November 2010
1 post
We have made habits out of touching too much; letting folds of skin and hair roll underneath palms. We have spent afternoons idle and lazy, making serious tasks out of laying on our backs and staring at the ceiling. When we walk down suburban streets littered with Autumn leaves, our hands nearly touch. We smile often at each other, our gazes heavy with wanting. And when you leave my whole...
February 2010
3 posts
Bring me rays of golden light, Skin freckled and blooming of red. Bring me Spring.
January 2010
10 posts
I want only to be devoured
like snow
fed to the mouths
of children’s fists.
-J. Morrill
Here’s the trick to eating a soul:
you have to melt it down first,
separate gospel prayers from pentagram promises,
boil the mass of ache, stone, and love at 357 degrees Fahrenheit,
set the gas clicking to work, water-down the snow chunks,
take a salty lick and remember
that first kiss
when you forgot how close two faces had to be,
when you forgot how much heat two bodies could...
Room 116.
My father is ill. He is an eighty pound skeleton. Skin whiter than bedsheets, Hair graying at the tips. He hasn’t eaten in months. His lips are wavering caterpillars Housing yellowed teeth and a fat tongue That can’t hold back the onslaught of vomit, And coffee, and swearing. And his stomach is tiny, It is too tired to digest. My mother is a mess. She goes days without sleep And lies...
October 2009
3 posts
west-ish
While racing vultures against the wind of the wild, wild west
I collect stars from the Arizona sky
and chiseled stones beneath worn-out tires
and feet
like Milagros nailed to an iconic double boarded symbol
I lost faith in long ago.
On the road we pee in damp restrooms
behind soda machines
at pit-stop travel-lodge houses
where fast food employees serve free booze to those praising slot...
September 2009
3 posts
August 2009
4 posts
From these dry lips
I’ve shot arrows,
Sharp and Dull,
wooden spears searching for blood
to drink into young sapling sinews.
I wrote in the message,
retold reasons in stories that
I never meant to hurt you—
but I lie a lot lately.
And the truth, however magical, unheard of, is this:
every arrowhead was carved for you.
With each strain of the bow I had you in mind,
the...
away.
I’ve seen armies marching over the wings
of your arching back.
Tiny joints joined in unison,
pitching tents in time to a high pitch role call,
firearms strapped ‘round waists
ready to aim and fire.
The burning in my stomach never subsides,
it ebbs and flows like ocean waves,
laps at the inner lining as a reminder:
the outline of your body—
absent
remains a cut-out in...
July 2009
8 posts
i dealism
I don’t believe in marriage,
but I’d marry you.
Marry you proud.
Marry you sweet.
Cover feet in grape pulp,
wrap tangles of hair in honey
and lie,
sticky but satisfied
on sheets,
palms touching,
open eyes searching ceiling swirls
for future conquests.
I want to be the teaspoon
to your tablespoon.
Want to scratch nails down soft legs,
smile into pillows,
scream
...
ROY-G-BIV wristlet.
You are corduroys in July and
a mustache smelling of chocolate.
You are Fading.
This disappearing act is over eighty years old,
stories written between layers of
paper thin, French Canadian skin wrapped loosely ‘round knuckles,
crack crickity crack
bones like easels in art class folding, unfolding.
You used to drown kittens when the barn cats littered
their young in bins of hay,
...
when you left.
Something happened that night.
It was a scream, I think.
A scream ripped through me.
Boulder-like
and Sharp.
From behind eyelids,
an erupting volcano.
I bled dry of salt and grace
and rewound video tape memories
until the drought finally arrived,
empty handed.
The worst kind of crying is like vomiting.
Rises from the intestines,
leaving ashy trails through throat valleys.
Pressure...
young.
Bones taught me to
bend backwards,
in ways that only the sinews of tree branches
can understand.
-J. Morrill
