Thursday, April 11, 2019

recitation


wonder how many times i'm going to write this line:

i'm never going to get what i want

before it stops feeling like a cut,
like a piece torn off

i'm never going to get what i want

does it get easier, writing it? does it
start to feel true, as factual and inoffensive as
gravity, climate change?

she's never going to give me what i want

i've tried handwriting it, typing it,
reciting it, practiced saying it calmly,
an observation through glass

she's never going to give me what i want

of course i've tried screaming it

she's never going to

but there's no one to scream to

give me

like when you try to scream in a dream

what i

but nothing comes out except a gasp

want

and then you wake up

Thursday, August 10, 2017

risk management

all i want
is to say i love you
to people i love
but somehow i know
it would lead to bloodshed
which would be okay
if i could be sure
it would just be
mine

Monday, May 1, 2017

query letter


someday i'm going to write a book
about how to heal what you didn't know was broken
and how to locate what you didn't know was lost.

from a marketing perspective, it will be a terrible book
because it won't be written for people who know
that they are broken, or that they are lost 
(there are other books for those people)
(like, a lot of other books)
but will instead be for people who are fine,
people who are normal,
high-functioning, reasonably happy people,
even people who might sometimes be unreasonably happy
(but not so often that they start to seem weird)
(those people also have other books they can read).

anyway, this book for people who are fine: 
the marketers will hate it but so will
anyone who reads it, because each page
will be a map to a part of yourself that was 
(regretfully)
(so sad but)
(what else could be done)
walled off and floated out to sea
at certain points during the journey
the one that brought you to fine.

it will not be a good book to give as a gift
except that it will be
(you must have known)
(you were in this poem)
a gift intended for you.
  

Friday, February 3, 2017

dormancy


don't worry,
my gifts are long-lived, patient,
well-armored.

they can thrive on unsaid words,
unmade connections,
fumes.

i have enough and more than enough,
so that i can simply hope
for the once in a decade (or longer),
lasting perhaps only one night,
long-awaited,
bloom.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

[ [ [ unbeauty ] ] ]


[...]

we only wished to be as beautiful
as the buildings we saw in modern

architecture magazines, all light and space
structural elements defining the shape
of the building without taking up any of it.
we were as far as it is possible to be

from trying to be pretty, the aspiration of sex appeal:
we carved away sexuality along with our breasts
and hips. [...]

Read: The Fem, January 2017

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Landfall


a surprise, even now.

a new land, unpredicted by mapmakers
who must now stay up late tracing its contours onto their pages.

the new continent obscures the legends
printed in the map margins, its tentative outline
(its location, so far, only guessed at)
overlaying drawings of dragons
and the edges of the world.
 

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

interest-bearing


It took some doing, what with the dog barking,
the children clamoring, the coffee poured,
(spilled, cursed, re-poured)
the cars jostling, the office jangling,
the lunch anticipated then almost unnoticed,
the office again, the cars again,
the dog again,
the children,
the dog.

But I managed to set this aside for you:
a moment, a few thoughts, a wish.

Like a savings account, these small deposits
grow slowly at first, then quickly, aided
by the arcane forces of accounting, aided by time.