laundry
laundry
laun
        dry
la u nd
             ry
la
    un
         dr
              y
hallway
cave of
laundry;
tasks
task
task
ask
(for help.)
(I can’t.)

I feel sick tonight
sweating under my duvet and staring at the ceiling
whilst hope sits maternally at my bedside
as if I were an ill child,
weeping into her hands.

We both thought this would be a fresh start,  
now I’m both legs down
sitting at my bedroom window
As the sun sets through the glass of my terrarium.
But make no mistake, I’m much happier than I was last month.

I’ve got a fresh new healing journey,
twenty-five-hundred dollars saved for Europe,
Lana Del Rey’s Summertime Sadness,
and a pretty face.
I’ll be just fine.

Someone told me something, once,
Ear to the door to ensure we were alone.
Confidentiality was key.
Removed of doubt, they whispered
Every single word to me.
Tell you what they said?
Sorry, no.

                                               from Leviticus

What to do if God’s lets us learn the wrong lesson,
imagining Aaron of old and an old man,  standing
on the sandy floor of his makeshift temple,  blood
of his blood pooling on the ground,       his brother
glorifying the greatness that        struck him silent.
Moses seems senseless as I embrace Aaron,      my
ancestor from across the ages, Aaron      standing,
an old tree in Autumn,    his vestments hanging as
dying leaves, their sap long gone,         and the sun
giving way to a moonless night.  He has no words;
his silence is what lives on pages,   coursing blood
in a paper body, we read   his silence years hence,
half-eaten bagels by the sides of our books,     and
the crook of an old man at the far table,    scoffing
at it all, branding his ancestors mafia,      and God
is a Nazi, he says (if only in this case).  We too are
silent at this death,       learning not to burn but to
bend,      but I yearn for the Welsh poet’s warning
not to go gently     but to erupt into flames of rage
and light up the dying day, to close the books,    to
rise, to leave and to learn on the streets if need be.                    

                     ” I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the

Cowboy tap-tunes his long fingernails on the moon behind glass letters.

Sifting through a row of clothes
hanging listless on their hangers,
I noticed an article missing
that I wore each day
as a symbol of my bookishness.
Though I have become no less studious
in the last few years of my enlightenment,
I no longer wear my cardigans 
punctuated with acrylic wooden buttons
and colors that warm
even the most tepid blood.
I don’t recall
ever consciously deciding
not to wear my lovely cardigans,
yet they seem to have disappeared
from my closet all the same.
It is not until I shift
deep enough into the columns of clothing
that I find some of my other misplaced thoughts,
solid like the shallow grey,
no less fresh than the letters exchanged
among friends long since separated
by circumstance or setting.
I pass the fabric
between thumb and forefinger
and wonder about reaching out to friends
who would remember me
in the cardigans of yesteryear.

they come in the night 
tall and sleek and brown
theres no worry or fright 
they move with heads down 

honed in on the porch begonias
the stakes are high at being caught 
ignoring any of the cats ammonia 
they nibble without a care or thought 

of us sleeping soundly in our homes
dead center of our sleepy town 
where all of the college kids have gone
there’s nothing but us locals to be found

Jerry in his wisdom
as if he knew we would need it 
talked about his farming system
in his voice and sharp wit 

so tonight I spray liquid fence 
along the boundary of the porch
I’m not sure it’s such a good defense
but I’ll trust a man and his research 

If 3 a.m. is for lovers,
then why is it

also
the Devil’s Hour?

I can’t sleep
& you can’t

be here,
or there,

& he
& they

never rest
when I try

to dream.