My husband set fire to a path of ants
on the patio
it’s shit like this and his insufficient
fury for the Trump presidency that threatens
what we’ve built over seven years
except
he’s so damn handsome with his beard and
brown eyes, so kind to me even when I
chastise him for killing ants with my conviction
that land outside the house is fair
game and belongs to them
I’m always feeling so many feelings,
my own or someone else’s
and even if he can’t agree it’s one
of the main reasons he loves me,
he told me so once when I asked him
point-blank
you should hear his voice
when he calls me “B,”
it’s the definition of
enough
I have the kids today.
and the haunted house
with the knife marks in the wall
and the kicked in doors and cabinets
that hole from when you threw the candle
and all the damage that you can’t accept
now I’m actually kind of glad that the green minivan got totaled
that was covered in your spit
when you missed me
Still standing
Pages contain temporary submission to folly
Halfway crook attempts at poems
Living out loud in the quiet of the night whispering that zigfrie wouldn’t make it. Here.
B boy come B man come B side dissident soaking into the cracks you trip over
I’m the cousin of gravel and cuss words
And the forgotten son of that uncle working the grill
The self anointed sideshow king am I. And I
4 dimes in and change. is more than cup holder occupants to me.
What remains of giving this for that. This. That. Whatever that was. I wish
when I sleep. When I sleep. I wish that I was a country
I want to spy on myself
have palace intrigue
Assassinate heads of state have wars
For reasons yet to be determined
The living chemical reaction that leads to this
It won’t be for power. No. These conflicts will not be over power. That’s cliche.
Like the first world complaining about the 3rd world complaining
As i ride life on a unicycle looking for peter tosh
I’d feel left out at my own birthday party. If I ever had one.
I Meet a Man from Botswana
He didn’t shake my hand,
he used it as a fulcrum
lifting me into his amber eyes
which bore tunnels through mine
to my naked brain.
His convincing voice –so sincere–
as though nice to meet you
was Truth. I believed him
while his eyes, his voice chimed
throughout the rest of my afternoon
like the Mourning Doves
I’d listen to from a pile
of my grandmother’s comforters:
not gone, but shifted
to that place where feather
memories compress to down,
where, if we’re not careful, we
forget we inhabit ancient seas
and sleep wrapped in ancient flight.
(after D.H. Lawrence)
Steadily the day is falling through the mottled leaves,
casting shadows within shadows, layers of shade and light
merging green and exquisite; and I beyond numb
feel in the air around me a sweetness I did not expect
I needed, but here it is and its touch soothes my skin;
I welcome it through the grief, choosing still to breathe.
