where would you put
yourself in the world? 
come to understand 
that name  - 
a woman who makes 
it happen
by holding a mirror 
to her hip

LET’S GET LOST

old stories about Chet
Pannonica in her benz
your heritage food is popcorn
mine’s potatoes i dive for them
in the garden soup 
shower in salt mash with oil
i’m never bored
posing for photos
bones that catch the 
romantic light
charisma pastis
imagination is funny
when i was younger
there was always someone
to drive me to the show 
black rain, still my city 
what about all the affairs 
no one ever finds out about
are they still wrong?
sometimes guilt feels like a 
bound bird inside you, 
other times it’s the missing accent
to the stew
bare mattress wine in a 
camping cup
we cared for each other
good at getting lost 
cozy with the
sympathy con
pretty in glasses 
soft voice like 
warm milk 
like heroin 
a woman’s neck
beautiful unbreakable
bamboo stalk
everytime we say goodbye
people really go through hell
and there’s nothing
finer

SCRAP

we stepped over the resting branches
emergency orange garlands
like beaded curtains
to dave’s fire in the woods
i stepped into the field dip
where the snow makes 
pressed wreath baskets 
how does the actress feel
pretending to step into the unknown
that unknown too of the actress 
stepping into the acted where 
the rush of the freeway
and wind are not siftable?
where your heart closes its doors?
moon for the go around goes
that our children may 
be born

ALCHEMY

dad goes on about Bach and what came before 
Bach’s little hand reaching through the manuscript cage 
that kept safe the directions for what notes
you could or could not play  for god
strange beauty willing its way
basements of the old world, lightless dank
to tune out earth’s nuisance energies stomping above 
tinkering towards times other minds
or just same old  hunger to
domino slinky rude goldberg orchestrate
eventually the brick drops on the toothpaste
praise be something ejects
but are you still in the earth in a box
in the the body of the earth? 
can’t build a womb but can try 
can’t be a worm but can try 
dig a hole, at least, cover with plywood 
and mulch to camouflage 
hope no one falls in while 
you’re at it down there  
moist deep dampening the electric 
curse work bombardment
tuning in tuning in
so much attunement makes it 
harder to blend
metals and planets
solvent solving hunger 
desire that leaps like fire,
something lead a thirst 
for sifting and fitting together 
but at some point they stopped making
that music for god and started making
music that sounds like her herself
because you can’t help what overtaketh you 
magenta dragon on the shelf that
the collapsing man picks up then returns
trades for a wooden carousel, a grecian vase 
spirit breath bringing matter down down down
like objects might drop and birth back
a modern dust, what's left, ash mounds
symbols flat like process disguised
uncle phil’s cross and star of david and ET emblem 
hanging on a chain from the bathroom mirror 
corner of the murphy bed tucked back halfway
his body transformed to soot in portioned
ziplock bags in a little hello kitty lunch boxes
we each got one, stood in the wind 
wondering how to responsibly release 
so he could be absorbed 

ALL THINGS MUST COOL

collapse in the walk-in when 
lately my veins are so with me
get in this way, chemicals leading
by the drawstring
i said it’s ok for people 
to be disappointing you,
its ok to be disappointed in people 
like your therapist also said 
and we let the tears fall and were turtles
after being at kitchen war for months 
i don't know, it feels like there is too much 
to leave here, and not enough to make me stay 
“make me stay” pleading like a supremes song
nothing makes me, that i know, i am made 
of some things, nothing, no one thing
but not made to
though i do spawn devotion that 
lifts boxes while whistling 
tremolo small talk
through the otherwise crushing
gridlock
wake up with death in my chest
either i’m dying or i'm connected to 
everything that is
modernity escape room but also just 
valentines turning tea colored
in the sun
it's always both
we put a lamp on the table 
and now the room is warm enough 
for sitting 
anna and i pass a space heater 
across the hall
the clouds make an ocean
on the fence 
go now to find the buds on the branches 
at the little beachlet where the other woman
is also doing something secret
walk by ben's house admire how 
the spray paint on his previa 
looks like wildflowers
the best part is the breath my bloods gets 
when it has to move and the best part 
is when my brother is happy and the best part
is when we hug and i don't think
and the best part is the low voice
handfuls at the roots
and the best part is there is 
no recipe

POEM A DAY

i don’t know guys
i ran into soph at the grocery store
a place where i’m always avoiding everyone
what was i doing? i was getting food my dad had
texted me to get i was in a spiral of doing 
everything but poems, or sewing, or feeling the air
lately i know i am unfriendly with anything i want to do
have to make it something i have to do to do it
soph and i drifted toward each other
by the potatoes or citrus
and said we felt like we’d been hanging out
we haven't but here we have been on blogspot
despite the radiating hellscape i hate saying hellscape
why did i say that i want to be the furthest distance 
into the mountains from being that
already two rentals have demanded my
pre-determined sign removal
no judgment all the judgment in the world unfounded
will we laugh one day will we find
things from now beautiful after all?
of course we will this narcissism is literally
liter-olly my dead friend Pearson would say on
a manic spree, he was also Ashley eventually 
but then later not and everytime i say the other name-pronoun 
i wonder what is right-wrong i will never know
he and she are dead but he loved me and she  
had love for me Ashley Pearson was found naked
with her clothes on fire climbing up a telephone poll
in Oakland, at the time i could not handle did not
know but now i can call it beautiful, so maybe that’s
the metric like how her love letters made me feel 
like i was choking I sob smeared his charcoal portrait 
dutifully i tried to mend the smudges 
when he asked for it back for a college portfolio
glad to begone my shaded curse face frozen
though now somehow i cherish whatever papers remain
don’t want death to be the thing that makes
possible, it isn't and is, plays its part
the death space opens
i don't know guys, it's not up to me to figure out
though lord knows i will always try
that’s my signature move
on a whim i said my new years resolution was
“indulgence + diligence”
like a jane austen novel my knowing brutal
coworker said, more like a perfume they would sell 
at tj maxx, which is not a place that sells things
but rather a place that sells things
that didn't sell
cursive pastoral harkening 
ampersand austen, i can see it now
Pearson told me to take myself more seriously
and there is some erosion i feel some days
that may be getting me there
the landslide involves not being serious, also
and a poem clock calendar, and an expensive bag
of co-op kumquats eaten mostly in the aisles
avatar confessions making the month holy
against all odds, like carrying a camera around
i always say, anything could be a photo
to give these eyes the rest the taste
that they’ve been blinking for

I HAVE

i have the candles i have the beverage
i have the living song 
the bells and the crescendo
the walk and the bath
the wave in my hair
the memories streaming and 
the memories mute
i have the light
and the assurance, while it lasts
i have the living song!
and the body brains all over 
and the people who know them some 
have gone to battle against them
within them and beside me 
i have the temporary peace 
pregnant and cool
i have the ascension
and the patience, while it lasts
to merge
i have the possibility of entering
the creeping indigo
and the imprints of the others
and the lovers
the spies the keepers 
that cling this weave
seasoned so i
can have it