You bleed and you sweat
As all humans do, so why
Do I want you most?
(2010)
Month: August 2016
Brooklyn, 8.12.16
There is a rare moment where the world is good, where life is good, where everything around you is both beautiful and available. Where you know the temperature dial reads 97 degrees, even as the sun goes down, but you don’t mind the stifle or the sweat on your skin. Where your friends are waiting for you at the park around the corner; you will greet them with a bag full of watermelon, red grapes, and carrots for picnic snacking. Where your lover is only a bike ride away, and wouldn’t mind the spontaneous call or text one bit because it’s new and exciting and you both quietly like each other so much that it becomes palpable, even in your smiling silence. Where the sky is a Renaissance painting, a revolutionary first play with light and color, unrestricted by canvas and gilded frame and unobstructed by fluorescent lights and museum head-nodders. It is the perfect night, and nothing has even happened yet.
(2016)
Hump Day Haiku #5
Please bring me no gifts.
I am finally present,
And need nothing more.
(2016)
C.H.D.
I am cautiously curious,
a flighty bird hopping
on its spindly legs,
circling a crumb,
pecking the morsel and
flicking it about the cobblestones
with its lacquered beak,
as delicate and pearlescent as a fingernail.
I chisel bite-size bits
off the small mound,
crunching them around
until I feel it safe to
tilt my head to the sky
and let the sustenance slide
down and into a warm, churning darkness.
(photo cred to C.H.D.)
(2016)
Hump Day Haiku #4
A skilled architect,
He builds me and destroys me
In the greatest way.
(2011)
Untitled
Let me speak first
Before your voice has me
Changing all my answers:
I can love when I’m alone.
It’s with your gaze that all things change.
I lose sight of what I like inside
Myself when I meet your eyes.
Because they are deep,
And I pour my waters in
And sprinkle my petals to steep.
And I drink.
Drink my fill,
Careful not to spill a drop
And I don’t stop the glug until
I’m sluggish, glutinous with love.
But it isn’t my love,
My alone and lonely love,
It is yours.
And it’s thrown open
All of my windows and doors
But has taken the mirrors from my walls;
I’ll only get to reflect once you are gone.
(2015)
Hump Day Haiku #3
Will you let me stay?
I want to live in your bones
To grow old with you.
(2009)
The Waves
The waves lap and clack
And I think back
To summers past, spent
With those we were meant
To have and to hold
And though we weren’t old
We felt ourselves wise
And despised those who
Thought we should let go
For a moment
To breathe
The waves lap and clack
Their watery tongues
And I think back
To when we were young
And dumb
And maybe we’ll never be anything more
But my heart sang then
My heart sung then
It doesn’t use its beautiful voice anymore
I want to ride these waves until they stop,
Froth, fizzle, and spill over
My shoulders and out of my eyes
Knocking me down to size
Face first in the dirt, gravel, and rock
Of the bleak, dark coast
I’ll raise my head from the rubble and
Up I’ll stumble to search for
Your shape in the mist and
Wander listless, without purpose,
With a sinking stone in my throat
That knows you won’t be back
The waves will still lap and clack
Pulling the moon on a string
Beckoning time forward
And soon no one will
Remember or recall that
You left me to drown
In those waves
(2014)
Hump Day Haiku #2
My wish to become
Entangled with you must be
Taken from the well.
The penny, rusted
Over, must regain its shine
Ere it’s tossed again.
(2013)
