3/15/16

Red.

Do not look for carmine, foxglove, rust
or brick dust, but bloodshot corneas and
flushed cheeks of lovers descending 
steep precipices, blisters on palms held
to chapped lips, embers of ash. 

Think of half smiles, wind, oxblood
glowing suns settling behind skylines,
her hand on your thigh as the canyon
unwinds. Think of words blushing in 
your mouth, letters lingering, ripening,
falling from teeth like heavy pears. 

Think of it as a winter birthmark.
Think of it as biting your tongue. 

5/20/14

I can almost locate the place
in my body where the Arizona sun
is hidden, those mornings
we waded through inky water,
shaved our legs off the back of the
boat, were content to float from one
hidden canyon to another, to let
watermelon juice drip from our chins
and pool around our ankles.

And at night, we dove naked,
rippling the moon-stained lake,
floated on our backs and covered
our eyes with the earth's weight.
We stretched until our bones
creaked, until the tendons in our
necks strained, as we reached for
the Milky Way just above us.  
The wind's scent, like raspberries,
settled in our gums, and sometimes
as if stirring from sleep, I taste it.

10/14/13

Dawn.

Each curtain is an exhalation,
each street a sleepy murmur.
At this hour, one could dance
unclothed and breathless
wrapped in a scarf of smoke,
wrapped in the black milk of dawn.
Your skin is a glinting cricket
in black tar, your violin song
like gauze, like grieving. 

9/3/13

Blueprints.

I peer through the eaves now and then,
through the fallen beams of afternoon tea. 
I find a message from a secret self,
an intimacy too private to speak of. 
My soul hangs from nails
and flutters in the unsound framework
like deserted blueprints,
like bed sheets in an open window. 
My hair is tangled in the latticework.
My fingertips are stained with ink. 

DMB.

Indian style on my ladybug blanket. We peeled the starbursts from their wrappers.  I leaned back on my elbows and peered at the eerily green sky. One drop fell and licked my knee. You leaned into me. I rested my cheek on your shoulder and breathed you in. Dave and the band appeared on stage and I closed my eyes, waiting for the first vibration, the first strum. 

Rain drizzled down my neck and pooled in the crevices of my collar bones. Don't Drink the Water sounded from the stage as I burrowed beneath the blanket, pressing my forehead to my knees. I inhaled deeply; coffee, fabric softener, a day's sweat. Inside my cotton cocoon, the rain seemed less intense. Lively, but muted. Rain saturated the blanket and seeped though my sweater, rinsing my skin. I shivered and hummed Lousiana Bayou. I lifted the blanket and donned my sunglasses to shield my eyes from the downpour. One large drop splattered on the right lens, amplifying the red and blue stage lights. I refocused my eyes on the drop and counted the squiggly amoeba-like edges. The harmonica reverberated through my chattering teeth and you held my hand and we ran. 

8/16/13

Eight sixteen.

I can't pretend to know anything.
Just this morning 
you offered me a cup of sleep
in the house where our bodies
first became one in the other
and our howls were those of wolves 
for the celestial body,
for the fullest moon. 

I can't pretend to know anything. 
Just last month
you spoke of cosmic catastrophes 
of our sun expanding 
of our seas boiling 
of waving goodbye to all we've known
and I wept because I desire to live
as long as the world itself. 

7/31/13

I regret that I am not a kitten 

dozing in the milky light, 

whiskers twitching. 

I regret that I am not the sheets 

on your side of the bed,

wrinkled and warm. 

You have gone for coffee 

and I miss you.