January 12th, 2015


Waterfall, Torres, 2013

this thick thing, how the walls are painted with undiscovered masterpieces - what a fortune I would make if I could unfurl it and dry it and hang it

Beginning again takes many tries sometimes

When you've nowhere to go but down there are at least
things to remember

What we do in cars
private but visible
and how this changes
the space in which it happens
a parking lot full of tears
a parking space full of your skin
or his, shed in words
as ever closer you leaned
into the fiery center of each other
until you burned up

and this is not a thing
anyone can come back from

our first consumption must happen
before our first birth

I didn't think I'd be born so late

But I am always doing things late
I am always late to bed and late
to social engagements
and late to say I'm sorry

and I'm trying to change this

I'm sorry

I have painted my own face enough to recognize
its angles in the window when I turn to stretch
my neck so that there is no longer a surprise
in encountering myself for the first time.

I am here now. This is happening. 

It will be a long night.

It will be a night hung with dreams
I began before

(was it earlier today or earlier in life? Was
it in the womb I dreamt I was a cabin boy
sailing a raging sea, tasting rum in secret
amid the damp wood and sloshing water
of the bilge - and someone will say 'you
wouldn't have been drinking rum in the bilge'
but I was, I swear I was - was it when I was five
that I dreamed I loved? Was it yesterday
or 10 years ago that I started writing a book
about women warriors?)

It will be cold
and I will shiver and never
really sleep,
but this half sleeping
will help me remember
the new dreams

and I will listen to this song
as many times as I have to to break
through this thick chrysalis

and when I do, I will bat my eyelashes
rapidly to dry them.

Perhaps by then my eyes will
have cleared of tears.

Goodbye my dear,
goodbye my dear.

______________________________________

January 7th, 2015


Silentinium , Arvo Part, 1998

small things slip by me.

I feel their breath.

If I set them down here,
maybe they will no longer be mine.

It was hot everywhere
the dance floor was slick with sweat
I walked through the crowd to find
the bathroom and hands - almost
disembodied - reached.
I turned a corner and he grabbed me
I looked at his hand on my wrist
and then into his face. I did not move.
He looked away, let go, and was gone.
My eyes took back their talons
when I looked in the mirror,
softening to my sleepy self in black
lace who wished only to be home.

In the same way my hair must have
stood on end even under the sweat of his
hand, I feel oceans rise to my throat
when I think of waking up at the trail
head, crumpled in the front seat of my
car, my hair in my eyes, my contacts
like stones scraping my muddy irises
blackened with self-loathing,
because I had been out all night
and didn't want to worry my mother
by going home at 4.

These are hard stories to tell.
They curdle the stomach. 

I have not yet thrown up enough to purge
those nights from my body, but that
isn't how it works anyway, He says.

This is not a good poem yet.

This is all just practice.

I cannot wait for the next thing.

I am a petrified log with many stories.

I have nothing more to say to you.

Have grace, she whispers, for all younger 
selves. 

I will try. I will try.