It was a cathedral// then//

it was a ruin

all the angels & their cracked wings//

you ever seen girl lose

columns of her spine?

I'm here,

dust-knuckled, scraped, slow-bleeding/

curled like a bird in final rest/ bleeding

the kind of red-black that means

eventually it'll stop.

Can't remember

when the passion used to call itself crimson

except under a shade of lace

& afternoon yellowing.

But in the morning the clock strikes

& the day ribbon-grommets herself into

the picture

& we must rise,

her & I,

always ever her & I.

Lonely cathedral,

lost your righteous hips

still warring with

ghosts of an old devil's teeth:

that's as ugly as it ever gets.

& the dust settles,

& the dust settles,

your knuckles are so pink.

The window above our bed is open, and there is a hot and salty breeze. Or is it his breath? I open my eyes, brushing the wet ends of my hair out of my face. He is beside me, on top of the covers, and I am underneath the covers and underneath his arms and one of his legs. The top half of his face is warmed by the peeking red glow of the Everglades sun. He looks for all the world like a child— save for the stubble around his gaping, snoring mouth. We were married yesterday evening, an autumn chapel wedding in Florida with family and a few close friends. I am now a wife.

I am 18 years old. I slap a mosquito bite on my arm, then one on my thigh, then one on my chin, then I sit up in bed and shut the window. I feel both matronly and very young, kneeling in my long pink gingham nightgown. He wears just his gray cotton boxers and looks naked and smells like sweat. He is also 18. I want to sit and look at him for a while because he is now my husband, and this is my first morning having a husband ever in my life. And he still is so handsome to me, even today, even drooling on my hair and on our pillow. But he smells like sweat, I smell like his sweat, the room smells like his sweat, and I decide that I will watch him sleep some other time. I want to bathe. I need to make breakfast. And as soon as he wakes I still need to air out the sheets, which will never air out in the sultry Florida air. A fresh new mosquito bite stings on my lip and then on the soft back of my hand.

We are staying for our honeymoon in my great aunt’s farmhouse, and I have only been here once before. The master bathroom has a great big window with no curtains or blinds. I won’t change in here. I will change my clothes in the closet after I make breakfast and then bathe. I splash water on my face and brush my teeth with the toothbrush we share as of last night, since he forgot to pack his. It is the pink toothbrush I brought from the pack in my bathroom at home, my parents’ home. My brother has the purple toothbrush and my sister got the green one. I can taste my husband’s breath. I spit the sparkly blue toothpaste and rinse it down the sink.

The sound of the running water wakes him up, and he calls, “Good morning, sunshine!” My heart flutters like a bird. Through the doorway, he is sitting up and grinning. The sunlight is changing from red to yellow. Hopping back to the bed, I hug my arms to my chest. He wraps me up in his strong arms, kisses my forehead and I laugh. My voice sounds like a little girl. We say nothing else and just sit on the bed. I am so very hungry and have not eaten since before the ceremony because of the butterflies in my stomach. On cue, I hear his stomach growl. My ear is on his chest and I don’t know if I should make a joke or not, and the moment passes, so I don’t. Through the window I see the grapefruit tree and the chickens. I will have to collect the eggs and squeeze the bitter juice for his breakfast. But for now, I close my eyes, listen, and wonder how many of his heartbeats I will have the privilege to hear in this lifetime.

O'Keefe saw it, knew it

The Original

Pornography

The way she painted

pleading, begging petals

exposed, eager, yearning

to be seen by different eyes

to have their texture felt by

shifting fingertips

Strokes--

--for other strokes

Waves thrust on rock, the sun

asks seeds to burst, coaxes stem

and thirsting leaves from dirt

Precious nectars drained and

turned to gold, sticky sweet,

leaving alchemy wherever

it may fall

Spores explode, waterfalls rush

and slowly melt into gentle pools

that hide secrets in their grottos,

roots search quiet, determined for

warm, inviting earth, the clouds part

and drench the bold

The ageless coquette, she spreads

and releases, takes and gives,

dominant, yielding, known

to all, possessed by none,

Coy seductress, winking vixen,

star of The Original

Pornography

We see it, know it

and so the leaves have turned to gold today

yet their beauty cannot match your two eyes

so i'll stand here, asking you to please, stay-

and we'll gaze together at the cold skies

under the passing clouds and the sun's sway

i am on my way to you yet again

imagining you on the seat across

from me, smiling at strangers on the train

the one that goes to the upper west side

the one i know you will never see

this room is too warm for the two of us

the walls are closing in on me and you

you pull me closer, closer, and closer

it's too much and not enough- our hands touch

we swing together like no one's watching

this is me trying to make you fall in love

it doesn't matter if you are or not-

you'll never say it- at least not to me

so we'll keep dancing, but only for now

it's not fair, but i'm sorry anyway

for what? for falling half in love with you

he is like a god, who sits next to you

and makes you laugh, while i can only stare

it’s all an act.

our hair, i mean. the way it falls, i mean.

nobody knows it better than God, except

maybe his lonely neighbor who watches

every morning as he pulls it from his scalp.

there’s an old country song i made up just now,

where a lonely warbling woman rasps on

about the end of the world.

there is a great deal of loneliness in this poem.

it has already been mentioned two times. this poem

has holes and so all the loneliness of the world

has unfortunately began to leak in. (that’s three)

in this song about the end of the world

we were still fixing our hair. you see,

everything is already ending all the time.

we just go on wading through it,

knee deep in the muck and not a bit hopeless.

in this song there were birds, and nobody

understood this bit, why the birds were there,

living their bird lives while the rest of us

were handed an ending, and too soon.

we held it in our hands, like a corpse.

we could not fly, and this is why the birds.

someone wanted to remind us

our hope is a home-grown thing

unfeathered and without a loud call

sung into the morning.

at the end of the street the world could end.

where the road gets uneven and the fence

bears its chain-link teeth the world will end.

or he will fall in love.

or nothing will happen at all,

even with him standing there,

and nobody will build a monument

to this unmonumental moment,

and the old country song on the radio

will go on singing about the birds.

perhaps all of this at once.

perhaps the world will end

and we will just be making do.

the loneliest thing

is watching the birds from the window

(four times) and wondering how they met.

how they all decided they were meant to be.

that they would dance and sing in unison.

i found out the world was ending

when i was only thirteen.

so of course, i fixed my hair.

i went to the park,

i fed the pigeons. i placed kindness

gently in the mouth of my demise.

all this is to say,

today the end and tomorrow the end.

and tomorrow the birds.

close your eyes. it’s all happening already.

i started calling myself a poet my sophomore year

of high school, when the lines and stanzas became as real

as the blue veins in my wrists

even still, even still

it was all for aesthetics

though i longed for it to be real

it was colour-graded insanity,

a shell of an identity

poetry, once a hobby, became a sort of anesthetic

tied a ribbon 'round my pain for the beauty of it

let's make panic attacks more poetic

sorry, lost myself to the numbered hearts for a minute

i even found that i'd avoid some things

that maybe didn't look as pretty in ink

sifting through the twisted thoughts that i think

but you don't want to read

about what's really underneath

the metaphors and similes

i know you like to believe

are all there is to the girl with the pen

there's more to see

you see

this writer is an ugly crier

hates the world but burns with desire

to see it all, take it in,

live forever but meanwhile

she's suicidal

without the action

loves her life but worships distraction

in lesser things

computer screens

loathes herself most days

a self-taught expert in acting

like she cares, even though she doesn't

there are no feelings even if she wanted

to feel something for you

some sympathy, "poor you"

a chronic romantic scribbling haikus

from friends to strangers in one afternoon

she bears the weight of her own unbelief

it gets heavy, all the prayers and white teeth

knowing mom can't sleep

because of me?

is it because of me?

Be realistic, is this even possible?

Why not, you can do it.

I don't doubt.

Be realistic, is this even possible?

Why not, you can do it.

I don't doubt.

acceptance rate of .5%

email titles thanking me

for my application

they didn’t say

my poetry is Sanskrit

or just the dirt

under which they burn

my manuscript

my poems are the gasoline

and the acceptance committee

lights a match over every single

one of my dreams

-.5%