Mirage (v.1). October 16, 2009

The woman in the elevator shares your face,
shades her make-up the same way, maybe,
safe-guards your eyes. A nuance
unidentified, which I opt not to pinpoint,
plays my memory for a fool, strums some
chord similar to a familiar tune: You
reenter a room explicitly departed,
reopen lips, which – chapped a final time –
forged all but shut. What breath, forced
through [...]

Instructions for Orphans (v.1). August 11, 2009

Again: my mouth
finds the thumb’s false milk.
My shoulders recall a blanket’s arms
are always empty, ready, free.
Swaddle me–  Remember.
The silence has pitch.
Dig far enough; you’ll find a lullaby.
Like, anywhere I return at night
I can call home.
Even empty warmth, recognized,
is termed familiar.
When I was starving,
I’d spoon tea into my mouth
and call it soup.

Other People’s Words (v.1). January 20, 2009

That semester when we shared textbooks
I learned you better than I had in over
a year of breakfasts, lunches, dinners
together, forced ends to awkward silences.
“How are you?”  All those times I asked,
you answered best in other people’s words.
Raymond Carver:  Don’t complain, don’t explain.
I don’t have to be drunk to say what I think.
Another time:  I spent [...]

Gravestone (v.1). January 18, 2009

You make the first tattoo
seem easy.  To mark you here,
where I question beauty, constantly,
to complicate eternally a memory
that time has simplified.  To memorialize
complexity, that struggle for beauty or a scar
I recognize and don’t regret.  To forget
the distance between your name screamed
and your name sighed.   To realize
I have only one body, and you
have just one name.

Take Back the Light (v.1). January 8, 2009

How many nights can hold
memorials?  How much darkness
can we reach into?  I’ve asked
the night to catch me, fruitlessly,
falling into graves already full.
I’ve pulled upward, outward, climbed
too many headstones, screamed
to the throng of mourners,
Let me be
a candle lit while I’m alive.

Praying Afteward (v.2). October 18, 2008

Told to hold his hands
one palm pressed against
the other, in perfect parallel,
my brother instead
insists on curling them
together in a fist.
He says,
after a childhood accident
severed the nerves in his
left wrist, he requires this
to trust God holds his hand.
I understand this
need for pressure, this
requirement for some response.
Even resistance would comfort,
afterward, when every prayer
comes out a scream, even
an [...]

Bodily (v.1). October 15, 2008

When I started working
with kids, I worried constantly
that their quickness to ask
after my blue hair would lead
them to wonder aloud about
the scars across my arms.
No one wants to see that,
rebuked a four-year-old.
He meant my breasts,
uncommonly exposed,
in summer. Spaghetti-strap
tank-top. The bus stop
to his door enough
to gather sweat.
Am I an animal? –
to be this bodily,
flushed and sweaty,
my [...]

Clean Arms (v.1). September 14, 2008

I hide scars I don’t have,
ones I meant but managed
not to make. I cross clean arms,
stay awake to keep at bay
nightmares I did not intend.
Remind me later; I can call this –
(damage I fathomed but did not inflict) –
progress instead of weakness. Every risk
not taken, not a failure. Every burn
and blade avoided, [...]

First Chord (v.2). August 18, 2008

A week and three days after the wake
all anyone will say is, “Yes, yes, they’re
dead. I can see how that is hard.”
No one can say, “Yes, they really are
wonderful,” when no one’s heard
the exact timbre of these voices
bouncing constantly against the
boundaries of my brain. These voices
that make my shoulders ache
as I tense to [...]

Praying Afterward. August 18, 2008

Told to hold his hands
one palm pressed against
the other, in perfect
prayerful parallel,
my brother instead
insists on curling them
together in a fist.
He says,
after a childhood accident
severed the nerves in his
left wrist, he requires this
to trust God holds his hand.