I should want to do
not like magnificent vines
bursting with color
but rather the weeds in
an untended garden
twisted, tangled rooted
so deep mother earth
wails with each tug
from your withered fingers
The ruffling
of our bed sheet in the morning,
motes and music
dancing on a staff pinched
from migrant light,
your one open eye
peeking over the pillow
like a gator
to stare me away.
this airport was a portal between dimensions
where you and I, with our cheap carry-ons, adrift
float down a sidewalk river to destinations
suitcases off-roading and bumping as they drift
and in the air I take your hand just to feel you
our fingers laced in between the here and the there
kiss me in this wrangler we’ve tucked ourselves into
did it lift us higher? that big Denver blue bear?
dusting Utah salt off our airborne hiking boots
fill them with coral sand, breathe San Fran’s wind chilled smoke
remember the girl, who thought you said ‘coat’, not ‘coke’?
laugh at the western confusion, our tongues in our roots
they curl just between us, become secret language
in the back of the van, surrounded by redwoods
old souls gazing down on our dusk blushed hood
morning coffee streams from our wheeled river cottage
when we touch down just north of our hilled horizons
find my home, your chest, from east to western mountains
Potted basil, dill, oregano form a line across my deck
stretch even longer by pots of chives, thyme and parsley.
Green next to greener, sweet smells near savory tempt
me, arouse my cook’s heart when I am near. At times I lean
close to each pot, let my finger glance a leaf, then inhale
long and fresh imagining how each flavor might awaken
roast chicken or pasta or green beans.
Not evey ingredient must be a main event.
Some sprigs create a backdrop or set
a mood. Snipped dill, green lace with butter
spread on salmon wards off the ordinary–
approaches the sublime.
The more that’s written
poems flash fiction short shorts
novellas tomes novels
The more that’s read
fiction mystery self-help sci-fi romance
lit-crit anthologies cooking fantasy business
The more I realize
the encompassing fact
that despair is a genre
Your mustache is waxed
sharpened into bayonet tips
You look crisp in dress grays
stars on your collar
— corporal
curly hair, determined eyes
you live in this image now
young in the emperor’s service
You watch him
learn him
Say him
writing your soldier’s literature
telling
tales
of him
to your daughter
who grew old
and forgot them
There went your literature
So all that’s left
of your empire
— your photo
thoughts of lost stories —
is chopped up, frying
in a pan with the rest
of the noodles and cabbage
which she made for me
and I would greedily eat
My corporal,
I was eating
your empire
Come take a nap under my period blood blanket. Share my secrets. Initiation || I wash it, I don’t mean it: to bleed myself to sleep || I don’t know why anymore, I can’t get anything out || No matter how I shout, it lays in this bed, like a patterned part of me, unruly|| In the morning, I barely make it, I’m late again. || I spend the day mourning your presence, but why? Full of regret, I practice my pride || This love is the pencil lead underneath || My nail bed, and there’s no way left || To write this down || You said your pain is precedence || drag me, a foster dog, a tired walk || You don’t notice I can’t keep up and || it chokes me || So I carry us both home || Put you to bed and put down my phone || too old to read stories for comfort || safe in my own sheets, my run away blood, safe from love|| I’m not sure what I thought this was || maybe just a girl dream.
It’s just March 1st I’m April’s fool again.
You never stayed long enough to sleep in.
I let it sink in my sheets, my pillows, my skin.
The difference in love and friend
is the rest you get
and what quantifies
a sleepover.
