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.