DISTANCE
you see me naked
without skin
down to the rib
you know me
if I could thread
your hand in mine
sewing the finger
tips together
I’d find the needle
among the hay
I’d find the thread
to make you stay
The port wine goes down easy.
Accompanied by cheesecake
smothered in currants.
A bundle of currants.
I devour
each one slowly,
deliberately.
Saunter the berries
over my tongue.
Meander them
over my teeth.
This cluster so sweet.
I want you to graffiti my body
with these garden-red currants.
Spell out the lyrics to love songs
you have yet to write.
Puzzle a poem
onto my breasts
with these juice-heavy currants.
Let them drizzle
into tomorrow.
Make of me
a vineyard
for your mouth.
the last time you touched them gets no closer
i remember the way the sun hit the halls as i lay there listening
to my dad cry when his first sister died
two brothers later and still nine to go–
we’re Catholics i guess i’m tired of explaing how god love contraception no more
than he loves a life bereft of bereaving
the grieving they say is a measure of your love
how rare is a word that lets you believe that makes it worth it
Don’t wanna move.
I’m in the groove.
Don’t want to rise…
—Flatline—
Ugh, my laptop died.
Doh, I forgot the charger at home.
Well, then, let me use my phone.
18%?
Geez, it needs life support, 100%!
Oh, no, I don’t have much time!
I’ve gotta meet this deadline.
It’s been one of those days.
I don’t know whether I’m coming or going the opposite way.
But, anyway…
How is technology so smart,
But it can’t stay alive?
from across the water I am looking
at the candlelight waxing and waning
in October moonlight / it is calling me
again / in all my slashes and bloodstroke
/ could I come home
/ could I come home
/ could
i look from across the treeline
and call this place home again
To get the tomato plant to bear fruit,
they say to yank it a little, shake it up.
It takes a balanced measure of feeding
plus stress to blossom. Now inundated
with rain, the plants and weeds shoot up
taller and taller, but many lack flower buds.
Those that open, burn in the occasional glaring
sunlight. I try to crawl my way through
the profanity of bombings, assassinations,
arrests and deportations, defunding
of everything that matters. Absurdity
from our leader, incoherence mirrored
in my weekly visits to assisted living.
How to write through this level of desolation?
Someone tug at me a little. Just a little.
Poetry in Letters: From the Next American Civil War / Vol. 1 pg 3. – Accidental Haikus
Bury Their Hearts in Bacon Grease
They ransacked Wal-Mart
not for veggies, beans, or fruit
only eggs, bacon
sweat is the word of the day
pulling weeds in all their abundance
clearing the road bank of poison hemlock
moving bales of hay to the garden
makes me as sodden as the air
in this season of endless showers,
it’s a salty soaking with a relief factor
of low hanging clouds
that might pour forth
at any moment
and
the knowledge that throughout
the day there is the cool pool
of recent rain water
collected in the fifty gallon tank
under the eave of the barn
