It was love —

& then it wasn’t.

All her smiles

turned upside-down.

Summer skies

turned dark & ugly.

Pretty flowers

drooped & died.

It was me —

& then it wasn’t.

Someone else

stepped in my shoes.

Now I’m living

on the outside

while he

enjoys my muse.

Copyright 2021

You say so many words for distance

that I begin to measure breadths

everywhere—

(I’m always short, the amount I am)

I want to claim I’m past my grief’s

whooping—but I still hear it.

(You’re water, we’re in each other)

Post-swim, I shake some of you

out through my ears. Listen,

I would choose not to love you.

(if I could)

I tell my body to steer my heart’s

helm, wear the suit. I captain myself.

(I control the ache that I am)

Except the suit scratches, the boat

won’t move, I am posing with the display

inside of your museum—

She had tattoos

& bright red shoes;

her eyes were green with fever.

I ran away

& hid all-day

for fear her gaze might melt me.

But then she flew

& my fears grew.

“Was she a Saint or Satan?”

With fear I fell,

& stared at Hell.

“Dear God, please now, forgive me!”

But when she smiled,

I was beguiled —

since then I’ve never left her.

Copyright 2021

i think about you

and us and ficuses,

how they can only drink

so much water

before they sputter.

noon on some sunday.

you wrapped around me,

bow-ish, like a pret

cinnamon roll.

everyone warns you

of the rain in london,

but no one ever mentions

its lulls of sun.

you’d come to my room

with mochas for hands.

when it rains, it doesn’t pour

like it used to.

i don’t miss you anymore.

we drank each other up,

took what we needed,

made for an ethereal story.

now, i want a love

that wags its tail

each morning,

that will follow me

from here to home.

How can you hate birds? -Ada Limón

They fly tiredless, uneven,

equal to nothing but each other,

parallel to God—that’s it,

they’re too close.

They can hear God and we can’t,

is that it? That their wings

block the skies so our prayers

sound like static? Crackles of wants.

So much feather to plow through.

And they’re loud, too. All that singing

outshouts ours, so our choirs

are useless. No, there’s no point

in singing if God can’t hear us,

our roasted lips ever-trying

to chirp harder than those birds.

Our words muddle, our priests

buy boomboxes. Those bastards.

Should we call them bastards?

They’re eating up all our confessions

and shitting them right back down onto us,

and here we are, breathing,

our dumb mouths wide open.

and she nods, surprised,

although she probably doesn’t mean it

because watermelon is not a surprising fruit

to love, especially

in the summer when it is warm

and you want wet teeth and drenched tongue

to slip you out of heat like your mother

pulling your checkered dress off over your head

still, you sip the juice

and say watermelon is your favorite fruit

at risk of mockery

even though there is nothing wrong

with obvious love

which is just as good as subtle love,

as there is still bravery in loving

something so completely obvious

because everything needs a hero

and everyone needs to be one

and there is bravery in that

and in telling her that you like to watch movies

because she may not like movies

or melon or how the juice melts

when you cut past the skin

she may not like anything about you

especially your crop-circle hair

or your pipe-tube glasses

still, you try to make space

for a place where the two of you

could thrive—somewhere

where there is sunlight

and a running hose snaked

across the cement watering

fresh sunflowers outside a window

where you sit together

on a porch, the two hands

of yours that aren’t touching

each holding a watermelon slice

I loved you how pigeons do

when you toss them bread,

pre-digestion.

I didn’t know

how much

you’d hurt me.

You paused like a penguin unsure

before the dive. Thoughts like

what if a leopard seal sees me.

What if the water’s cold.

What if I regret the swim,

and I am left forever wet.

I understand—my body is scary,

is raw. You cry over me

as if I am onion. But I want you

to choke me down,

even if it hurts.

I am desperate.

I am half-rabid beneath polyester,

my desire leaking out

like an open wound.

My terms. My open legs.

Here, in Indiana, I reclaim me.

New York is just a haunt now,

a bulldozer that scoops me up

each night only to drop me down.

But tonight I am asking you to make me.

It has been months since a man

has built me well.

You have to pick the bad ones, too,

or else they’ll rot the rest. This phenomenon

could likely metaphor for gun violence:

confiscate all of them, all. I want to say

there is no violence in my garden.

The dirt is calm, combatless,

but I know this to be untrue.

There are spiders battling beetles

for shelter, the leaves begging

for mercy as the beetles munch

on their stems. Little wars still

matter even when we can’t see the blood.

I can only watch and marvel

at this strange beauty—not the guns—

but the moving, this constant

rebuilding after all’s broken.

I want to uproot myself daily,

but that’s comparing me to a flower,

and I know photosynthesis is a secret

that I will never be told.

Here I am, my knees drowned

in soil, spills of sweat on my skin,

caring for the world in ways

it will never care for me.

Wait for It

Here is how I let you go: I’m

waking up my numb fingers, waiting

on nothing anymore. Everything ends for

me this time. I’ll name my darlings, my hurt. No more it.

I’ll swallow brass cogs, punch clocks, beat that

awful ticking, only eating lettuce in green

dresses now. Hear me overthrow light.

Rosier, more elephant, I

promise, what I want

to say—I’ll say it.

------------------------------------------------------------

Secret Power

The first thing I did was call myself I

again, almost as if all the love

we’d had was my water bucket. It

poured over me, led me here

to a place I’d forgotten since

us: this cavern, this ribcage, what I’ve

been so afraid to scavenge. I’ve stopped

wanting to hide my gloves now. My dirt is needing

tending. My plants are thirsty, are dying, are you.