If one of my three cats could survive
the wild, it would be her.  
Twinkle is thirteen this year.  He’s forgotten
how to hunt.  Now, bowls of kibble and scraps of chicken
satisfy him.  He wouldn’t make it past the threshold.
Olaf would spook
the second he stepped on a leaf.  There are no beds to hide
under in the great outdoors.  He’s thought of himself as prey 
so long he’s forgotten
what it’s like to be a predator.  
But Jasmine remembers her foremothers were tigresses.

I can see the wildness that lurks in her when she sprints
down the hall after things I cannot see,
when she stares out the window at the squirrels she cannot chase,
when she cheats death and chews phone cords still plugged into the wall, daring
the outlets to electrocute her. 
Maybe she does it for the high, just to prove she can outlive
anything manmade.  Maybe she does it to prove that her sharp teeth can still rip flesh.

I once brought her outside on an Autumn day to admire the leaves.
You might expect a blank look from a cat, but she took in everything,
rapt, enthralled by that untouchable feeling of being truly alive.
If it weren’t for her loyalty to 1212, she would have leapt
from my arms, onto the driveway,
and into the wilderness.
I couldn’t stop her if I tried.

Yes, Jasmine could survive the wild–she is the wild.

it comes back around

The persistent itch of undone to-dos
And stray musings
Jiggle the Jell-O of my half-conscious mind.
Deep
Steady
Breaths,
Limbs comfortably heavy
Around fluffy softness,
Comfort from the barest edge of a comforter
Wadded and tossed back for heat relief.
Relaxed, calm
But
Ir-rested.
Eyes, now open,
Resign to blurs of extreme myopia
Corrected, brought upright
To pour and drink a little release
From the word well
Then return,
Free to seek sleep once more.

A pile of rotting peaches sit in the fridge, playing sticks with a chocolate Easter bunny with its ears bitten off (it’s June). Unsalvagably brown bananas sit in the freezer, tallying the days on the wall that it’s been since I put them there with the intent of making banana bread to mask their bruises. Condiments crammed in the door like sardines in a can get sentimental and reassure each other that they’ll never go bad- at least in each other’s hearts. Maybe not in each other’s noses. 

My memory of you sits moldering in my camera roll and a thousand playlists, stuck in time and replaying like a TV show I watch again and again for the comfort of it. I don’t find much comfort in it. My mind and my body live in the filth of it like white noise in the background. Nostalgia kills, a slow death. 

Poeming
still remains a vain pursuit

30 minutes ’til midnight
the rain playing percussion on my roof

These are the only lines that   
come to mind

They rhyme (hooray for me)
But my muse stays clogged 

like the drain outside 
my basement door

So I sit like an idiot
waiting for my basement to flood 

If only the poems would do the same

Frida,
your Coit Tower apartment hangs on the edge of a North Beach cliff, teetering on
stilts. I want to walk from my favorite haunt, up Grant and stand in your uncompromising brilliance. Feel your lingering aura, your magic, your tenacity, your enduring restrained pain.

Diego sewed a deep thread & knotted an indelible infinity sign on your soul. A taboo tattoo, your sister his lover.

Intrigue wraps around your stiff countenance like a crown of thorns. I hope the exit was joyful. I agree with you, “nothing is more precious than laughter.”

And yes, I am convinced you will never have to return after your multi-color exit when they lit your cremation match.

Will they…

choose to take a chance?
run hands through hair?
share earbuds?
agave in lemon
learn the truth?
break each others hearts?

Won’t they…

end it before it really begins?
let the banter turn bitter?
do that, all take no give, thing?
sour watermelon, freeze-dried
keep up the deceit?
never give enough of their hearts to be broken?

I didn’t think
I’d write a poem today,
but then I heard the frogs hollering
outside my window while I lay here
trying to fall asleep.

So many echoes of longing
stretched across the yard.
I wish my own desires could
sound so beautiful
as I speak them to the night.

“Damn girl, you sure are BIG”
“Damn girl, you done BLEW UP!”
“What happened to you?  You used to be thick!”

Comments like these, however harmless they may intend or pretend to be, are used as darts to pierce my soul and keep my self-esteem low.  

But, really and truly, I feel sorry for you.  

I’m intelligent, talented, funny and pretty… I thought you KNEW.
and appreciated…
and respected…
my love, friendship and companionship.  

I never knew you were too shallow to see
that my real beauty is not on the outside, but INSIDE of me…what a pity for you.