cups (when i'm gone)
The song cups (when i'm gone) repurposes
an empty cup as percussion. It describes
a protagonist who will be missed
when she inevitably leaves (even
if things sure would be prettier
with you). When our cups are
empty
where else can we go, but to a
watering hole? To a place with
rivers and sights to give you shivers.
But we still offer. Offer ourselves
to the gds of love and use empty
threats of being missable. Hoping
that it is not worth the heart-ache but
your heart is the only one aching.
isn't it?
Quarantine Thoughts
I like the way the kettle
howls
when its reached boiling point
steaming and unabashed
in righteous indignation
as if to say, “You knew I was coming
why weren’t you ready
for me?”
**
A turtle is born
with its shell on and
unlike snakes cannot
shed this skin. Cannot say
“Sorry,
this is too tight. I
do not want to be forced inside.”
This shell is its
vertebrae--its self defense
its only means for survival.
When its mother-in-
law snaps, as turtles do, “I
wish you’d never gone to
therapy,” the turtle can say
I have had this backbone
this whole time.
**
If I fell from
the roof of our
12th floor apartment,
on December 25
would the shock of
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
stop this covid heart
before it hit the ground?
Would shadows of christmas lights
follow my body like a hipster
spotlight? Would children mistake
me for Santa? Would it ruin
Christmas?
**
Mockery He Said
We grabbed the sheets off our bed
soiled in soil
before laundry day.
Speaking only in British accents
picked for picnics
like we could be other people.
A group of kites is called
a mockery, he said.
Wisconsin
When our hands were small enough to fall from
monkey bars, you hated cheese.
Called it ‘moon food’ and refused to
wish upon stars because solar means
from the same sky.
When we were seven, you taught me how to sew
carrying the needle from my body to your own
so we’d never be without each other.
By ten, you asked for space. I wished
upon stars like they had healing powers.
In the holes of our misread astrology,
stars would look the same to both of us
if only I could see them, instead,
I think about Wisconsin and wonder
if you think about me.
Tire(d)
But right now you’d be filling car tires
with expandable memories. Hot
air that would peter out
before the highway. People
get stranded by lies like that.
I am a reflection closer than
I appear and that’s the way you
like me
the way my mother raised her daughters
to be optical illusions
chiseling affection out of old car parts.
My mother is
a motor they left running.
wasted gasoline like honey
running down a beehive
she taught us to behave
with the morsels she hid
under her tongue
My father buys
his cars used and
ignores the upkeep
he claims it’s someone else’s
problem when the engine
backfires.
A right turn on red
he speeds only to get
stopped by the same lights
as the people who
adjusted their mirrors and
turned around
to check
on the backseat passengers
Our feet are deflated car tires
try as we might
there’s no getting away.
Nobody's Tomorrow
Truth has made Time messier and harder to graph; life is not linear. I don't know why they call it a timeline.
Time has made Truth uglier but better at hiding it. They have ways to cover bags and bruises.
Truth has turned Time to a liar; webbed versions of its own story intertwined like hands. He's wearing someone else's wedding ring but You still feel beautiful.
Beauty turned Him to a Narcissist. He forgot how to read; how to tell a story. He learned to dance and drink tequila with a hangover.
Tequila made You brazen. You whispered his secret in another man's ear and prayed it would get back to Her. You were a million people's yesterday but nobody's tomorrow.
SKELETON
Exposition He turned into a quarter when she could barely rub two dimes together.
Growing out the hair on his beard until her lips callused trying to kiss him.
Rising Action A set of keys, a new bathmat. Painting their kitchen.
Throwing caution to compassion.
Climax Baseball rules do not apply. The third time she heard of his affairs,
he cooked a dinner she could not eat and told her he would learn to do better.
Falling Action She stopped searching for happiness in the same place it was lost.
Like they had once searched for his keys. His phone. A perfectly good waste of a Saturday.
Resolution They no longer buy green bananas, incapable of ripe commitment,
but she still makes fruit salads and they never learn the rules of baseball.
SUICIDE BLONDE
“You saw baby-eyed/ strangled innocents, I saw sacred ancient customs.”
“The Rabbit Catcher”- Ted Hughes
dye your hair
each mangled strand a net
for the rabbit catcher:
fate’s fickle friend
each mangled strand a net
tangled in blood thirst
fate’s fickle friend
knows his way around a knife
tangled in blood thirst
eyes wide, restless. For the man
knows his way around a knife
like I used to know you
eyes wide, restless for the man
four a.m. cries, unruffled pillows
I used to know you
behind closed doors for
four a.m. cries, unruffled pillows
we’re all trapped, waiting
behind closed doors for
suicide blonde
we’re all trapped, waiting
for the rabbit catcher
suicide blonde,
dye your hair.
SECOND TO THE RIGHT
You've probably seen him in the curve of your lost-boy smile. Reflected in the overbite
of your jaw, in the most honest of crocodile tears. You're hungry.
The sky was a great body once when children traced its freckles with their flight patterns. But, in time, stars dimmed into the forgetfulness of age spots. Trace them.
And skin, addicted to the softness of youth, would cover empty bodies with perpetual night. Waiting by open windows for the shadow of eyes with the brightness of a galaxy.
Yesterday, they filled your lifeline with aching bones and arthritis. Took demonized versions of cog and wheel. Mulled over a chest that used to glow with wished-upon stars.
No. Our tomorrows weren't meant to taste like the metallic clockwork of perpetual chimes in stomachs filled with darting hands. Of silver hands and staying up ‘til morning.
They wait like children repeating the cycle. Or else reincarnation finds them bare again. Tongues unable to determine whether they are speaking English or god.
So clap your hands darling. Let the sound of naked palms remind you that we are still alive. And, if these pulsations are not enough for you to believe in, wash your face in
fairy dust and let it put the life back in your cheeks. Reverse time. Refuse to grow up. Grow galaxies from the stars in your eyes. Never land.
DEAR DADDY
I’ve chosen to forgive you
like May flowers forgive their winter death sentence--
(although I can’t remember why)
After my feet grew callused from walking in your shoes
I tore them off to realize they no longer curved with our infinite faults.
I’ve chosen to forgive you
Mom says you hide your fear in the talk you turn toxic.
As a child I built walls around your words, made them idols. Prayed to them.
(although I don’t remember why)
These days, my small sycamore is branching out
Though roots have formed too frail to carry our newfound friendship,
I’ve chosen to forgive you
We can’t see the stars in all this smog--their wishes lost to old gods
and when we buried Zeus, I knew it was raining somewhere
(although I won’t remember why)
You stand higher than the New York City skyline, thin,
like congested avenues
but you never taught me to stand like that
Oh, Daddy, I’ve chosen to forgive you
(although I can’t remember why)
ENDING
An artist told me, once, she sketched a grid
when she didn’t know how to begin
I try to think up something griddy
like- “Maybe I don’t love you anymore”
You’d call that another “morbid twist”
like newspaper headlines, things that turn our hands black
Six words, bold, beginning, middle
an ending
When they started another forest fire
we only watched this time:
The green turned to dust before the people,
less flammable than foliage
The soft parts of animals are rarely preserved as fossils
we harden into sediment
With nothing to quantify love
like evolution and carbon emissions
Our flesh will tell them nothing
of our trying
The song cups (when i'm gone) repurposes
an empty cup as percussion. It describes
a protagonist who will be missed
when she inevitably leaves (even
if things sure would be prettier
with you). When our cups are
empty
where else can we go, but to a
watering hole? To a place with
rivers and sights to give you shivers.
But we still offer. Offer ourselves
to the gds of love and use empty
threats of being missable. Hoping
that it is not worth the heart-ache but
your heart is the only one aching.
isn't it?
Quarantine Thoughts
I like the way the kettle
howls
when its reached boiling point
steaming and unabashed
in righteous indignation
as if to say, “You knew I was coming
why weren’t you ready
for me?”
**
A turtle is born
with its shell on and
unlike snakes cannot
shed this skin. Cannot say
“Sorry,
this is too tight. I
do not want to be forced inside.”
This shell is its
vertebrae--its self defense
its only means for survival.
When its mother-in-
law snaps, as turtles do, “I
wish you’d never gone to
therapy,” the turtle can say
I have had this backbone
this whole time.
**
If I fell from
the roof of our
12th floor apartment,
on December 25
would the shock of
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
stop this covid heart
before it hit the ground?
Would shadows of christmas lights
follow my body like a hipster
spotlight? Would children mistake
me for Santa? Would it ruin
Christmas?
**
Mockery He Said
We grabbed the sheets off our bed
soiled in soil
before laundry day.
Speaking only in British accents
picked for picnics
like we could be other people.
A group of kites is called
a mockery, he said.
Wisconsin
When our hands were small enough to fall from
monkey bars, you hated cheese.
Called it ‘moon food’ and refused to
wish upon stars because solar means
from the same sky.
When we were seven, you taught me how to sew
carrying the needle from my body to your own
so we’d never be without each other.
By ten, you asked for space. I wished
upon stars like they had healing powers.
In the holes of our misread astrology,
stars would look the same to both of us
if only I could see them, instead,
I think about Wisconsin and wonder
if you think about me.
Tire(d)
But right now you’d be filling car tires
with expandable memories. Hot
air that would peter out
before the highway. People
get stranded by lies like that.
I am a reflection closer than
I appear and that’s the way you
like me
the way my mother raised her daughters
to be optical illusions
chiseling affection out of old car parts.
My mother is
a motor they left running.
wasted gasoline like honey
running down a beehive
she taught us to behave
with the morsels she hid
under her tongue
My father buys
his cars used and
ignores the upkeep
he claims it’s someone else’s
problem when the engine
backfires.
A right turn on red
he speeds only to get
stopped by the same lights
as the people who
adjusted their mirrors and
turned around
to check
on the backseat passengers
Our feet are deflated car tires
try as we might
there’s no getting away.
Nobody's Tomorrow
Truth has made Time messier and harder to graph; life is not linear. I don't know why they call it a timeline.
Time has made Truth uglier but better at hiding it. They have ways to cover bags and bruises.
Truth has turned Time to a liar; webbed versions of its own story intertwined like hands. He's wearing someone else's wedding ring but You still feel beautiful.
Beauty turned Him to a Narcissist. He forgot how to read; how to tell a story. He learned to dance and drink tequila with a hangover.
Tequila made You brazen. You whispered his secret in another man's ear and prayed it would get back to Her. You were a million people's yesterday but nobody's tomorrow.
SKELETON
Exposition He turned into a quarter when she could barely rub two dimes together.
Growing out the hair on his beard until her lips callused trying to kiss him.
Rising Action A set of keys, a new bathmat. Painting their kitchen.
Throwing caution to compassion.
Climax Baseball rules do not apply. The third time she heard of his affairs,
he cooked a dinner she could not eat and told her he would learn to do better.
Falling Action She stopped searching for happiness in the same place it was lost.
Like they had once searched for his keys. His phone. A perfectly good waste of a Saturday.
Resolution They no longer buy green bananas, incapable of ripe commitment,
but she still makes fruit salads and they never learn the rules of baseball.
SUICIDE BLONDE
“You saw baby-eyed/ strangled innocents, I saw sacred ancient customs.”
“The Rabbit Catcher”- Ted Hughes
dye your hair
each mangled strand a net
for the rabbit catcher:
fate’s fickle friend
each mangled strand a net
tangled in blood thirst
fate’s fickle friend
knows his way around a knife
tangled in blood thirst
eyes wide, restless. For the man
knows his way around a knife
like I used to know you
eyes wide, restless for the man
four a.m. cries, unruffled pillows
I used to know you
behind closed doors for
four a.m. cries, unruffled pillows
we’re all trapped, waiting
behind closed doors for
suicide blonde
we’re all trapped, waiting
for the rabbit catcher
suicide blonde,
dye your hair.
SECOND TO THE RIGHT
You've probably seen him in the curve of your lost-boy smile. Reflected in the overbite
of your jaw, in the most honest of crocodile tears. You're hungry.
The sky was a great body once when children traced its freckles with their flight patterns. But, in time, stars dimmed into the forgetfulness of age spots. Trace them.
And skin, addicted to the softness of youth, would cover empty bodies with perpetual night. Waiting by open windows for the shadow of eyes with the brightness of a galaxy.
Yesterday, they filled your lifeline with aching bones and arthritis. Took demonized versions of cog and wheel. Mulled over a chest that used to glow with wished-upon stars.
No. Our tomorrows weren't meant to taste like the metallic clockwork of perpetual chimes in stomachs filled with darting hands. Of silver hands and staying up ‘til morning.
They wait like children repeating the cycle. Or else reincarnation finds them bare again. Tongues unable to determine whether they are speaking English or god.
So clap your hands darling. Let the sound of naked palms remind you that we are still alive. And, if these pulsations are not enough for you to believe in, wash your face in
fairy dust and let it put the life back in your cheeks. Reverse time. Refuse to grow up. Grow galaxies from the stars in your eyes. Never land.
DEAR DADDY
I’ve chosen to forgive you
like May flowers forgive their winter death sentence--
(although I can’t remember why)
After my feet grew callused from walking in your shoes
I tore them off to realize they no longer curved with our infinite faults.
I’ve chosen to forgive you
Mom says you hide your fear in the talk you turn toxic.
As a child I built walls around your words, made them idols. Prayed to them.
(although I don’t remember why)
These days, my small sycamore is branching out
Though roots have formed too frail to carry our newfound friendship,
I’ve chosen to forgive you
We can’t see the stars in all this smog--their wishes lost to old gods
and when we buried Zeus, I knew it was raining somewhere
(although I won’t remember why)
You stand higher than the New York City skyline, thin,
like congested avenues
but you never taught me to stand like that
Oh, Daddy, I’ve chosen to forgive you
(although I can’t remember why)
ENDING
An artist told me, once, she sketched a grid
when she didn’t know how to begin
I try to think up something griddy
like- “Maybe I don’t love you anymore”
You’d call that another “morbid twist”
like newspaper headlines, things that turn our hands black
Six words, bold, beginning, middle
an ending
When they started another forest fire
we only watched this time:
The green turned to dust before the people,
less flammable than foliage
The soft parts of animals are rarely preserved as fossils
we harden into sediment
With nothing to quantify love
like evolution and carbon emissions
Our flesh will tell them nothing
of our trying