Pretendative Measures

Man gave personhood to his neighbors loosely, 

generously, over a seven-layer dip and the Super Bowl halftime show. 

He and they together practiced opening bottles with teeth 

and bracketing out the fine print around what they 

are and are not contractually willing to commit. 

Man bestowed these men with a brilliant sense of self defined by an organ,

and a brilliant sense of fear, defined by the need to keep this organ from being removed.

He and they walked around measuring their manhood

always with one eye on their neighbor's butter knife.

Woman was in the garden outside, alone,

reading a passage out of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal to child

tucked carefully in her gentle arm. 

When child was hungry, it ate, and when Woman was sad, she wept,

leaving teardrops of cool saline tenderly upon the earth.

She called the drops 'dew,' when she explained them to child, and told it

mother nature wept when she was sad, just like Woman, just like mother did. 

Man gave personhood to Woman slowly, thinking that 

he had something to give her at all--a rib, he thought, suffrage--

and Woman held child with an arm so gentle and yet so strong, 

Woman held the earth with an arm so gentle and yet so strong,

Woman held Man with an arm so gentle and yet so strong

that he could not see that it was she who granted personhood, by bestowing the beauty of breath. 

Woman walked child through the trees in the garden,

humming a song she'd heard a mockingbird sing. 

Child, with eyes like the sky at dawn, fell asleep in the comfort of that which was known and that which was beautiful. 

Woman, with eyes like the sky at dusk, stayed away in the knowledge of that which was burning and that which was terrible. 

There was smoke on the horizon, but child was asleep and Man was shouting at the television and Woman, tired of weeping, began to march. 

Mourning Dew

the carvings in the stone had been covered
by the green of dew, the green of nature
trying to soften the blows
of injustice, insecurity, insurrection,
there
was more peace when the dates were hidden.
you couldn't see how young,
how green they had been
barely in the summer of their lives,
barely past the April showers
sitting squarely in May flowers -
staying awake through the longest day of the year
swirling through the solstice in clouds of laughter


only to lose in a second


what they had fought for centuries to find.


the bystanders hold their breath, as if their own cessation of inhalation can give those who are breathless one more exhale to say
to their mothers and their lovers and their friends and their brothers -


something. anything.


the bystanders let go of their breath
nothing has changed except the concrete
stained
red.


shouting replaces silence

morning court

There's an art to waking mindfully,
respecting the quiet dark,
kissing good morning to the dawn
to herald the morning lark.


You have learned to question nothing
of your lonely nighttime wanderings
through the deepest caverns of your mind,
your innocent, soft ponderings.

But you brush your sleeping visage,
love your moments all alone
wherein you've built your house for fantasies
the likes of which you call your home.


Magic on your morning breath
and dirt upon your feet
caught from running through your
private world of wonder, wisdom, heat.


You recount it over coffee -
voice waking up in time
as the mazes of your inner peace
begin to dull their shine.


Breaking bread in shadows
thrown by sunshine in the east
gives poetic referendums
to the scattered early feast.


Breath is shallow as you sit there
perturbed by the rising day,
and the beauty of your nighttime world
slips silently away


until your dreams are wispy threads of thought,
hazy, silent, black and white,
gone like the fragile feeling
of the middle of the night.

acquaintanceship

they herald him and hang on him - unblemished, 20/20
standing close like she used to
touching sheepishly the forearm he extends
to steady their nerves.


in a sense, in a way, he will always love them more
their opinions - unblemished, 20/20
their kisses so foreign
their legs so light.


                     he untwists her metaphors to mean
'never would'
                     when she always was saying         
 'never could'

Airport Wine

The elevation was patient
                       and persuasive --
like the humming she makes when she sleeps
and the rashes she makes on my skin.


Leaning against my suitcase
sipping airport wine,
staining my lips on six dollar
cabernet with legs as long as hers,
                       just as thin too,


wrapping around the rim of my glass.
wines like this
girls like that
                     leave them blue and begging
                     every time.

marlboro light

just after dawn, he started a war
with the shadows already retreating
under the cover of darkness,
waiting for the angles of the light to
align with their own shades.

everything made more sense
when he was chasing his sweet
sweet coffee with
vodka and orange juice.

when we threw the Marlboro light
at the curtains and waited, wishing,
for their damp cotton to catch
he drummed his fingers on my sternum
and I counted backward from 99

like they tell you to do
breathing in anesthesia.

I remember it all though and
the cigarette fizzed out.

an ode to mystery

The girls were full of you.

They wore you on their cheeks
like rouge, dotted on the inside
of their tights, at the top of their
thighs, right on the apple of
their bones, to keep you close
enough to count.

They spent too long learning
the way that you taste
to be able to watch you
speak to someone else the
way you used to speak
to them.

Painted in your touch, their
fingertips left lines of shivers
in their wake; the stars of
wet dreams and moans when
their dreamers couldn't sleep.
They let you linger long
enough to count.

Your words hit them like
breaking the sound barrier
even after all this time.
Even after all this time
you took their cigarette
scented breaths away.

They know they'll find you
stuck on that old black dress
that doesn't impress like it
did. They'll find you in the
corner of that dark room,
smelling like whiskey just
enough to count.

Windows open in the
dead of winter, they let their
smoke curl out to signal
-- a desert island in the middle
of the desert city --
for your return.

They've lost your charm,
the perfume that
people once wondered about
when they left in a whirlwind
of exodus.

To get you back.

They'll drain their wine
alone, sitting alone in the bed
they share with someone who
fell in love with you on their
cheeks. Fell in love with you
enough to count.

When your lipstick fades
and the morning reveals
humanity under the selling of
the single night's soul, they'll
wonder if you wouldn't mind
taking a little longer next time
to disappear in the daylight.
Leave them just enough time
to escape with you on their trail.
Leave them just
enough time to count.