When it happens

it'll be gin, not sugar.
Plaid, not leather.
It'll shake you until
your chest breaks open.
It'll be deja vu
except you're doing it right, this time.

Small Hours

I am lying still
watching the crackling film
of a three year love
roll past me.

I am speechless.
I am not eloquence
I am not poetry
I am hollowed out and aching.

There a small hours of every night
where your walls become paper thin
and your grief trickles down from the gutters
seeps into the spaces
between your toes.

This is one of those hours.
This is where I miss you
like I've never known before.

17/30

When you broke open
on the hardwood floor
I remember the sound of then
spilling from the room.
Millions of pieces, cutting your fingers
trying to reach them all
as I listened to my sister's 2 year old giggle
the winding creak of fishing line
the lawnmower's cough,
all of them
spinning into small circles
going down the drain.

I did not say you could take those away.

Instead,
dug up my tin cans, my binoculars,
my flat stone collection
took them to the burrow to sit,
watched the kitchen window
as my father burst open on the counter
my sister's wailing voice ringing through the streets
the sound of then
stepping into the boots of now
It is quiet, now,
I press the whitest stone into my palm
and listen to my parents
dream themselves further apart
than their seperate beds.

16/30

Penance
clean your hair,
part down the middle,
braid through, around, over,
sweep up.

Wear your finest dress,
straighten the collar,
take the lord on a chain
round your swan-white throat,
now wait.

This is a new contraption
you three are the original sin
we are capturing your hail mary's
so start saying them now.

Take your love letters out
ask forgiveness with your eyes
hold them to your brow

you'll feel a flash,
count to three,

when the bulb bursts
pray.

15/30

When you are paired,
and settled,
and golden and light,

you will not have a word
for it.

They will pause, and approach,
they will touch and moan,
they will ignite

and you will look away.

How do you remember
your sparked beginning?
How do you ressurect
your love's every first?

The parking lots, the concerts,
the gentle farewell touches
that left you glowing,
the backseats that you ached for.

How do you unravel the envy
that wraps up your aching hips
your twitching heart,

because you had that, once.
You could not stand
to keep from holding one another.
Now you are lucky
if streetlamps ever see
that same abandon.

You dream
of an 'End of War' kiss.

14/30

I am in bed, beside my mate; this is my last breath.

To my sister (and I know I will be leaving first) I give my poems. Every one. I wrote them all in some effort to grow, to be the ventriliquist and throw myself to other lives. You taught me to want this.

I am writing a Thank You card to my editor; this will be my last submission.

To my cousin I give my smile. You never left that place. You never saw the beautiful woman you ended up becoming. I give you every ounce of cherished my dad let me feel. I give that learned love I saw my parents have. I give you every ounce of my childhood.

I am watching my grandson graduate; he wants to be an architecht.

To Keely, I give my limbs. You know to move with abandon, they will be safe with you.
I am making the last mortgage payment; we can do anything, now, love.

To Francis, I give my wishlists. My post-it notes. My napkin To Dos and the penned reminders on my hand. You knew how to see everything through. You never once forgot to live.

I am graduating college; I am moving on.

To my father, I give my patience. For all your giving hands, for all your curt replies. May the polished parts of this man you became still hold room for silence.

I am starting grade 6; I am all shades of fear.

To my mother, I give my sea-coral heart. We are soaking up our worry; we are spilling all our hope.

I am 3 years old, I am the beginning of memory.

To the city, I give my freckles. I blossomed most when your sun let them out.

I am asleep, here, in the warm dark.

To my love, I give my shame. It is yours to destroy, whatever is left, now. You were the creek I walked across.

13/30

Between the water heater
and summer dresses,
I can hear that night
in his hotel room.
I can hear the twitching feet
of spiders
running across my cheeks
as I moan the way I think
it sounds most genuine.
Sitting under sheets of dust
I can hear the sound of tires
skidding on gravel
the cliff opening its arms
the ocean unhinging its jaw.
The closet doors
guard, Narnia-like,
the sight of me, sunlight in my hair
sand between my toes,
leaving a trail of sinew, tissue,
and a dozen red, beating muscles
in my wake.