Courage-Teacher

Walt, I am doing my best.
The sun has gone down
and I am still doing
my best. Though my
heart somersaults,
some day I will
proudly present you.
Though my throat
is dry I will sing
your songs. Though
no one around me
understands how
much you mean to
me, I will make them
understand. If I put
your book beneath
my pillow will you
come visit me tonight?
While my bed is empty
you should empty
my head of its contents
and have a chuckle.
Your wink tickles.

I am electric
all the way through.

Delaney

Didn't ya corroborate
your story first before
coming out swinging?

If this is the new mode
of winning I am in want
of new, delectable prizes.

I am eating metals
like ice cream: I dream
you caught me drooling.

Loving school, I trip
on sentences spooled
around my ankles.

I return to you
a fool, eyes sharpened,
a touch, dangerous.

A Lifetime's Work

I want to know who you will be taking home.
The warm night drinks skyfuls of smoke,
our hats collide, our eyes open and close—
we cradle our bodies, ones we used to serve
platters of teeth, our pastimes past, each better
than the last, bloodstreams coursing honey.

Your voice trembles me to honey,
remembering melted days at the home-
stead. Thought I couldn't treat anyone better
than how I treated myself. Environed by smoke
in a body-ache daze. After each lurch I'd serve
up another pallid launch. Nothing else came close.

I am unborn every time you are close
enough to salve me with glowering honey—
after our endless jive of smile and serve,
in your eyes mine call smiling home.
We drew a bath of bubbling smoke.
We couldn't wash ourselves any better.

Nobody builds me up better
for nothing, or keeps me so easy long after close:
scrubbing, lingering, dousing steam and smoke
with vinegar, grease caked on our cheeks like honey,
mopping the floor for you to take me home.
Your company is the establishment I serve.

Our deaths so far evaded, what purpose will they serve?
Are we not our perfect form, is there no better
warmth than our bitter finish? Our home-
bodies shudder, stripped by another day's close.
Our hands comb one another for honey.
Our tongues meet in catacombs of smoke.

If our fate fades into air like ascending smoke,
and we snap in two the sultans we serve,
every memory golden, as if seen through falls of honey,
each moment brought closer, every delicate touch better
than the last, I feel from all sides some close-
ness & echoed tenderness* cleaving too close to home.

I want to know who will serve you better.
We'll smoke raspberry leaf, our eyes won't ever close.
'Till then I hallucinate honey, your voice in my ears, I'm home.

*from Amiri Baraka's "Chamber Music"

looks like i'm lucky

how feeling like not

believing quickly rots

into the real raw deal

not holding breath but

finally able to say what

complications i feel

you curling into my lap

can't wait for another lap

of this whirling earth

before belonging somewhere

it's hard not to care

when i know how much you're worth

process

if that's what this is
let me be the first
to hear the breaking
of the news: let me
be the one who rushes
to the hospital: let me
look without fear of
who's watching: let
letters unfold from
their chests and
augment the timeline:
we seem
in the dreamlike process
of falling under love.

meadow

we reignited,

our incarnation
lined with 

acts of service

and carnations.

i pace the hallway

looking at it 

through a prism,

all the dizzying

ways this could

spin out.

i am clay

in your hands.

you smooth

the bumps of

my back.

and turn away.

this is the actual

arc of colliding:
the insistent 

incision.

it is like i am 

sneaking up to 

a fawn as the sun

is going down,

arrested by 

how beautiful,

terrified 

to send it all 

running.

ya slay me

ya dork
ya wink at me
asking i left something
in your car ya? 
ya silly sneak
ya permutation 
ya incognito señorita
plopping down on the curb
beside the wheel
turning to me so seriously
bright ya lick of sunshine
ya worth the wait
ya resplendence
ya adorably unreal
subject of the poem
stuttering our dreams
into existence

next year

for the first time
in my life
i wanted to say
grace before
shoveling my
mouth before
food

grace for the land
grace for morality
grace for our time left
grace for no more waste
grace for the untapped center
grace for our monopolized eyes
grace for heaven's ashen surprise
grace for uninterrupted troubling
grace for the eradication of ignorance

grace that maybe next year
we'll set out one more plate

love you more

picking up pre-thanksgiving
dinner for the northerners
rolling up my sleeves
to hand out plastic cutlery
on my own time
turning toward you
at the register
it barely registered
in that instance
that you were the thing
i had asked for
insistently sweet
giving me the frowny
face when i leave
so i came back
and asked if you wanted
a little fresh air
we were followed outside
by one of our regulars
who for all their time
in the store had no clue
of the story unfolding here
when i caught up
you were putting on chap-
stick and i nearly died
from giving so much thanks

What I Want For Christmas

This time 'round I won't bother to wait
for good-tiding signals or cheer.
Won't even fill my Thanksgiving plate
'till I've figured what I'm getting this year.

I want flannels & chap-stick & floss.
Or a photo album aching to be filled.
Or a vial of salt from the ocean we can't cross.
A stunning snow-castle the two of us build.

Have you struck me off your list?
Blushing you confess, I have everything.
Behind your eyes, a glint of something missed.
Smiles foreshadow an early spring.

I want to give you mittens & silks & socks,
and if all those fail, you have my heart.
Wouldn't hesitate to trade a sparkling rock
for some of your mother's psychedelic art.

Some days we feel completely hopeless.
I grow restless, anticipating what's in store.
So for now, I'll think about it less.
And you think about it some more.