go west

and the sky heaved a sigh of relief
as your walking steps near
the door taking you
out into your new fantastic.

you head west, away from the sun,
which rises as you move.
and when the the occident nears,
you'll stop your motion and watch the
setting over water, which plays dog
with the shore catching each kiss
and relaying each slap.

when my set moves, as your sets
will continue to move with instability,
i will go to you.

i crave you.

just like i gave you
my word
that i wouldn't call you
at three a.m.
hoping that you would
in a sleep-induced stupor
take back all those cruel things

that you never said.

why did we marry in the first place?
when we could have had brand-new red lights
full of flight and fury and sound and wind
with none of these burdens and children

and blowing leaves all scattered through our brightness.

your pen of doom hovers over our joint checking account.
you type our expenses into loving spreadsheets detailing our rendezvous
not in paris, nor portugal.

how did we get to this place?
where the snow crackles beneath my slim fingers with too loose
ring edging slowly off.
where light only seeps into the edges of our days.

photosynthesis

created for a women's studies assignment: create a new translation of sappho's "poem of jealousy" based on 28 previous translations by more important poets than me.


tremble, tremble, leaf-me;
shake loose of limb overlooking
pale grass which crunches and
yields under feet of beloved she.

he, holding her precious hand,
knows more of fortune than many
who aspire to wisdom of gods'.
and i wither from where i stand.

my tongue, once lithe and able,
resembles a clod of dirt, stuffed in mouth.
my eyes, which have looked upon the
brightest of triumphs, see only in sable.

as she passes, arm linked and gaze turned,
my mind blinks and my attempt for light is spurned.

on bookmarks, etc.

though my crayon topples your marker and greases
over the even, magic slide
you yet still have the other marker
maintaining our divide.

pages twist and unfurl around this
diligent character who minds
where we have left off:
what stanza, paragraph, or lines.

gracing the holographic, reflective
sheen of our divisive trial
there lies a face who portrait
reflects back our own, only style.

with frayed edge peeking over the top
of a book or anthology or film,
our bookmark guides where none else tries
though we are boats, with no one at the helm.

pounding deep into sonorous radar communication,
your heart breaks out of its once-sturdy shell
to begin the transformation.

first, it grows from mere muscle and organ
into a tall body, lean and lank with only sparse
gems to indicate eyes and smile and brain.

each jewel, barely hovering at the boiling surface,
seeks to embed itself deep into the flesh forming,
but gravity and my desire postpone.

while the diamonds and rubies of your glowing eyes
and lips try to escape their hard and fastness,
your still-dripping hands
curve their winding way
through amniosis and into membrane
which gives way to fresh, clear, though smoky air.

though birth has completed, your limbs remain too soft
for my grasp and, each time i reach, you slip from me
into the soft folds from which you emerged.

in looking back, remembering only,
i have cast you back to the deep, dark folds
where dogs and men may play and frollick, but you
will only pine.

self-restraint

as your hair weighs down, feathery and floating,
across your back with brilliant bright bones,
i will lay my hand across your birdsoul's infinite
sweetness and hold your spirit while you undress.

with your bright rings glittering in both brightness
and dark and your shining, glorious choir of breath
rasping across my bones which glaze over at its touch,
i will see your resplendence.

in the dim air of our conquest, your hand will alight
and take to the air above my head to trace out shapes
and delights the likes of which i will never see again,
nor remember from now.

with musical flight, you leap from our nest to fall to
the street and, in picking yourself to rightness,
you realize all our bright, unhidden sin
and leave our song and flying to wither in the wardrobe alongside
dusty albums and the maps of europe, spring, and time.

inspired by lessig

vocal cords lost
but still whipping your face
which slides across my mind even
as i am lashing it.

your content is lost
as i shape your fate
and toss your creative enzymes out of
our stomach of production
and your means reaches no end.
with no end in site.

in sight we have this marvelous
creature called vision
which rumbles through our collective
brains and leases and unleashes itself
into our collaborative process
in order to concretize our eyes.

in seeing we are reading
and in reading, reading only,
and only of that which is written,
not in writing.
this process breaks our minds and souls
and sharpens our wits while deadening our nerves.