failure

winter is one long month
that eats all of the vegetables
gets healthier and healthier
while the deer
and stray rabbits
pretend to enjoy winter sports
and secretly starve
for lack of margherita pizzas
with spinach and mushroom
house salads with
blue cheese dressing
omelettes, quiches
carrot cakes;
all of us, the little mice and
big big moose feeling our hearts
slow down slowly
barely perceptibly
until we wonder if we are the
hibernating type or if we are just dying
from the outside in, like glaciers
we go on wondering this
dreaming of precious nibbles
until the last surviving critter
wakes up suddenly
to find that winter is gone
it has died of gluttony

bluejay

the melt of spring
brings to mind
a reverse-journey
our autumn tumble
all of our love
pouring down the riverbanks
ocean-towards, deep blue
escaping our mouths
being sucked up by flowers
cleft and swallowed and
turned into meristem
pollinated by a bird
that will ever only know half of me
if you thought the poetry would end in spring,
you were wrong

zosia

of the five or six people
at her wedding
three or four knew her well
two or three still send her
text messages that say,
"hello, i miss you"
one or two are graced
with a reply:
"it has been a long time
i am in colorado with my husband
who no longer has a gold tooth
and we are remembering
the cosmos and each other"
or perhaps:
"i miss you, too."
a thought drifts by, eventually
that maybe she has forgotten your name
or replaced your face with
one of those faces that has hurt you
that to remember you
would feel like a broken allegiance,
to forget you would feel
like the setting of the sun;
replaceable beauty, working
day in and day out
to remind her of the cosmos
and you have been one, two, three, four
and five or six times a fool

slow clap for disaster

the sound of applause
is the sound of you walking away
echoing taunts on a clear blue day
keeping me in bed for too long
making it hard for me to eat
the sounds of applause
is just another way
to know that i have made
you laugh, simply
by being honest

big sur

driving into big sur
i felt as though i might
fall off of the earth
and marry the ocean
large enough to receive
my love, strong enough
to drown me in its own
but i left you
in california,
guarding the coast
like the bird on my ribs guards my heart
and departed
for a windier place
and less constant lovers.

charybdis

there is a three year old on the slopes today
practically round and unable to ski
frustrated teacher motivated only
by his incessant cuteness
tumbling towards an end
at greater and greater speeds
tongue out, smiling, yelling, squealing
past me, and ever-downward.

the thing about kids is that they bounce
when they fall, they almost cannot break
so i am looking at the fall line
imagining round child rolling
off of mountain, into air
flying, gliding with the wind
shrieking, giggling, taunting me
and my obsession with gravity;

if i stand up now i will slide downwards
end up at the same place
the same disasters waiting for me
at the foot of the hill
leading me to the center
of my intimate maelstrom
my wasted smiles
i am hurtling downhill so fast
and all of my failures are so excited to greet me
when at last i reach rock bottom

four

i am collecting boys
like water in a bucket
dousing my garden in acid rain
because what falls from the sky
is no longer right for drinking;
i am praying to a god that does not exist
for soft eyes and a wine-soaked smile
a remembrance of another time
when we drank straight from the spring out back
because it was all we had
and we didn't know any better.
i am asking forgiveness
for my brilliant displacement
the way i've scattered my soul
in so many directions
that only clouds can bring it back
drenching me again in the
raiment of sorrow, polluted
not by oil or smoke or heavy metals;
just kindness, distant and unfair
a remembrance of another time
when we drank from the spring out back
because it was all we had
and nothing could possibly have been better.

the ocean, again

watching my future melt (again)
this time a whisper, a breeze
on days like this i could kiss the cold
let it freeze me in place
a statuette, dreaming of lost love
miracle passions
warmer days and green forests;
but i am an ocean creature
and snow melts where i walk
my footsteps slushing through
the street like little tides
home and back again, day in
and out. i am used to the melting
and after all, water never really goes
away

in your bed

this is the wine
of familiarity
wiping summer from my eyes
dry-mouthed mornings
touching hearts
small kisses like
grains of sand in our shoes.
we are so subtly aged, so young
i can taste the sweetness
in our grasps
so easy to age
that it almost tastes of love

snowfall

sleeping through the winter
wearing only the love you gave me
less than zero degrees and covered in emptiness
five inches, ten inches, twenty
slumbering (or drowning) beneath the
weight of you being far away
the listlessness of the heart
and its inability to travel
long distances without risk of
a drop in pressure, a sudden storm
laughing and not hearing it
muffled by a carpet that kills my toes
burns my hands, asks
me to get up, get up, get up.
and if i don't want to, what then
will i keep on sleeping
waiting for the winter to pass
only to wake up and find you
still gone, gone again?

new friends

i stopped talking, and you didn't start
so i have learned caution
when it comes to matters of the heart.