the dead just keep being dead
and Sharon, blue like Rama
a flame in a tango dress
smiles in and out
of our minds
her seductive manner
the pony she rode
in Turkey as a child
jewels and boys stolen
from her only daughter
a drink on the dock
in Tennessee
those sapphire eyes
glint across these broken
hearts these multi-exposed
hearts bleeding so long
for PT
my friend has turned
canary yellow
a fragile whisper
I hang rose quartz around
her neck, pop malted milk balls
into our mouths
across the years this cactus grower
psychic suggested a bone knife
to YES paste collected imagery
a rubber roller to Modge Podge over
collage on a plexiglass
plate and gifted me the lilt of her laugh
metallic Mardi Gras beads
dangle in her stamped photos as we sipped
homemade pear and anise liqueurs
here, behind the plaid curtain
I tape an abstract post-card
to the metal arm of her bed
slip a pillow under her gaunt knees
find a cup for the jasmine I’ve stolen
to brighten this hospice corner
colloquialisms don’t go over well
talk to you later and the forlorn all
sit on a stoop waiting for their non-
emergent mothers in station wagons
devouring time like an overripe plum
forced to stagnate until at least eleven
not even clear on adulthood and the ensuing
responsibility of a bike ride around Oregon
maybe a phone call since we’re heading for an
even denser clod this year but nothing so convenient
as proximity can ease the mad clatter of obsession
that mars the night sky with it’s endless refrain look
look look and into the dark we stare willingly as if
some brightness would catch hold to startle us out of
this chosen fugue state and a tight clique of stars
shelters a big surprise none of us believe in anymore
hesitancy about honesty inhibits necessary motion
a flicker of rose candle in the childhood corner proposes
faith that baneful endings can have a toxic effect which
would wreck the vision of a real balcony scene replete with
ripe kiwi and silk garments something akin to forever but
without the emphasis on death or even passion as these are
remnants of someone else’s nightmare and not the true colors
deemed relevant if pursuit and soft skin can tolerate so long
before Super Bowl
or awaited rain
while desire lingered in a liminal
zone of tired out
arms of the bedside lights
folded against their crimson wall
cat curled into the curve
of knee and comforter
his snores broke the wavey
barrier of rest
that drop-off stretch
where consciousness swirls
into dreamscape a glimpse
of masks hovers near
familiar stairway just out
of reach in a shimmery pool
where French might arise
or wakefulness suddenly
disrupt the journey inward
then the windows are too
bright and the glitch of apnea
breaths irksome there is
no good spot for cat or arm
and mouthguard clenched does
not soothe nothing there
in the dark of wakeful nothing
but desire left over from over
tired resistance
and wish for merge
swish of electric brain wash
to switch mind into dream mode
and leave thought behind
I traipse through this slow
fastidious period, fibrous
and lobular, with no known cause
too stiff to split or arch
all the way behind me
too cautious to kick
box or wrestle an oiled body
into a homo-erotic clutch
sometimes, while glancing
toward the layers of my own
collage, a pang of futility
wedges between glue
and yellow formica table
then, reminded of the fleet
passage here, I lean forward
and slightly left, cross my limbs
tilt gently to one side, and smear
“YES” paste on the back of an opaque
doorway, glue a blue flower
below a small pink rose
Into my childhood room,
pink gingham, flowers and ruffles,
the moon shone, the street lamp glowed.
In those early days, the light felt mine,
felt honest, felt somewhere possible.
It peered into the double paned windows,
beamed onto street, fire hydrant, driveway.
That light was a smiling light, a familiar light,
a night glow. Its after dark shine streamed
warm into my eyes as I drifted toward dream.
Later, the moon and I waxed
and waned together. We synchronized.
My bloated emotions swelled
under the moon’s growing round
expanded with the increasing circumference.
And when I bled, the moon began to ebb.
It took until my late 20‘s to calculate my cycles
with the lunar cycles. I could feel the expansion
of my waters, the rising tides of emotional intensity,
the eruptive drama of full-moon. And then the wane,
in a sweet mellowing from crazy wrath to peaceful joy,
from extreme distraught
to mellow pleasure, my middle years
swelled and flowed with moonlight.
Now, as the wane of hormones circles
into longer cycles, as my ovaries
sputter and decline surge, I ride
a more even keel from one moon to the next
still note magnetic pull
as moon fits its light into darkness,
and appreciate the white-beam power
But my body does not respond in literal assent.
I have stepped to the sidelines of luminescent
dominion to more objective light.
A glimmer within.
a blip on the meninges
sends her into dark
spinal frenzy
she can hardly twist
to look over
the shoulder
of this road
where bluffs erode
into a cacophonous sea
so many birds
lift in unison
caw as they pass
swoop through
the deafening spray
she determines the ligaments
where inflammation
could mean growth
holds tight to the perverse
possibility that stiffness
might serve her better
than accommodation has
might help her build
fire walls to guard
against the tides
slammed against
the edges of this land
the injury to her hyoid
bone caused a constant
choke hold
she’d swallow as if
the cherry pit she felt
were natural
as if the strangle hold
were a phantom limb
extracted from her neck
and swallowed
the fear lodged itself
in her omohyoid
and her shoulders
pulled forward
chin jutted
still, over the brambled years
she could imagine him
slamming his body
toward her soft palette
the viscous saltiness
thick on the back
of her throat
she rarely cried out after that
but swallowed her pain
and shouldered
insistent shoves
relentless demands
hands pushing her
head down
hands clouding
like a softly drugged
mind-set, the open
channel she vaguely
remembered
on her crown
into the mirror she alters
perspective in order
to salvage some coherence
amidst the whirl
of myriad personas
anger is her 3rd rail
a dangerous electricity
inhabits her low back
afternoon reflects her outline
a suspect genealogy
someone of partial remembrance
a bony contour
a hand-me-down clock
the leotard her body danced
she exchanges herself with time
emerges partial
to her own integration