Doctor

yes, I'm real mean
and I'll crush your
head between my
knees, it's okay
to lie down and
give up.

oh honey, it's
a rough night
working alleys and
slaying cops
with only
what god gave me.

it'll pay off in the
end because I was born
to hunt them down
all the sinners and weepers
I am the Purifier
of all I see,
I lay claim to each
darkened night street.

baby, I got your
number scrawled on
my wall, and I'm training my
eyes on you,
you're next 
it'll be over real quick,
real clean and I won't 
even linger when
you pass. 

and I'll put on my
coat in the morning
lay the snake
of stethoscope round my neck
and take and take and take
some more, 
cleaning up what god laid
down because sometimes
he got it all wrong.
little bodies curled bones
beneath the threadbare sheets
you were all wrong
all dead to me
I am cleaning up
taking out the trash.

room 303 I am sneaking
in to say goodbye with a 
black kiss and you'll be gone
crossed off my list
I told you,
I'm the Purifier,
the only one to make it right.

Persephone

I found it appropriate 
that night,
to light every candle
I could find.
27 in all.
Glimmering their 
stupid light
against the windows,
the polished wood
of the coffee table.

To be alone,
it looked like a shrine
to myself,
to some misfortunate
god, lost enough to
reside in my
broken body.
I slumped into
the throw pillows.
Feeling the light of my 
temple.

A sacred sleeping
I felt it coming on
in the first snow
as it hit gentle
against the dark casements.
Each soft falling
rang in my ears
incessantly.
The darkness at 3:00,
the radiator's fit-full
hissing in the night.

The buttery light
of my foraged candles
trying to block out the cold,
the season of death,
a despair to Demeter.
I cursed the whole Pantheon
for letting this happen,
as I sat in my living room,
my face washed in a religious light.

I fortified myself against
the snow, the cold,
telling the wayward god inside
to please,
stay a little longer,
burn these candles with me.

Meghan

I threw her a party
and in my mind there was
so much laughter
the little twinkling
of bells and the louder
ruddy sound
of tin cans in the
rain.

We all walked along the street
so many of us, seven in all,
bundled in coats and scarves
flying with the passing of cars,
it was twilight, a somber
autumnal pink
and I couldn't breathe
with your body against mine,
and hers against yours.

It was a party
where I wrote your name
on the cake in blue gel
and messed up so
the 'M' was too big, 
and the rest of your
letters too small.
But it was 
something.

We stood in the wind on the stoop,
all huddled round like penguins against
the wind to light the candles,
In the dark the little flames 
illuminated our faces 
which were cracked with 
shiny teeth, smiling.

All of us 
together as we sang
horribly out of tune and 
too quickly,
knowing with the 
pressing heat of our bodies
and the promise of a new
year,
we could hold onto each other
and not be blown away
in the night.

Winter Breaking

But I loved you,
and you said 
no. 
You stood there in
candy apple red
snow boots
and you laughed
up into the night sky
and the flurries falling 
around us.
They gathered on your eyelashes.

I reached for your gloved 
hand it slipped away
from me,
and you said,
let's walk across
the frozen pond.

But it was December
and you would've fallen
straight through 
making Jude
the Obscure proud. 

I wanted to cry
but feared the tears
freezing to my face
on the long walk home
with my hands shoved so
deep in my pockets.
I left you, I turned around
under the hazy orange
street light
and put up a middle
finger 
as I walked away.

I wasn't getting fucked over
again.
Not from a girl
in red Hunter brand galoshes
who 
wanted me to paint her nails for her.
Who stole my sweaters
to show I was hers.
She began to smell like
my cologne.

I wasn't letting you win,
as I walked away and
heard the crunching
of the freshly fallen snow
underneath me.

When It Rained Silver & Gold

She told me 
and it hurt
stinging like 
paper cuts and razor blades.
Like sweat in my eye
that time,
the fourth of July.

We stood in the empty
field, watched cascading
plumes of silver and gold
fall like exploding stars
beyond the trees.

It hurt like
St. Peter's arrows
all through my chest,
quick pangs and
gritty stabbings 
like back-alley murder.

And in my eyes
were still those smoky 
remnants of fireworks
and you leaned on my shoulder
a chill running through you,
electric,
into me.

She told me 
and wow, it hurt
like those safe explosions
we watched from afar
all alone in a quiet green
pasture, all grassy and smelling
sweet 
100% humidity and 95 degrees-fahrenheit.

Sweat dripping from her hairline,
her bangs matted to her forehead,
and I was drenched
could feel drops running down the
backs of my thighs,
heat 
not nerves.

She told me
I wasn't honest with you
there is someone else.
It hurt like being
a rocket
blasted into space
to divide into 
one thousand pieces
my body to rain over
you in bright sparkles
to fade away from you,
forever,
it hurt like 
the stars being
out-done
by sparklers
on a hot night.

Song of Melancholia Autumn

Something in my hands gave way
like the quivering branches 
against my window,
their cold fingers 
brittle and breaking.

What came of it?
A winter without a coat,
a wood without trees.
I stood in the courtyard and
listened to the mourning doves
cry in the early dawn light
pink like sadness.

An empty cigarette box
and the crisp leaves
puddling round my feet
in tawny auburns and 
dead shades of brown.
What came in the season's change?

A swift cracking along a fault line
the pushing and pulling
of the pieces inside me,
wedged against my ribcage
and lodged deep in my torso.

A trembling in my newly gloved hands
and my feet are too small
in their boots
it came as no surprise that
as everything died
a great shift rocked
my body,
and put my soul somewhere else
for the winter months
to come.

Edith

Rice cooks on the back burner
and the space
smells homey
and warm.
The common room
of the freshman dorm,
in the kitchenette
Edith
cooks.

Peppers bisected and
verdant, she slices
white onion quickly
and everyone watches
in a quiet way
as she makes
"just rice and some sauce"

Bright music plays
off the countertop
with words I can't speak,
words they don't teach here. 
In her palm Edith balls up
a bit of rice,
dances and eats.

It is Ghanian tunes
she plays,
and then Nigerian.
She comes from 
Africa. 

Edith plays the songs
and cooks the rice
and I watch her behind 
my book, she 
is an opal jewel
with a plantain-sweet 
smile.