you do it very gracefully

cinnamon
rose buds
honey
toothy smile
florescent lights
you:
      doing hat tricks
      eating subway sandwiches that drip onto the table
      wearing more layers than I thought possible
me:
      reminding myself to look up, talk to you
      low bun
      feeling antsy beyond belief.

EAST UNIT

the chart says he keeps yelling

for Mama & Ray

only it sounds more like Roy when I hear it,

as in “Roooooy! bring me a knife!”

his goal is to buy some tools

and wood for the winter

and I can’t blame him,

it’s freezing in here.

I can’t stop shivering

and tugging on my sleeves.

when we arrived everyone was barefoot

so we spent the first hour finding

non-skid socks and pulling them over

handfuls of yellow cross-eyed toes

while they did or didn’t eat breakfast.

someone else wanted to see

a seabird so I took her to the window

but it was too foggy to see

past the parking lot.

Kein problem

Blitz ice,
doorsteps, flat screens so lush and monolithic and facing heaven,
deep upending slates, and looking down into them
none can see what's got into them.
Deep and rich and lush Ferragamo party slides,
doorsteps from chocolate adverts,
deep and rich and dangerous,
blocks more solid than the mason could have known,
denser than what we think we knew before we started.

That rough skin is always showing
knotted mind and wolf teeth
rotting in a coke jar.
I've walked through your rooms,
always mattresses on floors.
Now toes wedged in hammock strings
and maps on the wall,
all caribbean colors-
but when will you let your nails grow?

LIVE TO TELL

If the worthiness
of living
is in telling, then
tell me everything.
Your father watches
Alla Pugachora on
Russian TV,
and you were born to
a no-story place,
so the beach
is wide and vacant
with many sticks
to draw new lines.

Now let me tell you
about the party.
The birthday belonged
to an uptight long-hair
turning 40
so the night was all
songs from 1974.
Somehow, I survived.
You know, I never feel
“like a woman”
until there’s only
two of us
and though we're strangers
we find each other
and drink all the beer
while everyone else
mourns the 90s
at the Tiki bar.

You are better
than most things - 

so good to me -
though you’ve caught me
in my shedding time,
and so of course
I’m shining.

radio silence
last words
yo
now i bite my nails
and wonder
are you dead?