ice box plums.

This is just to say
That I threw your zippo in the Winooski River today:
The one you said your father used
In his coast guard days
When I heard the sharp words
That fell off of your tongue
In talking about me.

And if I had stolen your stuffed fox
like you think I did
I would have burned it's fucking nose off
And spit on it
And sent that down the river too.

I have never done a mean thing to you
In my life.
This is just to say that I regret that.

deringer, like the pistol.

for the purposes of clarity
and transparency
(which mean the same thing, when speaking of water,
but are different enough to list,
when speaking of words between lovers)

...so for those purposes, and so that we
can be in agreement about the kind of life this will be
i tell you this --
the moment I knew for sure
that you were the man I would grow old with
was across a table at biscuit world in west virginia
me wearing your giant wool hat, with my feet in your lap
and a strange meat platter in front of me
i was woozy, you were tired, and still we were grinning.

with a little biscuit in your mouth you said,
darlin, you're beautiful.
do you want to go to the taxidermy shop?

and if there had been a ring hidden
inside of my square hash browns
it would have been a done deal.

penniless.

...And isn't it lovely,
for once,
to have no desire for anything
but the ground beneath you
and the sun rays that lick at your shoulders
as you ride a borrowed motorcycle
down a long, empty road
and into fall's arms
spread wide, like a promise
that it won't get too cold this winter
and even if it does,
you know you can handle it, now.

A new name for everything.

It's in being cross-legged,
still,
that I find where I have changed.
The act of being here being enough.
The tracing of my own fingers
on my own skin
in my own home
on my own terms.
My own new reality
That I expand every day --
And contract to squeeze out those things
That don't seem to fit.
It's in the careful decisions,
the knowing.

I know things, it turns out.

Got more faults than the state of California, and the heart is a badly built bridge.

Last night, with the lovely Breeze of Earl's wake
Whipping my hair around at 3am
I perched, clawfooted on the fire escape
of my very own Birdhouse.
I held my dress to my knees with my elbows,
smoked, determinately, resolutely even.

My new neighbor, the tabby cat
Climbed up all 14 steps to tell me
in no uncertain terms:
It is not until you do to someone else
What someone has done to you
That you realize who you are, and who they are.
What we are all made of, and what color it is, what texture.
"And then", he said,
Wrapping his pipecleaner tail around my waist as he began his descent:
"And then, you have a decision to make."

I would have let him in to stay the night-
To keep me company as I remember myself.
But i'm allergic to cats, and anyway,
he was a little cocky.
So I'll get a dog.

Living alone in an attic
Has it's advantages.
The sun is so intentional about where it lands-
The perfect place to live
For someone who loves to draw conclusions.

rock the vote.

Having been deployed for some distant war
for some time now,
I feel cinematic, in my re-appearance on the horizon.
all blaze and smoke and colored haze
uniform (same dress, every day, a ragdoll costume)
soldiering for something unclear, foggy.
Fighting tooth and nail for freedom by day,
stubbornly and bravely,
and then nightly, tying my own binds
out of fear of moonlight mutiny.

My absentee-ballot, unfortunately, seems to have been lost,
and I haven't updated my address since I left the floodzone,
so I'll do that now.
And I'll take back my voice, my vote.
And I'll make some decisions.
Most of all I won't dwell on battlescars.
I will not submit to regret for lives lost,
it was all in the name of Freedom, after all.

((so you too, take up your sword.
Let's join forces with the foxes,
and read poetry as prayer,
and say thank you, thank you,
thank you to objects
that may not even breathe. -avm))

Aged glue should be an official color. I'm writing to my congressman. (Who makes those decisions?)

in a dream last night
the steering wheel of my car came off.
underneath, it was revealed to be sealed only with a dab of hot glue
which had yellowed, hardened, become like resin-
A place for insect skeletons.
i gave up on the car, and all of my belongings
followed a long trail of powerlines down a flat, long highway in the desert.
how did i get to the desert?

when I woke
still in a state of sleeplogic
I rolled over to my side,
pulled a pillow in to rest between elbows and ribs
and laughed at how simple the answer was:
shoulda just licked the glue, stuck it back on.

Who cares what you ate for breakfast, anyway? (melon)

The narrative of communication
Has become embarrassingly straight forward
And what room is there for metaphor?
For romance?
When we check in with everyone so frequently that there is no longing
Or deprivation of information
That creates desire?

Sometimes I think Best has it right
When she falls off of the map
For weeks at a time
Leaving a trail of question marks bouncing in her wake -
reigniting the idea of intrigue.
We are becoming creatures who want to know everything.
And once we do, what else will there be to learn?
How much time do we have to evolve,
really,
If we spend so much of it reporting where we are at?

A story:
I have never been good at balance, I know this.
An office job I held for three years (with two slippery fingers, by the end of it)
Asked for frequent reports of progress
And this, eventually was enough reason to leave
Because how can I move forward
And also tell you where I am going?
I know it's possible - I know.
But maybe not for me?

And are we still lovable, with nothing left to learn about us?

So many relationships begin
With the phrase:
"I'd like to get to know you better"
And then, there comes a point
Where we know each other too well.

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars.

A dear friend lost a child today.

Full term, unexpected.

My ears echo with a terrible, tearing sound.

I found out while driving, stomach sunk.

Dropped into my boots, made the gas pedal heavy.

What is there to say?

And so we try to glean lessons of life and love

From all things, don't we?

And the lesson I glean today,

Or at least try to, with clenched jaw, watery eyes, pitted stomach,

Is that the entire world is a big, complicated ball of happenings

Beautiful and terrible,

Shining, gaping, everything in between.

And we are all trying to hold it in our hands.

And we need help.

And shit, that's okay.

Now.

Now, would be the appropriate time to say something is missing.

"Something is missing."

a tilted tide.

"It was then that Tristan came into the quiet heart of his life.
The bear inside him was sleeping.
It is hard to tell of happiness.
Time goes by and we feel safe too soon."  - Legends of the Fall

I am, for the moment, wordless.
And so I borrow the words of others.
The words that ring in my head,
Get stuck, like songs.
And just as I wonder about the idea of silence
And not communicating
I get a message from Best,
And she asks for words from a book I have taken with me,
Words that I read aloud in a bathtub in low light two evenings ago,
And they are these. And they are perfect:

You came one day and
as usual in such matters
significance filled everything--
your eyes, the things you
knew, the way you turned,
leaned, stood, or sat
this way or that: when
you left, the area around here rose
a tilted tide, and everything that
offers desolation drained away.

-a.r. ammons

Oh no malice does exist, in these words I am now writing.

Tomato plants smell so good
Of summer and green and newness -

Funny, how something can smell untouched.

I thought about that in harvest today
Concentrated on my simple task

((Pluck what's ripe
Or almost ripe, almost ready
Remove the crown
Sort for quality
Count what you have.))

So I didn't have to think about what it means
To be poisonous.
Like the tomato leaf
That smells so good
But attacks the body, if ingested.

But seriously guys.

The other day I felt a baby calf
Inside of it's mama
A hoof, really,
Wedged inside, beneath breath, short hairs, skin, muscle, fat, layers
Twisting a little, uncomfortable in it's small world
So quickly, we outgrow what we're made of.

And I had to put my sunglasses on
To hide wet eyes from my students
After I put Mechiah's hand on the cow's side, pushed it firmly
So she could feel it too.
And as she walked away, I heard her remark to a friend
"It's crazy, I watched my mom be pregnant..."

It's those connections that get me every time
The ones I try to build in my own mind and heart
But don't need to, because goddamn, they're already there.
Those connections that go:
grass to sole
to sock to foot to ankle to...
Stronger shoulders, clearer mind,
Open heart.

So you know.

This morning, you said that my body radiates warmth

Which is a rather nice thing to say, if you ask me.

Out loud I blamed my ethnicity,

With my back on the bed and my feet up in the air.

I hang everything I'm secretly proud of on the vowels at the end of my name.

You caught my feet in the air, laughed.

But quietly, in the bathroom mirror,

Before we left that room for the last time

I smoothed my curls with my fingers

And considered where that warmth really might be from...

How cold Northern California will be.

And when you commented on the deceptive breeze

Blowing with pursed lips over the bay in Baltimore

About how it hid the warmth with it's movement...

I considered that, too.

This is about too many things at once.

Once, in a bout of complete unprofessionalism

I gave a thousand dollar prize

To a liquid-eyed native american woman at a craft show

Not because her work was best, at all, really.

But because she put her hand on my arm as she spoke to me

Of fox tails and raccoon bones, of softened deer hide.

And when she handed me a pouch of stones and a turkey feather,

she explained that whatever stones might be in that pouch,

And she didn't know-

Those were my stones -

I didn't really understand what she meant, but it was beautiful.

And I love things that I don't understand

That are beautiful.

Now that pouch hangs on my rearview mirror,

Holding onto things I don't dare touch,

But can't let go of -

Just yet, anyway.

And I'm thinking that when the time is right,

when I'm in the middle of the country, on my way to California

To start something new -

I will open all of the windows, untie the pouch,

let the wind toss it around, sunroof open.

And when it's done,

all that will be left will be the stones at the bottom.

My stones.

For now I'll dig my hands into earth,

Become grounded.

Submerge myself in water, and be buoyant, naked.

I'll wait for wind.

But the fire, I'll put that aside for now.

I'm putting it somewhere for safe keeping, because I'll want it someday, I know.

But it was out of flint anyway,

And thank god I'm not.

For a second there, I thought I was.

Scroll down.

There's a picture of us on Halloween
The night we sailed three hours down the river.
Triple-fisting drinks, until I couldn't stand in my heels, laughing, dancing,
Threatening to hold hands and jump off of the back of the boat together,
Find some new world under the water to exist in.
Where half-baked, hair-brain ideas were currency,
We would be king and queen - invest in barnacles, plankton.
Jacqueline Cousteau, you said. You were jealous of my name.
On the bus ride back we stuck our heads out the window
Shared a wet, limp cigarette, and each drag was a toast -
Because at that moment, our city was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen.
And so we had Eliot drive us to the river, we ran!
Jumped in with our costumes on, and the river claimed my hat.
We spent hours dancing, soaking wet at the same bar I would later lose you at,
When you were so drunk that you fell asleep between cars.
(The night you told me I saved your life as I dragged you into bed).
But I digress (always).

Back to the photograph.


It was Richmond in October,
And you can tell in the picture that it was still hot
Our skin rosy, glistening, both of our costumes over the top,
Restrictive.
What I notice most about the photograph is our hands.
How tight our grips are: yours around my shoulder, mine your waist -
As if letting go would have meant falling.
And it would have.
We needed each other then.
This is, of course, a metaphor, (isn't everything?)
For the six months we spent separating from each other.
Grasping onto mirrors of ourselves,
Until we realized that parts of the reflection were missing.
Large, important sections: the left side of your face, my ribs...
Your heart, my head. That's right, isn't it?

Once more, from the crows nest.

In the Catacombs of London
One is afforded the opportunity
To walk, single file.
To visit with the bones of the dead,
To smell the absence of flesh,
To see what is left,
To examine themselves, upon exit:
What do I have, that they don't?
Plans.
What do they have, that I don't?
Freedom.

I will be accepting visitors
Single file
In this tomb tonight
The last night that it belongs to me
And in the morning, with holes freshly spackled,
Walls scrubbed,
I will hand over my keys,
And with everything I own stuffed into my rickety station wagon
I will forget everything I lost here-
Everything.
You forgot what I lost not moments after I told you.
So I realize, finally,
I'm allowed to forget, too.

C+ -- Watch your spelling. See me.

There are many choices
Offered grammatically to us
In the punctuation of endings:
An ellipses begs us to wait
A comma takes only a breath of rest
Before continuing forward, making lists, categorizing
Drawing conclusions.
A semi-colon binds the unrelated, creates relationships
In it's forward motion-- asks us to consider connectivity.

The period, though.
That's a different story.
It gives us permission
To think about something new.

.

An ending as a chance to let something else live?

Spirit animal.

It makes sense, that it's the crow.
All wind and darkness and flapping like beating hearts
Stiff, velvet feathers swatting at the insides of my rib cage.

At the heart of me, I imagine, there is a water tower-
A nest.
And me, afraid of heights, but too stubborn to tell anyone
When the time comes to be brave.