fights

is rare
 tops

 yearns

love is
           my skin
                still shy
but slipping through my eyes

love is the scent and the feel of your skin blurring with mine, especially
          in the morning your barely open lids

it’s a big deal

the nape of your neck you turning back to me in bed
   toasting me
a tandem bike a bough
your hands working out the
                                      kinks shutting the door

digging like through a sales rack
crazy like our families
                         

love is you
brewing a fresh pot of coffee

love is proof in the pudding and
                                               a picture a child drew

love is a passage and
             a shape
             a tattoo

love is the taste
   of the obvious

your stare coring
decoding me

the unmistakable sound
                                 of your delighted
                                                   laughter

it is
           imagining you as a
boy
and knowing you as
        a man 

love is my tongue
tied
      and love is
always
                           superfluous  
                             perspicuous
not

love is room to move
around
and
then come back

love is a still
 quiet day
                                                                 you home
a sunday

free verse blank verse and form  the flow like slam like poetry

love is a parable

inspiration
            to return
            to our room
            to write

love is always
finding –
 needing
words
                             when I’m with you

a blaze
a desire
a madness

every synonym and simile

finding you in words

writing is love is you
                                              

Disambiguation

i am looking at my leg bent above your thigh
i  am thinking about the picture it makes not
one taken but  a painting  maybe  an erotica    
so not tasteless
     not the thrust just this inter-
          twining

                          just this still scene
so not the trembling the trust

unheard the drawn in gasps against your chest
                            just the
canvas 

                            just
the twinning and also what
makes nothing happen saying  what lasts

the whispering and the secret shades of taste
sweet spoken of later pinks
so reds but even
so
you see differently than me
     not simply
but plainly naturally sincere of heart poles

apart sharp lines perhaps links
so
                                  the picture
less abstract and
so
i am open absorbing impressed upon
imaginings of sighs bent above your thoughts
less circuitous than
the wanderings of a woman’s
                                      mind

and
so i am
always what is left to the           
and also
always as we say
     i really am
fine          even
though
     i am always
thinking   even
of women
you knew that i never knew
thinking how
i do

tending them and
you don’t know
      i am
thinking
of a woman
i know  who
lost a man she had known once who
     i am tucking
in to her
grief
                even now
you don’t see
the silhouette sketch
in shadows or the             shades shifting
because they

are water
you don’t know then
that
      i am thinking
that
       we never
say i love you
 anymore

You Will

Someday
              you will sigh and wonder why
               or how
you let me go. 

Like a conjured spirit, the image of my face will
curl before you, rise like smoke and then
twisting in the netting of your own remorse,

I will carry you back to that night.

you will see               my rose tinged tears
the stain                     on my cheeks

You will hear my sobs.

not sweetness, not the saccharine
tint in my veins or my kiss

And I will carry
you back to that day.

The day
you won me,
dumbstruck at your own luck

but you were fearless, as was I
bewitched by allure of knowledge

and we feasted
beneath
            the tantalizing
            twine
of lies

and my                   captivating beauty
and my scent so cloying, you began
to draft me,  ill-defined
                                                          in the story in your mind

but looking back, you will wonder
how or why
                                                    you had me when you had me
so wrong    

and the truth
will haunt you       

You will know that I was native

naked

pressed in frost to
                   flourish

 disjoined of
 my delight

So now,
I will nest inside your intellect,

take
up

vantage point

I will canter through your thoughts
and bend throughout your marrow

You will
       wear my contours in your age

and collect like trinkets every recollection

Dashing, Casanova, you will wish you’d let me

blush

You’ll wish you’d run.

The Sunday Whirl

            
                                                         

What It Looked Like

I could
          describe the storm.
Its completeness. The scenery of its impact-
                        the devastation,
or sketch,
in detailed imagery,
         a picture
of the calm that came before, parading, flaunting
an illusion of peace and
           safety.
I could
tell you that the
sun illuminated dewy grass, and the
sky was bluer
                                                  than blue-
                                                  than usual.
That the
    air was 

          warmer.
That for
      just a
           minute,
every
living creature and
act of nature held its breath.
That there
was a hush just before the operatic swell.
That for
a fleeting moment, the planet stilled before it
tilted
before the meteor hit. 

And it was chaos and the picture was not pretty.  

Do you want
to hear about the
smear of people
struck lifeless where they
stood,
about
                            the pooling blood, sticky red, where their heads fell against seared

                                                                     rocks, their bodies tossed with force and 

                                                                                then the corpses, laying in an
                                                                                                           apocalyptic,
                                                                                                           barren
                                                                                                           landscape
                                                                                                    for days on end?

I could draw you in this way
              and hook you with harpoon of view and speak for pages of what it

looked
like,
make you queasy from the poison in my pen, and all
the power wielded in a story.  I could haunt with
                                                        words,
foreshadow what you know is

coming
but I think you've heard all this before. 
I think it’s worn. 
And this is just a
metaphor. 

And what it felt like is more my

             specialty.

So I want
to tell you
what happened. 

Before and
           after.  

I want to
tell you that
it was unavoidable 

and had there been a warning, still it could not have been prevented.  

I need to tell
you the price we
paid, simply for
believing
in the picturesque – in the fairy tale,
for not
noticing the side streets
littered along the way, or the solemn mockery of the ornamented, bawdy lawns- the pink flamingos
                       stuck lopsided in the sod, or how the sheen on the green of the grass was strangely bright – unnatural. 
The pleasant-ness of it all. 
We ignored the prophecy
of those prepared, those who stocked
their pantries, crying out that the
          end was near.  

It all reeked of that sharp, distinct aroma of rotting dreams amid denial. 
We chose to look away from what we lacked, to inhabit what wasn't
                                                 real

and I think, in fact, it rained the day
                                                                                                                     you left,
and I think that                                           it was evening. 
I don’t remember what                               the sky looked like, 

or whether or not it was

warm.  

But I know the planet tilted and that it was my voice that 

broke the silence                            your absence

left a crater in all I ever took for granted and that 

the shock                                       came in waves
for months and months                   I was blinded.  

And when I regained sight, I saw our house in pieces, and had to pull my body from the rubble and instead of we, there was only me, and that just the idea now of us seems far away.

Maybe, it’s melodrama.      But,                  maybe it’s all I know.  

Maybe
            how I feel
is my landscape and the scenery of               what you left behind
is stark and more
                          real
than the
ground I stood on when you were here. 
 

Slippery

I can barely name it.
It's hard to own.
Peculiar. Slippery.
So...she?
Me?  I don't know.

I am where I want
to be
but I don't know
how I got here.  Or
how I'm standing.
You are just
    outside the door,
almost perfect as far
as I can see but I
don't know why
you're there-
or here.
Because in another
life, I didn't know
you, could not have
made you up.
And I woke up from
a dream I thought
was life and there or
here you were.  Real.
Tangible.  Soft
weighted as snow
and warm
but when I touch you,
               I'm not sure
               I exist.
Because my existence
depended, always, on
            someone
                        else.
Someone I made up.
Someone I couldn't
touch. So, I've lost
time somehow, though
the facts are in.
Point A to Point B
    is written plain.
My fingers follow,
trace the
lines or path and
  I understand
  some girl
I suppose is me
must have traveled
logically from a to
b
but
the numbers mix with
letters and years with
days and time with
lapse and though
it doesn't rhyme I
still can't read it
easily.

So, I have to pinch
myself to see if I
am real but my
skin is numb in
certain places in
certain moments.

It's like, what if God
              was dead,
which is a shit
                analogy
but as close as I
can come to naming
what I can not name.

It's like any belief
disproved.  Like a
whole body transplant.
Like a story
within a story within
           a story,
           a twist-ending
so seemingly
out of nowhere,
you're just pissed off,
shaking your head,
                   rewinding.

But
     the rewind button
     is broken.
Or he was broken.
I was broken.
And I think I might
               now be
               whole
if I
knew for sure that I
       was real.

Your love seems to
touch my velveteen
and your belief is
strong- maybe,
          magic.

So, just stay
until my sense of
feel
comes back.
Wait till
I can grasp it, hold
it, skin it.
Till it dies and I
come back to life.


                         
                     
                           

Like a Dream

I finally see why I can't forget you.
I finally see why I can't remember you.

The sky is blue and always
   has been.
The sky is falling and always
                                    was
in bits, like rain, and you never
listened,
                           and still,
it's not enough
to wet my memory, the sparse
                        landscape
of who you
     were
or who I was, or who
     we were.

The space I've kept you stored in is
           almost empty,
and the space you held when you were
                             here,
is still
intact,
and every time I lost
                 the key,
                           you had a spare.
But now the locks are changed and you
                                             evade me.

I try hard to recall each first we shared.
I check my skin for signs of cleaving.
Scars
from where you carved our scène à faire.
I am trying to
find the girl I was or the man I thought
you were.
My recollection
and my vision
bends toward the end.
There are track marks not on my heart
but on my
soul,
muddied, sullying the framework of my
mind,
so that I have to wonder if
I was ever sane.

You are like a dream I think I might
          return to
if my eyes
              stay shut,
so I've saved you in some upper recess
of the brain where you might slide back
into view in dark of night.
Because I could never see you in the day
and I traded sight for feel,
for trace of flesh.
And I thought you had pierced me with
your name but like scarlet henna, it's
fast fading.  Like the taste,
too, of you.  Carbonated.  Flat.  Deflated
words are all you speak without
my breath.  Still, I hear you humming
                   somewhere behind me,
                   reminding me of life,
and all
I ever vied for.

Did I dare to stare into your eyes,
                           endeavoring to find
                           reflection?
Did they dance or dart or glitter or give
                 any hint at all
of caring?
Did they endear me, the girl who wanted
                 only something real?
Did they caress my needs, undress defenses?
Did your hands ever
really touch me?  Did you only tuck me in
                                        under illuminating
                                                  lies?
Did our bodies form a pair or did
I starve in singleness of purpose beneath
                                                  illusion?
It's hard
to tell.
Do you know now
                    what I know?
Do I know now what you knew then?
Do you know?
Did you know?
Did I?  Is there anything to know?  Did
I expect too much?  Too little?

Give me back my knowledge.  Give me
back the girl I was because what I'm left
with is just a prickling like hives when I
try to scrub the dirt away.
An invisible, tingling illness in
my nerves because how does one begin
to suffer an imaginary loss?
How does one grieve a ghost?

The sky
is still
blue and always
                  will be
and I am beholden to the pieces left behind.
To bits like hail that strike like
            lightening
the place I stand and I collect them
to remember you.  I treasure
them like rare antiques and I polish
them in your memory and then they
melt, and I forget.

The Sunday Whirl