driving through ohio

did you know 

that people in the suburbs

don't park their cars in the yard

doesn't make any sense

where do you keep these things

old trucks

sixteen-wheelers resting for the night

extended family over for a cookout

and when driving by

you see the pride

porches being fixed

trailers repainted

with afternoon sunlight

walking home from church

i wanted you to bring me a sandwich
but i didn't say so
there are a lot of things i don't say these days

i walked on my heels through a puddle
avoid the tear in the seam
of my boots i bought for myself last year
and then my purple umbrella
flipped inside out

one of those days, i guess?

on the elliptical

i feel as if
i might be someone else
after all

you get me, PBS

I spent ten minutes today
pretending like I could do yoga
as if halfheartedly following stretches
off of an ipad screen
really meant I was remembering to breath

then, I walked to the library
picked up a brochure I read once
and won't read again

when I came back
my yoga mat was still on the floor
I thought about stretching again
but decided to stay put

my tax dollars at work
(not that I've paid much tax lately)
for an hour long exposition on sausage
just pretentious enough
to absolve my sloth

ground out

1. drifting cigarette smoke
and coffee black until the taste runs clear
bitter and left

littered second hand
all cast off cut off fraying at the seams
never new never at the edge

strike
strike
strike the match
ash and filth

2. opened
exhaled breath

discarded

how many clearance rack shirts have i left on the ground

preteen nervousness never quite knowing what the size of my body was

better not knowing

mirrors to show the pale skin in between limbs

skeptical eyes

still, never quite knowing my bra size and who wants to let that girl from high school measure you up in a dressing room with dangling light

all those chinese labels

taiwanese

blue shirt size s m l xl xxl

another another over again and over again

once, in the middle of the ocean

i went to an island market filled with people who made clothes

to choose what was almost

what was beautiful on the rack

the most beautiful day

sun-skinned// warm and shaded
lankiness crumpled onto benches

necks bending backs bending sun
salutes or cat to cow// stretching

worlds reappear in the ant's gait
broadly blueing-sky recollection

robbed joy// from another half's
increasing wintering productivity

last

                              people
who watch the end of a
show on netflix many times
over to not let that moment
slip into where I'm going
where everything is always
being made new. I'm the one
who doesn't mind closing
the book but won't be the
last to leave but I can last
all night. You leave the last
cookie I take and take and
take care. Where you are
going I cannot follow. This
is the last meal but breakfast
where friends know time is
short and it doesn't stop the
minutes that don't last longer
than sixty might be all you
get.

carry

Always shoving books, crumbling computers into bags
to haul off down misty walks to continents worth of
coffee shops and any space that lets you sit and look
out of a window.  And what would this have been like

before there were headphones and sound, notes, vowels,
you heard reflected back to you.  It all goes back inside.
You carry.  Like the wisp of a thought where you may
have once read about how they tried to weigh a soul but

what if they tried to prove what you collect in heart/head/
synapses was heavy.  That beats from songs lodge in bone
cells: femurs, so navicular.  Upon stopping, it is impossible
not to feel the imprint of faint handshakes, the long press

of hugs goodbye, feet tangled under covers.  It all seems
so serious.  But that might be a chronic case of nine-to-five
exhaustion exacerbated by nighttime thunderstorms and
benign tasks.  Looking down, it's empty. Hollow burdens.

the masked avenger

always ready
it's not so much
what you've done

when you're poor
you don't travel
to far-flung places

you prepare.

but what you're ready for
what you're willing to humor
bones to hardwood
for my favorite music
dancing in the ungodly morning

ready to be troublesome
a hero-in-waiting
a mind broad and beautiful

my masked avenger
backpack full
my rumpled knight
my warmth
when winter comes

fear

what happens when you get married

and don't leave yourself out in plain

sight of those you've put on makeup

for those you want to find you which

is why you wore a bright color and 

sat visibly where they could see you

it's the way you find someone you 

could love by waiting for that moment

to casually encounter what was so 

planned so planned that you have to 

put that lipstick away because you 

shouldn't wait for anyone else anymore

but where do you put all of the old

anticipation?

v v v v v v v v v

always a woman
always an intersection
wide and loving
in my steps
I carry the choices
made and unmade
I hold both paths
I rejoice and regret
the one I chose
the one I left behind
always an intersection

front pew people

joy so light

you drift to your feet

swaying awkwardly

clapping without rhythm

facing forward

looking away from those

glued and tacky

unwilling to rise

you look

clear and

overflowing

winter

It's better to
feel the cold
the assault
on the inside of
my thighs
pinching my arm
to feel the outline
of muscles
the long stretch
of bone,
winter's bite.
Knowing
starlight
on the move.
Better than the
allure of dark days
softening
hot and lazy,
To be
wolfish
and lonely.

neatly

being in school
should make you better at writing poetry
but it makes you worse

words are chores
to fold

neatly.

perfect ten

arriving at the gas station
the display reads 10.00 even
an impressive feat
or a familiar marker
from that time we were sixteen
and rode around in bright colored cars
decades old
cars that bled gas
and gas was cheap
if you weren't sixteen
we threw around the largest bills we could find
walking inside to buy gum
to put 10.00 even
on pump number five

he would drive me
regina spektor through open windows
we didn't have anywhere to go
we wanted to go everywhere
she always asked me for that extra cash
he never did
just put his arm around me
on the sandy ground by the river

i put my oh so adult
and expensively adorned left hand in my pocket
keying in my hometown zipcode
knowing those five digits won't last much longer
watching the numbers fly up
leaving a perfect 10.00
for the next car to pull in

lavender blue

winter is coming
winter is coming

the sticky fingers of pines
grab the air
the light that is fast disappearing
it is pale
it is cool

benediction

under the crickets and orange night
my shadow stretches long and wide
feeling glad and full
the skies open up deep
rain on my footsteps
finding my way in places


prayers drift out after me
somber alleluias

quiet amens
and i close my door
shedding piety to become human again

go in peace
to love and serve
the God who is ribcage cracking
the communion of blood and saints
the virility of Christ
now stretching into always


to love the One
who breathes through spaces too big
who fills night
with light and darkness just the same
my body
my blood

while everyone else is at the party

and i am tired
waiting on the couch for you to come home
remembering as i always do
how it would be nicer to have some good fiction around
something to keep me preoccupied
to keep quiet evenings

and for you to come home
because i don't want to be with everyone else
just you
if you could read a book with me
or just sit on the couch
we could light a candle or two
put on some music we don't know

i've been waiting since before i met you
because i've always thought of home
as this place where all that i've collected
meets those i love
salvaged years of bad poetry
away from the noise
in the silence of my room
i am firm and forbearing

(re)awakening

at once
glancing out of
worn tread time

finding again
a vast internal expanse


forgiveness is being yourself
full of grace
beautiful

it's emptying
eyes open
remembered music and words
so familiar again

at last