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.

Arsonist

But maybe,
she decided, looking east
down the road,
it was for the best.

No bus lurched forward
at the given time,
no cars came,
her suitcase stood heavily
by her legs,
a guard dog against
going home again.

The corn swished and clicked
its tongue at her,
silly girl
silly girl
the rustling whispered
as the sun trailed off to
some faraway place.
Leaving her by the dusty 
road to wait
or go,
to die
or fly.

And so it was made 
by the gods of fate
a car swooped by in 
the wee hours of night,
the stars still blinking awake,
and she climbed inside 
fearless,
on her face at least,
as the car bumped
her stomach along 
like hospital cafeteria jell-o.

A gone, gone girl.
As the fireflies smashed
against the windshield,
and left their glow for
a moment more,
before they were 
gone, gone too.

Before the corn 
could say
good-bye
silly girl,
little one
without a home.

Before the smoke
could sting her eyes
again, as the ashes
of her old life drifted down
like dust motes
on the wind.

Madam

The heart of the matter
is that she danced
on tabletops for
you.
Bent her body
like she had double
the vertebrae.
Swung around her
perfumed hair for 
you.

The light at the
end of this tunnel 
might be a train 
for you.
For her sake,
I hope it hits you
hard, but not hard 
enough for 
painless death.

She walked with
pretty brown feet
clad with golden anklets,
she kissed mustached
men for you.

You laid a hand down
on the acid you kept
like a sleeping snake,
and the soaps
rolled on on the
next room.

You said,
don't you dare jump.

Like a bird with clipped wings
she was kept in your pretty
cage
with the many white balconies,
from which the girls
waved and shook their hips
after dark.

Where the rupee notes went
they never asked.
Your hand was enough to 
dissuade them. And the little parlor
was crowded with men in the night,
whose pockets leaked coins and notes,
and she wanted one to say

you are beautiful,
come home with me.

One to be gentle, and leave 
her in peace,
but none did.

And how you came to selling skin,
no one is sure,
but they know you by the expensive
red polish on your acrylic nails.
By the way your pocketbook bulges 
as you shop.

As your girls eat cheap take-out kebabs
and chew pilfered paan to ease 
the soft stabs and forget this place for a moment,
before the soaps whisk them away.

She wants just one to stop before ripping
away her sari, one to say,

oh but your skin, so soft.
and smother her with small kisses.
But none do.

The story of one girl hanging by the ceiling fan,
another, she still lives in the house,
disfigured by the elusive acid. 
Her face melted and cold.

It comes as no surprise 
that you owe her lakhs of rupees,
that her family thinks she is dead,

but the heart of the matter is
that she is silent, and sways her body
for you.

Rural

Just as the wind died down,
blowing the last sun-stained
clouds out of sight,
we dribbled the dimpled
ball across the loose gravel
playing a game of p-i-g
pig. 

You elbowed my side,
knocked me to the rocks
and scuffed my knees
and forearms.
Never a word passed your lips
as I wiped my arms on 
your old sweaty shirt
I wore loosely over my 
dirty cut-offs.

I aimed the dusty ball at your face
and missed by a mile
it rolled into the 
weeping field next door,
littered with
beer cans and rusted-out cars.
I hoped you would dig for 
that old ball for hours,
hoped you'd skin yourself
up and get lock-jaw, maybe.

I turned before you
could hit me again and
rain into the crackerbox house
to pour alcohol on the 
gritty spots that bled.

Holding my breath
as it strung its way into
a pink swirl in the bathtub,
knowing mother was a sleep
in the cool dark bedroom
and knowing you'd take the truck
-I could here it rattle away-
to buy more beer to
throw away can by empty can
into the tall grass
to maybe grow yourself
a way out.

Smoke, Mirrors.

Sitting across from
a reflection 
at a bright 
and dingy 
mexican place.

The wood paneling
casts funny shadows,
and I want to say
I told my shrink 
about you.

Instead we smile over cokes
and read the menu board
aloud in bad accents.

I want to say
you don't exist 
to me anymore.

You are wisps
of shadow and 
steam
like the
empty red basket
on the table,
misaligned parchment,
a thin layer of grease.

You are the wedged
piece of
chip in my gums,
waiting for tacos.

I want to say
I can see 
through you,
you are not
here.

Winter Hands

Please crawl under my skin again,
burrow in,
the winter's coming.
It's time to take off
the corn and
shorn the fields
of their wheat.

Let your hair fall down
like the dry, crunching leaves,
fall into me,
please. 

Soon the days will
be short,
grey like
the sea and
the sea will be angry
with cold and exhaustion.
Your eyes
rove endlessly
in the coming time,
you see the small future

bleak on the horizon,
I beg you,
come home and I
can be a blanket.
I will open my 
arms to you,
a homemade afgan
to drape across your
thinning shoulders.

Sitting by the window
we look out over the
dull sands,
wanting to pull on
our slick wellies
and venture out.

The wind drives our door
closed,
and I hold you, with
your forlorn eyes,
against my own warm body,
hoping to pull you
back to this life,
to keep your heart
thumping softly next to mine.

In Bloom

I water the plants
along the windowsill,
a sickly green thyme plant,
bamboo and a
cactus with a red flower.

The cactus will die soon,
and I reach my fingers
out to brush the spines,
and my reflection in the glass
looks sad.

My mother once had a 
greenhouse,
and tended it in big sweaters
in January.
Her cacti grew
tall and thin,
higher than my tiny
form.
I remember holding my hand to
its stalk,
wanting for the sweet-smelling
flowers it would bloom out
in the dog days of summer.

A ruddy hand covered in porcupine
like quills. And I sat on the closed toilet
lid while my mother picked each spine out
with tweezers,
and I cried as she cooed
and told me that sometimes what
we love can hurt us.

I put my finger to the dying cactus
in my windowsill.
The quick pulse of pain
numbs slowly,
and I know now,
as your car pulls into the drive,
what we love,
can sometimes hurt us.

Twin Peaks Juxtaposition

I want to climb like
wisteria
into your arms,

because my friend
was on a bedroom floor
with Twin Peaks in the
background,

her hands on a boy's
chest, her hair in her face,
the mid afternoon
heat slanted into
the space.

I was folding towels
and dreaming
of pushing you against
the wall of silver washers
and kissing you deep.

Because a friend 
sends photographs
of herself
into compromising situations.
And we conference
on the shapes and
sizes she gets
in response.

I was driving too fast
on my way home
with all the windows down,
the wind roaring to deafen
my overactive mind-
imagining you with
girls hanging off of your arms. 

My friend, bare-chested
made eyes with a boy
while I just hung on
typed words that
didn't have what I needed.

She kissed neck and
jawbone
and I am waiting for 
someone to come home,
waiting with false hope
for more than holding.

Because you make me 
feel safe
even when I drive sixty over
hills,
even when you're miles away,
even when my friend
is rolling around in the hot
afternoon.

Boys

There are the cute, lank 
lifeguards at work,
but they aren't the kind
I want to push against the
washers and run my hands over.

There are the boys with nimble
fingers who bag my groceries,
but their strong hands aren't 
the ones I want to hold.

There are the boys in passing
with curious smiles and heads
bent downwards, but they 
aren't the ones whose eyes
I want mine to lock with.

There are the boys who 
come to go swimming and are
polite and tanned, but I don't say
anything special to them,
they aren't the ones I use my
words for.

I save precious words
and break yearning glances,
I shake off the feeling,
the need to be held.
I sleep alone
with a cold side
to my right,
the empty dark
space where someone
might be someday,
someday.

I wring my hands
with nerves abound
at the sea
of boys who aren't you.
The softness of their faces
and their kind voices
fall flat at my feet
with hollow, thudding noises
to be hidden by a heartbeat.

There are boys with 
pretty faces and long eyelashes,
toned arms and laughs like
wind chimes,
but I don't want to stargaze with them,
I don't want them to laugh next to me
at the cinema.

I am spoiled by the yellow-lemon hope
and her hardness in life
and the cold space in my bed.
As I wait with ashen face
and tired eyes
for something like you.

The Squid & the Whale

He went to that museum
you know the one,
to see the to-scale
diorama of the 
Squid and the Whale.
Locked in an eternal
and dusty battle.
And he stood,
leaning a little
off his left leg,
into the railing
to see this
two-story
marvel.

He took the train 
and walked three blocks
and he'd never seen this before.
It reminded him of
the way his girlfriend
liked to pick fights.

She would wiggle her hips
and sass him,
in the living room
on the bus,
at dinner
at their favorite
Thai place.

She would say something-
one tentacle.
And suddenly
he was the slow
whale,
strangled by tentacles
and staring
deeply
into that one black eye.
It was glossy.

No,
no,
he told himself,
a little toss of his head.
That was the hangover.
This diorama was
not like his relationship.

It was his parents'
relationship
encapsulated by the
struggle. The need to breathe
and the whale's barnacled
belly and his soft pleading
eyes, small in such a great face.

He stood with his eyes closed now,
and felt the whoosh of a deep ocean
current and the salty, wet touch of
a tentacle.
He would have to turn around
and take the train home,
after walking the three blocks again
in reverse.

Was this true?
This hulking piece of
museum exhibition?
Why did he feel
suddenly plunged into the sea
otherwise?
Why would he feel tentacle
and see his girlfriend's clenched fists
if this wasn't true?

He fumbled for a wallet,
hands slick with sweat- saltwater
all over.
A photo a face
of a woman smiling
but the grip of suction cups on his throat
as the photograph

fell over the railing,
brushing against the side
of the hulking whale
entangled with the
orange glossy squid.

Pretty Girl Distance

I have a problem with the distance.
The 4 steps from the bed 
to the door
is ok.

But the calculated miles
that I can't walk with quiet
footfalls
are not.

The idea of foreign parties
and pretty girls I've never seen
wrenches my insides
like a quick bullet.

The land of approximately 
one-thousand lakes
is a far, low cry
from my golden plains,
rolling suburbs.
I would like very much
to reach across
the many squares
of farm fields,
and the many grazing cows
and poke you in the shoulder,
don't you
dare
forget about me,
I'd like to say.

I imagine the letters
I'll send you.
Buy new stationary,
a blue pen 
and practice my penmanship
so my pretty alphabits
will keep you close to me,
I will nestle you up into
the curve of a q
or a g.

All the many miles
and feet and inches
for maybe nothing at all.
Maybe I didn't feel it right,
maybe you didn't say the nice things
and I am a walking illusion.

Perhaps the pretty lake country
will change you,
or the hot Ohio summer
will change me.

Perhaps winter will come and
we'll meet in the snowflakes
and you'll tell me there
weren't even any pretty girls
at all.