waves glance the skinny road into a hidden parking lot
    where we teenagers, intent on sunnning and flirting away
            a Sunday afternoon, drive across without fear.  

we stuff too many passenger into someone’s family car.  
    drink beer.  make out on blankets.  smoke pall malls.
            swim far from shore chasing teenage pleasure

 with few limits. most of us live to be adults unscathed–
       except for broken hearts, parental reproach,
                an occasional unwanted pregnancy and early marriage.  

today I  grasp handrails to climb stairs in sensible shoes,
     avoid playing games that endanger hips or knees, 
                take prescriptions as my doctor directs.

I swim in pools with life guards.
 

Time is the thing
It is the
Music
Color
Step
Kiss
Dance
Taste
Smile
Run
Starlight
Romance
Clouds in the sky
Watching
Birds fly
Ancient tree
Woven tapestry
Mural on the wall
Statues
Standing tall
Sitting with
Wet clay
Walking
A new way

The weathered stone
From path to palm
Earth
Tme
Is the thing
For which we long

content without form, an organizational problem

half a million photons hit my retina from the bronze candelabrum
the smell of calendula ointment on the nightstand for the chrysanthemum bloom in Autumn
I didn’t misplace the feelings, I’d just forgotten
as I awaken hoping my catcher caught them; the reoccurring dreams I have so often

and guppies are swarming,
hiding from the carp in the depths,
showing themselves in
the morning light like hot coals
in the cool shallows, afraid to risk
the center of the pond, so much more
room to move, so much space
to school up and make shapes
in the currents, so much
for different worlds, so much for
a taste of the universe, there may be
teeth and stomach acid, let alone
whatever fish know as god—
the glimmering sun? flakes of bread?
the stalking heron at the edges?

He loves her Rasta Pasta

When I tell you that I love your poem, it’s not because of the syntax, or the meter, or the form, or the punctuation, or the alliteration, or the metaphor, or the similie, or the juxtapositions, or the clever devices you’ve laid down like a well-tailored hand of cards. 

I mean, it is because of all those things, but I’m not loving them for their textbook perfection, their attendance to a standard, the demonstration of a skill, or that you’ve thrown all the ‘rules’ away to suprise me…

It’s that I love all you’re hiding in there
tucked away in perfect breadcrumb crevices between the syllables
all of yourself that you’re teasing me with, the stories you do – and do not- share

I can just about see the flip of your hair, the flush of your cheek, the set of your jaw, the way you’re staring at me now. 

You’re holding up a mirror
either to your face, or mine, 
or both…

…and that’s what I love.

Your words were numbered.
Secret cipher, a filtered salve
Breaking the silence of a broken heart. 
I read between your words
To find your soul
And hold it in spaces.

I learn the family tree like a daily roadway,
each branch a turn I must take to arrive 
at university or work or the old pharmacy
and every line unfolding to tie into marriage 
an intersection where cars pass and switch 
and collide like fire. 

In this scenario, I find that I am a car, 
one gifted through the generations, 
to the children en route to nowhere
with spring trapped between doors,
comprehending that I descend from 
everything dead.

 Plastered in the grassy median strip of Polo Club Boulevard
in big cheerful, multicolored blocks for all to view.
Are you going  to camp or a summer job?
is it a break up ? Did you take a new job miles away?
Are you in Africa on safari?
Backpacking across Europe in hostels?
On a mission trip?
Will you come back?
I need to know about You and I.

lives down
the same hill he lived down
when we were friends. index fingers shooting
massive boobs through a monster truck tee.
duck tail flicking
above his forehead and his talk of duck
dynasty, which my mom said was nasty. [but wasn’t everything
                                                                           with boys nasty?]

promising to write
at age eight. you can promise anything
if you’re leaving, but i meant it
until i didn’t. now a metal box of a jaw
and full lips and paintings of swollen
women. i’m afraid of him

and his doorbell. i’m afraid
of how differently i’ll see
the world in another ten years. i veer off
the sidewalk
during my night prowls.