“Intimacy, whether found or lost,
              is a sure thing.”
                         
   – Stacey D’Erasmo, on writing

III.            

it’s 3 a.m., & i’m riding
the rings of Saturn.

                         at 2 a.m., i’d given up
                         sleep.  i needed answers.
                         i’d started outsourcing
                         experience.

anyone who’s dated
online—knows—that
moment when you ask

                        to take a step further:
                        to move to the phone
                        revealing & finding
 
voice; it’s when you step
from fantasy to tangible,
when an interest becomes

                        a person.  in short:  More.
                        it’s impossible to hear them
                        & not, in a way, know them.

i have your words.
i have description
of voice.  so i search

                       google gold dust woman.
                       sound app for waves on a shore—
                       chorus of crickets at night~
                       breeze to stir the trees.

& NASA, now, to settle
beneath blankets of space—
too much space & too much
 
                       silence; you’d shared
                       shades of silence, too.
                       but silence, the kind
                       of silences you shared

are the secrets of intimacy
& proximity we do not (yet)
have.

                      it’s 3 a.m., & i’m still
                      laying in the dark
                      of questions & possibility.

                 ***   ***   ***

II.  

Scribe it in blood—
carve it in flesh.

                     This breath.
                     This wish.

This runic landscape
just beneath skin,

                     like temples,
                     like labyrinths

of possibility
buried beneath

                      viscera
                      & tendon

connecting spirit
& bone.

                     Paint it in need,
                     drown it in release.

                     You
                     & Me

subsumed by
We.

               ***   ***   ***

I.  

There is a place
between here & there
where we arrive

               at a choice.

Meet me at the tree
(your favorite tree, or
the willow that weeps
from my childhood);

choose to
                    fall
into its cradle space.

There’s a knot
in a trunk
of hope & the sun
is waiting
                  for an us.

A tiny opening/a light wish:

             I’ve been lost in the semblance, the memory, of a kiss
             that has not been discovered—between lips that have only
             yet imagined the secrets whispered, one pair to the other,
             & first taste of a mirrored dance.
                                                                               Stop imagining.
                                                                                                Come
             with me
             there, where we forget all that’s intellectual or logical or effectual &
             
             choose
             this
             refrain:
                           
                            Hands, together, palm to palm, face to face, forgetting
                            anything but the flight along legs open to wonder / or pressed
                            between pages, against chests, to remember, room left only
                            for the energy of souls, drawing nigh & nigher, that ev’ry wing’ed breath
                            might break into fire; that what is written, story to story, poem to poem, gasp
                            to contented gasp, would set words reeling~~spinning~~Be
                            something more than what we, as post-romantic writers, can
           
                            create
                                 
                            after the reality
 
                                                           of once

                                                                           or the fantasy

                                                                                                        of once upons
                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                      to the only once

that matters:

The Once
More.

The bellies in my family tell a story.
Full of fried chicken, homemade pies, home grown tomatoes and applesauce.
They bounce with hearty laughter and boisterous teasing.
Rounded watermelon thump resting on a worn leather belt, and
Warm squishy places of rest for sleepy babies.
These bellies bump in spine cracking hugs
And spoon curl loved ones for afternoon naps.
Comforting pudding, authentic in imperfection,
you’ll find no size 2 around this table that I call home.

I’m just here for the small plates except when I am not. This banquet of poetry can never be fully savored. Attempting would leave me foundered. Everyone has their unique ways to sample the all-you-can-eat buffet. I begin at the top and search for the tastiest morsels until my small plate is full. Small poems almost always are worth a nibble. Longer poems must offer something spicy or savory to pique my taste. Any dish with a bite of truth no matter how bitter is always apropos. I do not return for another plate but have been known to seek seconds of a bodaciously delicious dish.

Abundant harvest
Delivers a smorgasbord
For all appetites

Good morning darling
Have you rolled up your sleeves
and washed your face?
Scraped yesterday’s muck out from under your fingernails?
Good.
Now, 
Put on your best dress. 
Comb every doubt out of your hair. 
Find every pen and pencil, every sheet of lined paper, every clay tablet.

Gather your sisters and brothers. 

Warm up your vocal cords.
Stretch your backs. 
Clench and unclench your fingers. 
Put on your sturdiest boots. 
Lace them tight.
Square your shoulders.
Link arms.
Stand as tall as your spines will reach.
Lift your chins

and Sing
So Loud that no lie or tyranny or fear or consequence will ever shut our mouths
Ever again.

we used to draw our water from a well
cool and clear, brought up in a bucket
we didn’t have a pump, so it had to do
water never tasted so good as it did then
fresh from a spring that runs beneath our
familial homestead, bubbling to the surface
in places, but mostly hidden under ground
heated for bathing and dishwater, always
more than enough for everything and everyone

when we got city water it was like a dream
water coming from the taps and not from a
bucket pulled up on a rope; i can remember
it so vividly; it was like a bizarre luxury to me
being able to turn on all the taps and see it just
flowing freely like it was nothing at all, though
I will always remember that old well, how good
the water tasted, not like chemicals but like gold
cold and fresh, flowing over the tongue

Listen up! Life is not lived on silicon chips; live life unplugged.
How do you marry, carry on, raise kids on chips? Can’t! Be unplugged.

Keep your finger from that power key, or anything with a screen,
Doesn’t mean you died with your world fried, merely that you unplugged.

Busted! Opened my laptop landing; faceless hordes rushed my email
shrieking, the world is ending; send money now! Not when unplugged.

Writing a lonely letter, one that needs no @ or subject field,
just paper, pen, a stamp, a hand that doesn’t shake, equals unplugged.

To hell with “sent”, scrap the cyber amps, the headache-baking screens for
sexy scratches, my pen making paper love, me making unplugged.

way worse addictions

my grey-haired father could have

than just Taylor Swift.

ashes to ashes
dust to dust
memories of times gone by reduced to smoke and char and bone

once hallowed ground, scorched
spat on
and salted

this wasteland of a life that was
holds nothing for me now

and so

i begin

anew