ACT 1.
“OH, THIS IS YOU BEING VULNERABLE?
YEAH. THAT’S SCARY.”
I’M THE GUY WHO CAN’T WHISPER.
AND SHE’S THE GIRL WHO CAN’T WHISPER (AND DOESN’T SHUT UP).
TOGETHER, WE CAN’T WHISPER.

RESERVATIONS
HE DOESN’T GET ME. NOT ALL OF ME.
HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT I GO THROUGH, BEING TREATED LIKE A WOMAN WHO DOESN’T SHUT UP.

Rain smacks at Earth’s platen deafening us with the raw hiss of meaning.

#AmericanSentence

I’d wear your bones as my bones,
your skin as my skin, take your life
to drape around my own shoulders.
It would be a prize to have your body.
I could be such a good version of you.
I would fill the void corners and cracks
in your small, dazzling world, the places 
where you can’t touch, the many things
that are empty. I’d be there instead,
in the back of your mind, waiting, hungry.
I could be the reflection in your mirror.
Let me dig my hands into you, let me
uncurl my roots in your softest bruises.
If you let me flower in your skull I would
make honey from your misery, I would
take control. You wouldn’t have to chose 
how to be bad. You wouldn’t need to 
save face for the audience in your head.
There is only me watching. I’d suck the air
from every room if I had your lungs,
if I had your lungs I would breathe life
into all of your poems. I would make
your life into a poem. I would make 
you into something somehow even more
beautiful. I would make you better than.
I would take your heart like a starving lion
takes a limping antelope, I’d savor it fully.
I would taste all of your aches and desires
and become them as your blood becomes
my water, as I digest your sick fantasies,
your dreams of being free to trust yourself.
You know you are not the best you could be. 
I could be your greatest ideration, you wouldn’t
need to eat or drink or think or move or breathe.
I would live your perfect life for you instead.
I could make it a perfect life for you.
Everything you ever wanted glistens 
in the reflection of my eyes, my smile
is that of your favorite dream. I could be
your everything. I am all that you know.
What else would love you like this, fully?

There’s a lot I need to do today.
But for now, I’m content
letting the debt of responsibilities collect
while I lie here,
hands in your hair
instead of the kitchen sink.

We all learn
that people and things
don’t cease to
exist if
we can no longer see them

and I still
see Dad in his chair 
listening to
his favorite
music with his eyes half-closed

Sunday morning, ten o’clock.
The gates swing open, the faithful
trickle in. Blue-shirted acolytes
admit us. Red-suited shepherds
keep watch over their flock. 

We enter this holy space bearing
towels, sunscreen, books.
We call it “going to church”
and it is. Don’t we have the blue vault
above us, held up the the ribs of trees?

Don’t we have the holy silence, broken
only by bird choir? Aren’t we graced
with the brightness of cardinal, blessed
by the hawk who circles above,
three times for trinity?

We enter the water and are returned
to ourselves. We share eucharist
of coffee and donuts, chips and soda.
We honor Sabbath by slowing down,
reveling in rest. 

“Praise the pool!” cries the celebrant.
“Amen, amen!” the congregation replies. 

Sifting through boxes
I should have unpacked two years ago, 
Evidence of the life I’ve lived. 

Fragments of unfinished poemd
On scraps of paper and
half full notebooks 

Photos of students
I taught long ago
I don’t remember names
I was sure I’d never forget

Sheet music 
From my time spent
Learning cello.

Mix CDS, a medium lost and obsolete.

Postcards from places I’ve been,
Love’s ones’ letters from where they’ve been,
Ephemera from places around the world.

All these memories crowded into such a small space.

I wonder if the contents of this box
were the only thing you knew about me, 
What would you think?

Those hills keep the secrets
Those skeletons shake in their graves
I could swear I heard it
A legend of a fiery beast that screams in the night
It sounds like a woman who is escaping, which is likely in those parts
It sounds like a panther the classic
A cougar
A wild hog
Or an unknown creature that only comes out after midnight
The myths, the legends
That night I pushed the boxes aside
I opened the window
It was louder and bigger
I shut it so fast I’m pretty sure the screen fell out
I ran back to the bed
And sank into stillness

…ick
sore throat
like strep
a single glass
of water takes wings
and flies out like night birds
spilling little chirps

in the little house
isolated from the others

visions
in fevered half-sleep
the priest breathing
down my neck
and I think of
the american flag
caught in my bike spokes
when someone called the police
now the priest reaching reaching
for my crotch
he only wants to help

sheets wet
someone calling matins
oh, it’s father hugo
little father hugo
he’d never hurt a fly

i’ve left my body for a willow tree. yes, i wish to droop to the ground like a damsel, want my branches spread like i have something grand to declare. decay so you will protect my roots from all the things that wish to steal nutrition from me, or maybe a set of chimes would suffice. you can throw me in with the wind & i’ll just start hollering pretty sounds, my yell will sound like church bells or the sound of cans clanking in pretty syncopation. i wanna mold myself into your laughter, ricochet off the walls & back into your mouth like a boomerang, i want to be the walls. yes, i want to hold you inside of me, keep you warm in the embrace of my chipped mahogany. but we’re birds, we fly free & who am i to trap you between my decomposed ribs? i’m scared of them anyway, birds, the weight of them in the sky reminds me of a compact mirror, as it watches me watch myself in the palm of my hand. but you’re the sky & i’m a bird flying through you & the weight of you around me keeps me from drowning in the current of the wind & i’m also the wind.