Abe Lincoln in a rainbow
jumpsuit playing Richard Simmons’
dance-in
Harriet Tubman as a pilot
of her own airplane
Thomas Jefferson as a freedom fighter
Thomas Paine as a faith healer
Nancy & Ronald Reagan
as a friendly couple
of druggies
Walt Whitman as a hedge
fund manager
George W. Bush as a Rhodes Scholar
Martin Luther King Jr. as a mime
Christopher Columbus as a scared boy
with the courage to admit
he’s lost
… a town like no other,
and I don’t know
where I’m going.
If it were like another,
would I know?
When the red light turns
green and a horn behind me
blasts, I pause to acknowledge
what isn’t there: the well-worn
map, a friendly postman, the cage
with the parrot that will not speak
unless plied with gin.
The horn blasts again
as the light changes back,
to red. I roll on, drifting
through this town like no other.
Going — where?
My 72-year-old mother
makes silent tributes
to Prince
touches of purple
here and there
alstroemeria in her front room
bought the day
his death was announced
(keeps its color + petals
for weeks afterwards)
oddly dyed starfish
sprinkled on a shelf
in the bathroom
I ask my father
what he thinks
of Prince’s death
He said, “It’s sad,
but I miss Merle more.
His songs relate
to my life.”
My father,
usually a real talker,
gives this as
his only commentary.
I think how odd it is
to form connections
to strangers,
a cosmic dot-to-dot.
I wonder if this
even begins
to explain
why my parents
aren’t together anymore
after 40 years,
and I think how
they are becoming strangers,
how we are
becoming strangers.
– Jessica Swafford
I don’t eat meals anymore.
I make hot tea and let it get cold.
Then I heat up the water
And let it get cold again.
I create and delete dating profiles
On a weekly basis. Desperately,
I need anyone to love me.
Days go by,
Breakfast is the only thing to talk about.
The color of your food and how much it costs.
The urgency of two lovers
Fighting to be the first to pay the bill.
A computer could do my job better than me.
A computer wouldn’t be jealous of the lovers.
A computer would enunciate White Toast
In a loud room and everyone would understand.
I thank hundreds of faces for dirty grit cups
Then anxiously wait in my quiet house for the breakfast shift.
I don’t eat meals anymore.
I make hot tea and let it get cold.
Then I heat up the water
And let it get cold again.
I create and delete dating profiles
On a weekly basis. Desperately,
I need anyone to love me.
Days go by,
Breakfast is the only thing to talk about.
The color of your food and how much it costs.
The urgency of two lovers
Fighting to be the first to pay the bill.
A computer could do my job better than me.
A computer wouldn’t be jealous of the lovers.
A computer would enunciate White Toast
In a loud room and everyone would understand.
I thank hundreds of faces for dirty grit cups
Then anxiously wait in my quiet house for the breakfast shift.
And so she follows
Inspiration strikes and so does she
Sinks her teeth into your stomach and opens you up
Grins with mildewed teeth as blood drips down her chin
So breathe in the fumes and escape while you can
Let the haze envelop your senses and corrupt your dreams
Goals blessedly slip away and all you’re left with is desire
Hips rock, lips lock and retinas burn until they can no longer
But she finds you again as you slumber
Arms reach from under the mattress and pierce, ripping down your sternum
Hey!
It’s not all doom and gloom they say
But they don’t live in the same world
They don’t see how her curls cradle
The edge of her grin, just as she
Embraces you and makes you forget
But she will never leave you
Reminders dangle just out of focus
Every silver hair that obscures your vision
Every bout of horrendous indigestion
She slashes your tires, chews on your wires
Spits you out and picks your remains from her teeth
One day she will catch you
The only question is, will it be on her terms…
Or yours?
Around the curve of the road
the lilting, dripping trees
slant into view.
It has been miles since town
and days since he’s stopped to talk,
to breathe.
As the boughs curve, taller and taller, over him
a cabin hunches out of the landscape,
wood red in the damp.
It looks like home, lights on,
lines soft in the rain.
But as he gets out,
it smells heavy,
like loss.
Give me a functional team
with social capital,
she barks and purrs in
suites, ties that
surround your queen, broke.
All sawdust misting, hello,
here I am again
by your back porch
your chaise lounge
your steps, working.
Hummingbirds mistake her eyes
for portals in glass jars,
carved from a meteor
left in King Tut’s tomb.
Her heart is a reed-poor frog pond
while she’s fortune’s 500 or more
nowadays knowing how easy
it is,
she arrives at her own door and
plans obstacles and waits for
the sin issue to be over.
One
A black ribbon held back your russet hair.
You wore a pale denim blouse with navy blue buttons my fingers ached to undo,
a flowered peasant skirt that floated in your passing,
and tan flats over otherwise bare feet.
I have no idea what I was wearing.
Two
And oh how we danced that evening under the silver lights of the parking lot that was too hard for the softness of our growing love
and in the yellow light of the hotel room that was too soft as we strolled and cha-cha-ed and rocked and two-stepped
and through the not so darkness of our bed that was at last just right.
Three
Each step an offering
in a different dance
as we followed the other
while leading the way.
Four
And in the morning, I hope we’ll dance across the dawn.
For now, you sleep in my arms, your breath teasing my neck
while the heat of you presses where your leg crosses mine.
