Piano Man

The room is empty except for the tall rugged black man who works in the dining hall. He recognizes me from last summer, even though I didn't speak much then. Tips his hat.
"Time to make some noise."
He sits down at the piano and plays classically for ten minutes.
Then it's time to go back to the dining hall. His break's over.

I feel ugly.

the inside,
like a turned-out sock
seedless
empty styrofoam.

I feel slow

the mellow evening
too heavy
to let me fasten the buttons
on our past.

I feel ugly.
Creeping behind your facades
reading
eyeing your life
with malicious intent.

A Room of My Own**

*The case for solitude.

ici sont les amis que j'ai connus
depuis que nous avons jouer dans le soleil
et chuchotant
au sujet du futur

Voici, c'est l'année
que tu me montre l'anneau sur ta grosse doigt
comme un mannequin
qui fait son main une putain pour le monogamy

Voici, c'est le jour tu peut feindre
tu es toujours un vierge
mais tu n'est pas un enfant non plus
avec tes orteils dans le sable.

Ici sont les filles qui donneraient
n'importe quoi
pour avoir un jour habillé toute en blanches
Et voici, je donnerais tout, pour ne le pas avoir.

Voici ils qui disent : "Tu le voudra
bientot"
mais je me sens gros et gonflé avec dégoût
je ne partagerai jamais cette chambre.

I am a double agent;
I am a master spy
So good at hiding
I don't appear at all.

I am a perfect liar
so complete is my disguise
I can even hear you tremble
as you whisper with your eyes.

I am the secret weapon
with my silent arsenal
like a trigger for your fire
I watch you softly fall.

I am a lone companion
riding out the night
no one here to save me
from my last desire.

I want to speak the truth
I want to confess
I want to give myself up
and pass this test.

But I will keep on lying
someone else must take the blame
i'd rather have the guilt
than give you any pain.

today i saw the most beautiful couple
they were both tall
deep eyes
smooth skin
the man stood aside
to let an old woman pass
the woman smiles
her round almond, apple-cheeks
swept curls
how did two such people
find each other?

They are perfect.
I wish they would stay that way.

Robins skim the freshly thawed grass
searching for prey
like worms that melt and decompose
across the asphalt.
Geese make crooked loops like knitting needles
Dragging broken thread across the sky
Hollow bones caught in my teeth—
a salmon springing upstream
or the first bruised strawberries from california
signaling the end of winter
like robins on beady feet
There are nine of them now, hopping
in the dessicated summer garden
red-coats, snobby
lunging with scalpel sharp beaks
I wonder if i will face each spring
as ready



I dry my hair, crouched in front of the electric heater
the slow trickle of spring water
from the ancient showerhead
warms my body
in this pewter tub
hardwater makes verdegris
beneath the faucet
I sleep buried in pillows
the sleeping bags do nothing
to warm my cold flesh.

lifestyles

Lifestyles I: A Night with the Townies

coffee so strong it could knock my teeth out--
so i can write this
in the cool gray afternoon
that wakes me. I think about

Lifestyles--
perhaps it's better that way.
At least there the choices
don't require thought.

I wouldn't stay long
as you breathe through the curtains of phlegm
across the shiny hardwood of the alley
the clatter of balls down the lane echoes

shivering the bubbling mugs
tuned to "can't we ever get out of here?"
my fingers plug the holes and i roll
into the fetal face of life

here we are in the pouring rain
I clutch the collar to my throat
the way i wish your fingers
would touch my neck

we crowd into the silver
backseats covered in shed doberman
And writhe like an angry snake
across the night-slicked streets

I push back against the seat
into the cold--if only I am there to catch
myself as you text slowly,
your knees pressed into the passenger seat.

we'll hang a while
up the creaky carpeted stairs--
I'm not getting anything interesting
tonight. Only the aftertaste of beer &
comedy central blaring


You cough and they laugh
all having so much fun
fondling the next bud
I cross my arms and study the wheelchair.

Time to go
out of the truck and into the rain
here I am contemplating life
And you're starting over
back to work-- alone again.

Lifestyles II: Burnout

pretty house.
i think it's cute, but
You're only quoting
I think it ended then.

Aren't you a little old for playing
Dad smoked his first joint at 30
guess i can't judge
But i outgrew it in a semester.

Am i ready to go back to serious?
I am the playful--the plaything
i only tell strangers the details
of my sordid life.

I want to call you a stranger
But you're too busy in your house
fogging up your world
And i'm myself again

Lifestyles III: The Good Guy

you speak to me
in unknown languages
and art and poetry--
everything i thought i wanted.

but you are soft,
and i need someone--
or perhaps i need no one
at all.

Thinking grows too hard
for real life teachers and psychologists.
I'd rather watch
as you work your time away.

Your sweet-talk is too contrived,
like the way you remember
the color of the dress I wore
Last summer.

Why couldn't you have kissed me then
before you loved her
before I knew
what he looks like when he smiles.

Lifestyles IV: Marriage

Here are the friends
I've known since we
cooked playdough in the sun
whispering about the future.

Here's the ring
you show me on your chubby finger
Like a silly mannequin
whoring out your hand for monogamy

Here's the day
you could pretend you were still a virgin
and yet no longer a child
with your toes in the sand.

Here are the girls who'd give anything
to have one day
all dressed in white
And here I'd give everything, to not.

Here they say: You'll want to
In a few years
but i feel fat and bloated with disgust
I will never share this room.

adults in antarctica

Let's pretend we don't exist
all wrapped up
in this cocoon (of scorn)
of silence
All I'd like is to pretend
With you.
Let's imagine--we don't exist
I wish i were an adult
falling asleep
alone.
It was never you.
(I could pretend it was, if you like.
But you don't.)
I wanted
nothing
Yet now, I believe
a kiss would fix me.
A hug would comfort me
Just a nod,
would suffice.
But instead
Like an adult, I don't exist
Like an adult
I do not sleep alone -
and he is no comparison.

(One trespass becomes a road).

the rain is a thick sweat
across the backs of my knees
and wet on my shoulders, my thighs
my breath, like the toes of my shoes
sinking, into the mud
swirling, eddies of greasy water
across my eyelids
in the April downpour
i should have known better
Than to let you in.

Eyes of absence.

Renga

“Freedom”

Sunlight and shadows
Who owns these wings, you or me?
Feathers are fragile.

And the blackbird just now left
Earth. I am stuck on the bench.

Flapping does no good
I’m tied down by yesterday
With no way to cut

Free from this crushing embrace
That pins my bones so deftly

And yet—a flutter
I think I saw my hand raise
The palm felt the sky

One does not need wings to fly
Only a hope to do so

And eyes to open
And lips to breathe in the wind
That sweeps across me

Aren’t I still sitting here?
A heart says nothing of dead desire.

No eyes and no lips
Ever open wide enough
To revive lost dreams.

truth and lies

Truth and Lies

I am disguised
Beneath my sunglasses
(those mirrored orbits—ovals, optics—they call eyes)
Truths rise like purple bruises
Under my lids, a lack of sleep
A lack of lies, you can trust me.

The lies exist in silence.
Here I am, surrounded
Everyone moving, milling, steeping, climbing
Here I am in stillness (crying)
Across the concrete—
Here lies the only one who feels.

I wish for a breath of fresh air in this
Collision,
This
Softly
Darkening
Solace.

Solace that covers me,
Entertains, twists and tricks me,
Keeps me appeased
With laughter, pleased
To guess and say
That life is worth the living



Lies I Tell Myself

A silent morning and
I wake (briefly)
Taking the time to move my limbs
Slowly to the window.

Snow is fresh on the tired ground,
Reinstating the winter.
I never said I loved you
(It would have been a lie).

I wish I said it anyway.
I close the curtains, and retreat back up the stairs
Sheets and the downy February light
My companions for the morning

The silence doesn’t matter,
My ears are too full to sleep
(I say, dreamily)
Spring is somewhere hiding

And with snowdrops and crocuses
A different world unravels,
Like a dusty chrysalis.
Before you, truth was absolute.

Out of the darkness of the tented sheets
I hear a crow’s cry
Like a distant siren—bringing me out
Like a moth I hide in stillness.

There are no lies in this bed
There are no truths to stir me
Soft up to my shoulders
I don’t need to move—(Truth)

I’m glad of the things you don’t do
What you don’t remember.
The way you say, “Hey Girl”
I’m glad Nothing has changed.


More Lies

It’s ok—
I don’t remember, where my dad was born
Or went to college
Or the names of my Mother’s sisters
Or how many cousins I have—
It doesn’t matter.

It’s all right,
I can’t remember
What period I had French class
Or how to conjugate “voir.”
It’s fine that I don’t know
How the planets orbit
And I’ve never seen SNL.

I’m still bright
And promising
Even if I’ve never cheered –for a first down
And never watched
Saturday morning cartoons
I’m still fine, red white and blue, without knowing
The fourteen points

You still want me
Even if I forget, all the injustice
Or your last name
And what town you call home
It’s all right
By tomorrow
None of this will matter.