four-legged

i was once
a cat on a lap
lover
your hand on my
head, ears squashed
flat. and my
purr
like dry leaves
falling
stripped us naked
my fur
like soft grass
growing
kept us warm
and you,
my deciduous love
like a tall tree growing
held me high
a cat caught in a branch
sadly knowing
he must
land
on his feet

paul and elizabeth's

well here
is where we used to get fish chowder
mother, father, sister, i
on journeys to a place
whose name
is taken from me by age
your fork, mine
inching for the same bite
of food
it doesn't taste the same
but nothing ever does

weary

last night
one wink
across a table
you were wearing
the same shirt
as in that picture,
fingers lightly
on the nape of my neck
maybe we kissed
i awoke
this morning
no memory

remembering memory

i can feel the words "broken lightbulb"
autumn, leaves, loud cars, trees
the patch of grass where i sat
waiting for the pain of your absence
to leave me alone
so that i could eat dinner with friends
and not collapse
your strength, my beauty
specific rivers, and specific smells
you have taken entire elements
and turned them into you
falling, leaving, learning
that without plans
we will never make them
and you, to me, will always be
broken lightbulbs, autumn leaves
loud cars, and aging trees

red fire farm

you and i
are particle physics
discovered in the dreams
of incandescent humans
silver light dripping
behind their pupils
incomprehensible
overwhelming;
it would take eons
to teach us
in all of our complexity
no paperbound textbook
dusty and memory-sweet
could ever hold our words;
you and i are more obscure
than one thousand dimensions
more difficult to detect
than a distant earth
we are
a theory
innate, obvious, elegant
and in one day, replaced
by the next genius
with a silver light

tabitha

we were once less cautious
and i let you plant a seed in me
expecting something sweet
something that smelled
of honeysuckle, lilac, and eucalyptus
but spring is here, and you are gone
and i am too selfish to kill our child,
her name too sad to tell.
i don't write you letters and you
never send child support and she
just grows and grows.
my daughter and i
witness you from afar
praying that you never breathe again
we laugh when windows shatter.
i am more cautious now
in love with birth control
praying that one day
winter will take our child away
erase her in white, white gusts

and one for wonder woman

you were the wisest
and if you look at my responses
to the poems you put on your blog
in 2009
you will see that i was dumb back then
and have become a human
looking for other humans
having found them all in closets
trying on clothes that are pretty
but don't make them feel so