Poetry Explosion!

Snapshot

2012-01-08T00:06:00.001-06:00

Six months before the wedding,
we’ve blocked off hotel rooms and hired
a photographer and caterer. Save-the-dates
are in, but I don’t have addresses.
Our bluegrass band canceled.
Today, while painting the bedroom—
our sixth room, so now we rarely streak
ceiling edges with Svelte Sage
or Leisure Blue—we listened to CD’s
of potential replacements.
Tonight, while walking the dog,
we planned our next project.
We wish it were bedding for the frame
we found on the cheap, but we need
a new vacuum first, and to pay the electrician
and termite inspector. Soon we’ll need
to deal with huge projects—new roof and siding.
We may have to stop paying
extra on the mortgage like we prefer.

I don’t know if we’ll ever go overseas again.
I don’t know if he’ll like my wedding dress.
I don’t know what we’ll name our kids,
or if we’ll have them. I don’t know
how long our dog will live, or our moms.

I do know we’re slowly transforming
our house into a home. I know
our evening walks are better than any gym.
I know we love each other and that
most days, life is happy and sweet.

Girdled

2011-11-20T21:21:00.001-06:00

The salesman at David’s Bridal says
every woman needs a pair of Spanx.
True, maybe, and though my own belly
protrudes slightly in the unforgiving sheath
I’ve chosen, I’ve never been kinder
to my mirrored reflection than now.

The dress is held together with pins,
so I can’t move an inch either way for fear
of stabbing and stain. My untoned arms
hang limply at my sides
like a starlet’s on the red carpet before
she’s been trained in the art of posing.
My hair’s stringy. I’m rethinking the pearls.

OK, so there’s still scrutiny.
But I allow myself this:
my smile, tentative, nearly
disbelieving, has never been lovelier.
My head is tilted to the left,
which I’ve learned from photographs
happens only in moments of pure happiness.

I see the pins, arms, hair, necklace, sure,
but mostly I see a yellow house
and the man I’ve loved for eight years.
I see long after-dinner walks with our grumpy dog.

So maybe I’ll get the Spanx recommended
by Jared. But that isn’t really the point.

Dreams

2011-11-05T17:51:00.000-05:00

I never remember dreams upon waking,
but I do remember—
always in an absent moment,
filling the gas tank or moisturizing
a peculiar dry patch on my arm.
Suddenly I’ll hear a voice like an echo:

a sullen student muttering for me
not to touch his shoulder, my baby-sitter
bribing me with polish not to bite my fingernails,
an ex-boyfriend asking for a towel,
the dead 5th grade classmate singing
Christmas carols outside my first home.

I never know what to do with a dream
once recovered—it never feels
like a message or warning,
just a drowned part of the past
risen to the surface. Usually I push it down
and go back to whatever it is I was doing.

A Photograph of My Grandparents at Twenty

2011-10-08T23:50:00.001-05:00

He’s never been more handsome
than in his sepia-colored suit and hat,
head back, lapping up rain
that looks like pepper flakes.
His arms are outstretched,
as though trying
to harness the whole world.

She’s facing him,
one shoe digging coyly into the curb.
Her dress flares at the hip,
and she clutches an umbrella in both hands.
She has a knowing look in her eyes—
when he’s conquered
all he can on his own, he’ll join her.

The Upstairs Room

2011-06-30T17:19:00.000-05:00

Before moving in with a loving man,
I lived alone for five years.
I grew accustomed
to my own company, often making tea
by microwaving a cup of water
and sleeping
almost horizontally across the bed.

That might help explain why
I love this upstairs room
he must knock before entering
and where glass after glass of wine
piles each night because
it’s much easier to remember to drink
than it is to pick up after oneself.

Last winter I painted walls
that had been chipped
like china. When sunlight aims
like a spotlight onto the far wall,
blues, yellows, and greens
from every painting and trinket reflect
like a prism against the soft oatmeal color.

Now, at night, light comes
from one lamp,
and music plays faintly
as if from another room. I sit
in the only chair, yellow and plush,
and the cool breeze from the window
is a relief against my tired legs.

What I Bought in Paris

2011-06-30T16:37:00.001-05:00

Not hats or coats, shoes, bottles
of wine or olive oil, paintings
sold on the street, soccer jerseys.
Not items requiring me to throw away
used underwear to make room
in my suitcase, items that at home
would take over closets, cupboards, or walls.

I bought trinkets so tiny
I can balance all three, carefully as I would
a baby bird, in one hand. One is
a snow globe, small and orange,
showing me what I did not see in person,
the Arc de Triomphe at wintertime,
as if something so famous and stately
needed all that flurry to be magical.

The second, a music box that plays
“La Vie en Rose” when I turn the crank.
I love to watch the gears inside and
zone out, imagine myself in the Latin Quarter
at night, dancing slowly while
shoppers and tourists look on, amused.

My favorite is a miniature Eiffel Tower
because of the long lines and two elevators
to get to the top, well over an hour’s time,
before being gifted the whole city,
spread out like a buffet for the eyes.
Yet here it is on my bookshelf, shrunk
to three inches, almost as if I broke a piece
right off the original to keep as my own.

Planning for the Future

2011-06-22T16:02:00.002-05:00

My ex would imagine our future aloud,
him waving at the neighbors
with a pair of tongs, serving hot dogs
to our young sons while the baby kicked
and flung applesauce into the backyard.

I’d picture his good intentions
and red-rimmed eyes, too drunk even
to pick our children up, buying them televisions
and their own phone lines to make up for
screaming at them in the supermarket.

Ten years later I don’t have children,
but I have a backyard. I like
to sit on the patio and drink hot tea
even in summer. I take it with milk
since tasting it that way in London.

I also have a dog, stretched on his side
in the sun and having what I hope
is a happy dream. And I have you, figuring
our June bills inside, the college station
streaming classical music out the sliding door.

Ode to Washing Dishes

2011-06-03T22:30:00.001-05:00

First, make sure your sink is under a window.
Look outside while you fill the basin. If daytime,
don’t scrutinize your lawn. Do laugh
at quarreling birds or your own yawning dog.
If night, be kind to your reflection.
Appreciate your long arms that disappear
at the wrists and the wrinkles at your mouth.

Don’t think of this task as another in a hundred.
It is the reward when those are done,
the chocolate mousse after steamed vegetables.
If the hot water and bubbles,
the lavender smell, the wine glass
to your left and soft terrycloth
against your bare shoulder are not a comfort
in this late hour, then you are doing it all wrong.

At Last, Peace

2011-05-13T23:37:00.001-05:00

On the sand, girls in yoga pants
unfurled like waves, offering up
their cupped palms and closed eyes
as if taking communion. He passed
wordlessly, not wanting to disturb
this pantomimed prayer,

and slipped into the hotel lobby,
composing the note in his head.
He stopped mid-thought—
And I want Andy to have my—
to struggle with the key. Then:
my Frank White rookie card
and Dad’s pocket watch. Then:
the door drew an arc into the carpet
like a line into sand.

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board

2011-02-05T22:24:00.003-06:00

We all slid two fingers of each hand under
some part of Lisa, who closed her eyes
and folded her arms as if practicing
for her funeral. I got her shoulder
and the soft belly of her upper arm.
Before we lifted and began the chant,
we all looked solemnly at one another.
A few of us nodded. Megan licked her lips.

Lisa was only up to our thighs
when guilt snaked into the room and our hearts,
like last time with the Ouija board. We knew
we were messing with Something Dark
here, as our youth group leader would say.
He compared sin to a tipping cup. You think
you can keep from spilling, pull back
at the last second—

but whatever’s inside wants out,
and will find a way at the slightest provocation.
You can’t miss church just one Sunday
or take just one drag
off a cute guy’s cigarette while
listening to a whole album in his car.
You can’t practice kissing on a girlfriend
without liking it more than the pillowcase.

Lisa smacked her head on the hardwood
when we dropped her.
We didn’t apologize—not to her.
Her pain was our atonement for experimenting
with the supernatural. We spent
the next hour asking God’s forgiveness,
aloud, frantic, one girl after another,
stopping only to listen for some sign of it.

For Marc, Who I Hope Will Not Die

2011-01-23T00:30:00.004-06:00

My first ex ordered milk at Loie Fuller’s,
then felt me up on his couch.
He never took me anywhere nice again.

Ex number two spent hours
tutoring me in Japanese horror films
and the hidden meanings
in his own song lyrics.
He never read one of my poems.

Ex three broke parole to hit Vegas
and marry the girl he cheated with.
He used his one phone call to let me know.

Etc.

In the beginning, I supposed
you too would leave—
after I gained ten pounds in grad school,
admitted to seeing The Notebook five times
in the theater,
turned out to be someone
vulnerable, too sensitive, neurotic, someone
with insecurities, someone
you weren’t expecting.

In time I understood you were not
the bad decisions
I made at eighteen, nineteen, and twenty.
After we moved in together
my panic shifted
from you leaving to you dying—

I’ll wake in the night to a ringing phone,
pat the sheets to find you missing
and swallow the slick
slug-like realization before answering.

It was a small sort of progress.

Our Last Night on Earth

2011-01-01T23:58:00.003-06:00

We’ll all know. No asteroid or explosion,
just the clocks of the world
flipping from 11:58 to 11:59 to nothing.

We’ll all choose how to spend it.
Some will take a trip, drive until
the tank empties or time stops.
Some will stay home, read
bedtime stories with watery voices.

One last plate of spaghetti.
Red wine. Mom’s meatloaf. Dutch
butter cookies. Deep dish pizza. Ice cream.
A first taste of octopus. Dinner
in the restaurants of so many first dates.

Almost everyone who can have sex will.
People who should break up won’t.

I’ll want to be alone, here in this room.
I’ll open the window and wonder,
wish to let go, but instead
I’ll close my eyes, tight and tense
as when saw cuts bone on the movie screen.

Damn You, Holden Caulfield

2010-12-12T01:22:00.002-06:00

You agonized over Jane
but called some other girl instead,
my sixteen-year-old self triumphed. You were
proof Ben from History loved me
instead of all those lip-glossed sophomores he took out.
Boys are morons, I told myself.
They don’t even know when they love a girl.
They don’t even say hello when she’s right downstairs.

Undeterred by the weirdo ending—Holden
watches his sister on a carousel
in the rain instead of Holden running
through city streets to find Jane in the rain?
stupid—I composed sequels:
Holden plays checkers with Jane on the porch.
Holden, assuming he doesn’t flunk out,
asks Jane to a school dance.
Holden’s parents die in a car crash,
leaving him and Jane to raise his sister.
Holden and Jane . . . It doesn’t matter.
They get together, all right?

More likely, though, Holden—if he’s really
like Ben from History—
knocks up some other girl
and marries her. We never meet Jane.
She’s last mentioned so casually,
no one even realizes it’s the end of something.

Motherhood

2010-11-28T00:55:00.001-06:00

I dreamed I gave birth to twin sons
alone in bed, no doctor, no midwife, no blood.
They were too small to be human,
and odd looking, like scalped troll dolls.
Their large eyes never blinked. Their pursed lips
opened and closed silently.
I knew what they wanted—to feed.

I lay one next to me, held the other
to my breast. As he drank,
he grew visibly, as if he were drawn
at different stages in a flip book,
felt heavier in my arms, six, seven pounds.
His squinty features smoothed—
for the first time, he kicked his feet, cooed.
He began to look like a normal baby.
Only then did I revere my child,
sway him as best I could while propped
by pillows and covered in sheets,
lean in to smell his baby smell.

I loved him much more
than his still-strange brother,
who wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t even
look at me with those unwavering eyes,
when it was finally his turn.

My Father, Naked

2010-09-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

Before bathing, he undressed on his bed,
painstakingly, each shirt button
a worry bead in his left palm,
then hoisted himself up
with his cane. After the strokes, convenience
became his most valued currency,
trumped dignity. He looked embarrassed
only the first time I caught him
on his bathroom walk,
his useless right hand hardly blocking
his drooping penis. From then on,
always the shrug, always the look that said,
What on earth else should I do?

Prayer

2010-08-22T13:22:00.000-05:00

My prayer feels like
standing in a garden of blue hydrangeas
just after rain. Behind the garden’s
seven-feet stone wall, I imagine
someone very wise listening.

I never think to pray
after a sleep-in morning
when Marc and I are propped up
by pillows and the dog,
eating sugared blueberries
and watching Bob Ross paint on TV.

My prayer is about comfort,
not faith. I could be standing
by that wall talking only to the stones.
But I am sure every Sunday
morning Marc will wake
before I do and return with breakfast.

Town Beautification Project

2010-07-02T17:55:00.002-05:00

I watch them knock down
my old apartment.

I’d imagined a wrecking ball
smashing my last five years
into smithereens, bits of window
flying about like teeth
from a bloody head. Instead,
a tentative shovel
paws at the ceiling half-heartedly
as a kid collapsing his sand castle.

In elementary music, we sang
about the boa constrictor
that chomped our feet, our thighs,
our necks. We scrutinized our nails
during the more gruesome descriptions.
The song was funnier
the less concerned we sounded—

all that destruction,
and not one of us tried to stop it.

Confession

2010-06-23T12:43:00.001-05:00

For an old friend

I slipped from religion quietly,
as though trying to sneak
unnoticed from a party.
Preachers made less sense to me,
outlining how Buddhists and Jews
would burn, how marriage
was between man and woman, disgust
flicking like spit from their mouths.

You grew into religion, as if
it were an older sister’s hand-me-down.
If your brother said he were gay
years ago, you might’ve
bought him a drink and listened.
Now, you say you’ll pray for him.

As kids, we joked about
the dry wafer taste Christ leaves
in your mouth. We lay
in the churchyard, praying for boyfriends
and breasts—and then, guilty,
food for the hungry. To show
we were moved while singing hymns,
we raised our left hands like pop stars.

Fear of Newness

2010-05-23T22:15:00.001-05:00

I’ve clung to the familiar,
applying to local colleges,
teaching at my old school, staying in
relationships that were like elaborate floats
in the Midsummer Dysfunction Parade.
When friends move away,
I wave as they drive into
a tomorrow they can’t predict.

I am a child clutching
her mother’s leg—or a stranger’s,
if the department store is crowded
and she’s wearing the same perfume.
It feels safe either way.

Commitment . . .

2010-03-07T12:49:00.001-06:00

Skiing in Antarctica, age seventy,
because it’s the only continent left.
Finishing that bottle
of water during a traffic jam.

Marrying at city hall, no registry.
Nathan’s Famous hot dog contest,
Cool Hand Luke’s fifty eggs,
no Rolaids, no puking.

A sweat mustache and no breeze.
A gunshot at the unarmed man.
Apologizing when you’re right.
A white bed sheet and a smear of red.

Going home with your wife
in spite of the girl at the bar
in the thigh-length black trench coat
and, you assume, a yellow bikini.

Fairy Tale Ending

2010-02-28T15:28:00.001-06:00

Cinderella didn’t hesitate to trade
a house of rodents and a bitch landlady
for a palace. For five years,
I too have scrubbed faucets and drains,
but they still ooze orange rust,
thick as pus from an infected piercing.

Cave crickets lunge at me
one out of five bathroom breaks.
Instead of wearing my favorite pair
of wooden sandals, I keep them by the toilet
like a gun in a nightstand drawer.

The hallway lingers with the thick scent
of sweat from my neighbors’
unwashed bodies. They grunt
during sex I can hear perfectly through
the golf ball-sized hole in my bedroom wall.

My foul-mouthed prince and I
are on the cusp of happily-ever-after
in a blue four-bedroom. Even so,
I’m sad at midnight
in my near-empty apartment, listening
to an album I haven’t yet packed
and satisfied snores from next door.

Backyard Poplars

2010-02-08T09:15:00.002-06:00

A row of poplars hedged my backyard
better than any picketed fence.
They were a perfect obstacle course
for the neighbor girls,
our hair streaming like yellow threads
as we weaved right to left. Other times
we’d sit against the thin trunks,
our backs to our houses
so no one could hear our whispered secrets.

One afternoon, I heard the landlord’s saw
before I knew what was being cut.
I ran to tell, but my mother
was on the phone, untangling the cord
as mindlessly as she did
knots from my hair before bed.
I was made to sit at her feet and wait
for adult conversation to end.

When it finally did, she was too late
to stop the row from being
cropped like bangs,
to keep my backyard sheltered
from whatever might be lurking.

Cover Story

2010-01-17T13:51:00.001-06:00

After picture: triple D’s
that look you in the eye, an eternally
skeptical brow, a forehead
free from worry lines. Ten surgeries
in one day. Her ears are pinned back—

a procedure my mother considered
for me when I was born.
Gently, she pressed the elfish tip of one ear
against my skull, her hand cupped
over my eardrum like a shell.

At that, my father walked her
to the bathroom mirror, removed
my mother’s hand
from my face.
Isn’t she perfect? he said.

To Do (to Become an Adult)

2009-12-13T15:48:00.002-06:00

Determine if I should be jealous
of my former classmate with three kids
managing the Arby’s

and teens’ engagement announcements.
Grade students’ Crucible projects
and type AP lit syllabus. Begin payments

on Paris/London trip. Must have passport
stamped by 30th birthday! Hire housekeeper
for $325/month apartment? Check out houses

with boyfriend of six years. Be grateful,
not nervous, when he coos at fat babies.
Buy roach traps. For once, buy Mom’s dinner.

Stop comparing myself to friends.
Instead think,
They are fulfilled, and I am fulfilled.

Good Housekeeping

2009-12-01T19:57:00.000-06:00

I.
The mother of my childhood
is propped up by the vacuum handle.
Her arms disappear at the ends
into filmy sink water.
She scrubs the kitchen floor the hard way,
sponge instead of mop. She’s tired.

She won’t stop
my father’s cancer from sweeping in
like a tornado through our tidy lives,
but she is armed
with spray bottles and paper towels.

II.
My father’s smoking
made the bathroom vent
go from flute smooth to caked fireplace ash.
I pictured his lungs changing texture
and his heart no longer a red flame
but the doused black matchstick.

I tried hiding his cigarettes.
He always found them. Eventually,
I learned the joy my mother took in controlling
what could be. I polished the vent
with a pretty white cloth,
tenderly as she did her collection of tea spoons.

When Asked if I Write Poetry

2009-11-22T01:15:00.004-06:00

I knew what I wanted the answer to be:
Yes! I feel things deeply
and own a black beret.
When shown a half-eaten apple,
I picture original sin;
a running bath, baptism.
For me, hope is embodied in every
pregnant belly and green traffic light.

Like the girl
who starts a punk-rock band so
she can call it The Milkman’s Tramp
and meet boys
with names like Ronaldo and Sven,
I fell in love with an idea
long before I knew what it meant.

Apologia for Waiting to Marry

2009-11-03T17:30:00.009-06:00

I would’ve married you
right after we met, but not because
you were The One. I was desperate
to join hands with my engaged girlfriends,
fan out like a paper doll chain
in our white bustles.
In truth, you could’ve been anyone.

Six years later, you’re the one
who plans day trips named like mixed tapes—
Working Man’s Holiday:
Royals vs. Cards and Springsteen concert—
who doesn’t mind being
the only one around here who cooks.
Every week you watch the game
in my uncle Jerry’s hospital room
instead of the bar. When I marry you,
it won’t be because you’re some headless tuxedo
or comes-with-the-photo-frame groom.

For the Woman Alone in a Booth

2009-09-14T19:59:00.005-05:00

If she’d wanted to eat dinner alone,
she would've baked a spinach quiche.

He should have called the minute
he knew he’d be late. She did not
come here to read or work a crossword.
This is more humiliating than the time
Penny met her for Easter services
in an above-knee skirt and no hat.

She makes a show of eye-rolling
and sighing. Her husband
had better be having a heart attack.
She beckons the waitress for the time,
though she's facing the wall clock.

She splits the head off a sugar packet,
contemplates walking out.

Across the diner, a man in a blue work shirt
thinks she looks like his dead wife,
except for the eyes. He orders
a refill and a second slice of peach cobbler.

Vulnerability

2009-09-09T21:57:00.001-05:00

The girl in the story let the boy
unspool the green ribbon from her neck,
knowing this act would undo her.

I have let you kiss my pimpled chin
crusted with toothpaste, my homemade cure.
I’ve stopped dressing in your closet.

You know how many lovers
have changed their minds about me.
Perhaps we’ll be listening to the car radio,
waiting out a heavy rain.
You’ll turn to ask me a question
and discover my head has gone missing.

At My Student's Visitation

2009-08-01T00:00:00.005-05:00

The whole town goes when it’s a kid.
I’d only known him a month. As his teacher,
I was expected. The funeral home,
used to Alzheimer's patients from nursing homes,
was unprepared for us. For two hours we waited
in a bursting hallway. I collapsed against the wall,
imagining myself as a partial ironing board
that can be tucked inside a closet.
With every breath, I felt guilty
for taking air from our diminishing supply. For a moment,
getting out of the hallway was a relief.

But the coffin was in the visitation room, closed
because of the accident. His school picture
had been blown up to poster size.
I locked eyes with it, him, the whole walk down the aisle,
wondering for the first time
if he’d ever been kissed. I hadn’t, at his age.
When I reached his parents, I thought
of how many hands I’d shake at teacher conferences
the next week, and that thought broke me.

Outside the funeral home, the night
was clean and wet. I choked on fresh air.

New Jersey, 1989

2009-07-06T15:23:00.001-05:00

I lined up Uncle Bob and Aunt Donna
for a picture in the driveway of the house
Bob now lives in alone. The day before,

at the magic shop with my cousin Bret,
I’d bought a camera that spurted water,
though we passed a kiosk of real ones.

Bob tensed his bicep, the way girls suck in
their stomachs. Donna beamed and tossed
her blonde hippie hair. They laughed

when the water came, but now he’d want
that picture, that bright moment before
the magician reveals a disheartening truth.

Encounter

2009-07-04T12:26:00.002-05:00

You run by in street clothes,
panic on your face,
turn the corner and are gone.

I haven't heard from you
in years, not since you returned
my Christmas card in the mail.

In a nearby coffee shop, someone
notices through a window
that suddenly I've stopped walking.

Love Story

2009-06-16T18:17:00.004-05:00

I.

Heart surgery can be complicated,
the doctor said, and
other words the woman didn't understand:
your husband will live,
but he will no longer walk.

II.

On Mondays TV’s Bachelorette
chooses from thirty suitors
so identical they could be
the same man in a house of mirrors.
The ads promise a love story
in six weeks, but that’s not how it works.

Put the last man standing in ICU
forty years from now. Let the woman
feel nothing but relief to hug that man
from his wheelchair to the toilet

every day until death do them part.
Then call it a love story.

Wife, Mother of Two Takes Own Life

2009-05-17T11:25:00.001-05:00

Were my wife’s eyes shut,
tight as a fist that squeezes blood,
or open, comically crossing as the gun
in her mouth shot into focus;

did she think of the novel
on her nightstand, bookmark wedged
a hundred pages from the end;

would she have done this
had she known I would need
to be propped up at the funeral
like a scarecrow, the stuffing
coming out of me faster
than any savior could replace it.

Day Game

2009-04-26T13:06:00.000-05:00

Eat two hot dogs instead of one when
someone else is buying; take five-minute naps
between innings three and six.

Ketchup wins the animated condiment race,
and someone proposes on the JumboTron
while everyone yells “Say no!” at the screen.

Appreciate extra innings; they mean free baseball
and 34,000 rally towels circling the air.

Forget possible metaphors—
the glove swoops from out of nowhere
like a shark’s fin,
bases are the stages of life or sex,
’tis better to have swung and missed—

none of that is important.
The closer should come out
while everyone sings his theme song,
and your team wins at the bottom of the eleventh.

Ineptitude

2009-03-22T00:21:00.002-05:00

While taking the dog out this morning,
a series of chirps pierced the sky.
I turned to observe a beak open and close.
I tried to become a lip-reader of birds.

I wished to understand how to describe it
other than speckled and gray, small enough
to sleep inside a tea cup. Trouble is,
poets usually know about birds, and I don’t.

Then the dog’s leash snapped into a tightrope,
and I didn’t think of that bird again, until now.

Waiting for the Ball to Drop in Times Square

2009-02-02T22:44:00.003-06:00

We might not have come if we’d considered
thirteen degrees for seven hours, every muscle tensed,
bladders engorged. Last year, we didn’t sing

U2 songs with a dozen college kids from Ireland
or watch thirty-somethings from Barcelona
swallow grapes whole at six p.m., the Spanish New Year,

and we couldn’t have comprehended the sound
of one million voices counting back from ten
until ours were lost among them. Last year,

we were only two people watching on TV,
but we had one bathroom apiece, and hot chocolate
cradled against our bellies like tiny radiators.

My Grandparents Playing the Piano

2009-01-12T19:11:00.002-06:00

After PaPa died, MaMa gave us grandchildren
a recording of them at the piano, not singing,
plunking out Methodist hymns. From the record’s
first static-filled breath, I can picture them
younger than I am now, him on the left
lifting the heavy notes, her with closed eyes
until he goosed her in the ribs. Neither sang,
but both sometimes hummed, the loud kind
that slips out only when the mind
isn’t occupied with even the smallest troubles.

Rockefeller Center

2009-01-05T19:52:00.000-06:00

In the movies, the ice rink is a whirlpool
of color—red scarves snapping fast
enough to taunt a bull, flashes of mittens
in blue and gold blinking like Christmas lights,

purple hats twirling like tops on their last spin.
Only one couple skates today,
in the slow circle a first-time driver makes
around an empty lot. The man wobbles like a colt

when he stops, falls to one knee, and I marvel
that I happened by in time to see this.
Later, I’m told as many men as time allows
propose on that rink on New Year’s,

but this does not make the moment
I witnessed any less cinematic.

The Summer I Was Twenty

2009-01-04T22:17:00.003-06:00

I drank egg creams, read, and waited out
a broken heart. For a few minutes
each afternoon, a guy came in
to my coffee shop for decaf to go.
He had a quiet confidence
and dark hair that missed
brushing his collar by a breath.
My sadness was a cloak of invisibility,

but I saw him--which wrist wore a watch;
a faint tan line every time
his canvas bag hiked up a shirt sleeve;
the length of his walk from counter
to door, just swift enough to flutter
the pages of my notebook.

Fear Itself

2009-01-03T12:30:00.001-06:00

The wind shook, determined
as the Big Bad’s huff and puff,

shattering a window suddenly
as a brick inside a ransom letter

smashing through it. The dog barked
its fiercest bluff while doors clattered,

violent as the stranger’s knock
before he finds his way in.

Pecan Picking

2008-11-29T22:19:00.005-06:00

Everything on the ground is the color
of tree bark. My earth-coated fingertips
are my eyes, sifting through cracked
leaves, pausing at every smooth pecan.

Even while sprawled on a picnic blanket,
my spine arched like a seal’s, this work
feels primitive, as if a family’s survival
depends on my filling one bucket, then another.

The bluest sky in weeks overhead,
I am too busy for worries or even dreams.

Affair

2008-10-28T18:40:00.003-05:00

His wife was the song lodged
in his heart, like a bit of steak in his teeth.

This other woman was the song
on the tip of his tongue—shamelessly
persistent. Even with his mind
elsewhere, he found himself
humming the scoop of her upper lip,
the hem of her six-inch skirt,
the low rumble of her throat clearing.

High School Teacher at the PTO Meeting

2008-10-26T12:22:00.001-05:00

She looks like Michelle Pfeiffer—
if you left your driving glasses home.
She’s in the next seat.
I didn’t think

to put my purse there.
She’s quit giving dance lessons.
She’s spending the summer in Hollywood,
can’t decide between live theater or film.

She doesn’t outline beyond
buying her plane ticket
how she plans to catapult to stardom,
doesn’t even mention her kids.

I shouldn’t judge. Every day I protect
her children and everyone else’s
from underestimating the future.
This woman still dreams.

But then she pats my hand,
asks about my little teaching job,
and I open my mouth
and tell her everything.

An Umbrella Built for Two

2008-10-26T08:26:00.002-05:00

A wedding present for Laura and Roland

Though the handle is nice, J-shaped
and old-fashioned, what Mary Poppins
held onto instead of a steering wheel,

I like its wingspan best. No more
rain on his left side, her right.
No more hurrying to the next awning

during Saturday shopping. Finally,
a walk in the rain is just
as it should be: slow and limitless.

This Song

2008-10-13T18:39:00.003-05:00

This song no longer makes me cry,
though it once seared like a cigarette burn.

I don't blow dust from photo
albums when I hear it now.

I don't delight in catching
the last chorus on my drive home.

Finally, this song is only lilting melody,
soft squeak of finger-plucked chords,

songwriter's earnest declarations.
This isn't about love. This isn't hate.

This song isn't about anything at all,
the sweetest nothing ever whispered in my ear.

Ten-Year Reunion

2008-09-04T20:45:00.005-05:00

Now looming, certain as a cheerleader's
death in a slasher film, I regress early,

become smug about my cute boyfriend;
hope Tiffany and Kelly got fat;

second-guess every decision, even
French toast or waffles? And WHICH SYRUP?;

ask for Mom's advice; crash diet;
wonder who's on second marriages,

who's gonna grab my bare left hand
and cluck with sympathy;

practice bragging at parties,
walking away before anyone can top me.

We'll hope for honest slices-of-life.
All we'll get is more of the same.

Jack Johnson Concert, SRO, August 2008

2008-08-19T17:41:00.004-05:00

Sure, we couldn't see the stage.
We sat while everyone else stood
on the lawn, but that made us

childlike among adults, lost
in a game of make-believe.
Eyes closed, lungs full, rock stars

singing Jack's simple hooks with him.
Shivering at last after months
of heat, we pretended this coolness,

like the night, was just for us.
Amongst many bodies, still as alone
as Jack and his guitar were on stage.

We may as well have
bought every ticket ourselves.

While the Kettle's On

2008-07-20T00:08:00.002-05:00

For once, this apartment
without even a dog for company
is all I need: kitchen’s open window

lapping at rain drops,
soundtrack of indiscernible
songs from car radios below.

The house will come.
I’ll name the kids
when I have them.

For a few moments, contentment.
And after that, tea.

Journaling and Honesty

2008-06-15T16:08:00.003-05:00

I was always for gay rights.

Flipping through volumes,
1993 to present, I look for support
of that statement. Instead, at age 15,
I find, If a girl hit on me, I'd flirt
with the nearest guy,
never talk to her again. Gross.

I always wanted to teach.

My students don't believe that, are sure
I once dreamt impractical dreams.
And I did, barely. First thoughts, actor/dancer;
revisionary thoughts, community theater.
Impulse, poet. Reality, teacher of poetry.

My favorite movie as a child . . .

The Sound of Music, a classic. Of this,
I’m sure. Leisl and Rolfe, the gazebo
and singing, all so romantic
before he becomes a Nazi, no other
film comes close. Except,
as it turns out, Ernest Scared Stupid.

Paint-It-Yourself Ceramics

2008-06-08T23:23:00.002-05:00

Your biggest worry is which
chalky white piece to select: hat box?
tea pot? sushi plate? paperweight?

Sketch any patterns, in whichever shades.
Make not only your sky starry-night blue, but
grass as well. Paint rivers creamsicle orange.

Outline a tree in kohl. If you drip inside
the lines, next time, do it on purpose.
Create a whole inky-black forest.

Start with something expected, stark
branches with hesitant leaves, pale buds.
Then let them sprout from the head of a god.

Justification

2008-05-15T22:11:00.002-05:00

I feel the massage on me,
deep kneading with oil, skin

broken in like a baseball glove,
hours after. Every chair is plush,

even the hard-backed one
at my desk. For once,

muscles aren’t clenched like a jaw
holding back an impatient remark.

I don’t remember to relax.
I relax.

Bon Jovi Wears KU National Championship Hat at Kansas City Concert, 2008

2008-04-21T18:21:00.003-05:00

Musicians sure are slick talkers.

No city's like this one.
You're special; that's why
I keep coming back.
I may stray now and then,
but that's just the tour.
Baby, if I could,
I'd never leave you again.

Last week, that KU hat
really meant something to Kansas City.

This week, who knows
what's being said to some cheap little town.

Teachable Moment

2008-03-29T22:43:00.003-05:00

After the bell, the girl
who has glanced
in short bursts all quarter
at a boy one row over

asks to stay after class.
I tell about 10th grade,
the boy I liked
at prom with my best friend.

She groans in sympathy; I go on.
Two boyfriends in four years—
one for a month in 9th,
one for two weeks in 12th.

I disclose all of it, tell her
it doesn't stay that way long,
tell her life gets bigger
than these rows of desks.

Revising the Body

2008-03-08T20:34:00.006-06:00

Start with the legs. Best.
Sleek in a skirt, and strong.
Breasts' heaviness,
like my deep voice:
something of substance.
Arms the color and feel
of white opera gloves.

Belly last. Full and round
even before breakfast.
Loose folds of bloated skin
I can hold in my fists.

I have forgotten my purpose:
To celebrate!

Belly first. Voluptuous.
Soft half-moon curve
under the navel.
When jutting hips and
sunken stomachs lose appeal,
mine is the Rubenesque look
certain to make a comeback.

Something about a Walk

2008-03-01T13:32:00.004-06:00

I feel most in love
while we are on an evening walk,

sometimes padded and zipped up;
others, short sleeved, my skirt
hoping for a breeze to float on;

sometimes tagging along with the dog,
his nose nudging us, he is sure,
towards the great adventure;

others, just us, winding through
cul-de-sacs in good school districts,
dreaming beyond our little apartment.

Tattoo Poem

2008-01-19T18:30:00.001-06:00

Since it's here to stay,
blue star on the small of my back,
I try out explanations for why

I once let my paroled boyfriend
nudge me into a darkened parlor
run by a married couple—

the wife in a skirt and apron,
no blouse, her husband in a suit
and black lipstick—

so we could get matching tattoos
for our six-month anniversary
only to break up within a year.

So far, no story
has entertained like the truth.

D-Cup

2007-11-24T23:29:00.000-06:00

Only lovers and gossips can know
a man's penis size, but the largeness
of my breasts is clear to anyone.

Maybe that's why so many feel at liberty
to exclaim, inquire, stare.

To me they're as sexual as my elbow.
just something to hold up my cereal bowl,
snug as a ceramic bra,

while an arm cradles the corn flakes,
index finger loops milk's handle,
teeth grit into spoon,

on my morning walk to the kitchen counter.

Memorial Day (revised)

2007-11-11T21:52:00.001-06:00

The living scatter to the graves
like dancers to their spots on stage,
a beautiful, rehearsed ballet—
demi plié, knees unbuckle;
grande plié, lay flowers down
with the flourish of an arm.
A loud, public sob, then a tour jeté
to leap from this place another year.

I watch from behind my car window,
having tried dancing before,
not liking expectant eyes on my back,
waiting for whatever reaction was proper.

Elegy for Pari

2007-10-28T12:05:00.000-05:00

She gave birth once in Africa,
once in a living room in Kansas.

When she missed her husband
on weekends, she learned to fly fish.

She never hired a gardener
or someone to brick the driveway,

or invited me to dinner
without the rest of the town.

Sunset

2007-10-02T19:46:00.001-05:00

Sunset, after a rain,
when sky is the charcoal gray
a paintbrush turns paper
after water, before color,
is the perfect time for a walk,
even though I've promised
to be home before dark.

Figurative Language

2007-07-05T17:49:00.001-05:00

These terms aren't taught until junior high,
when the imagination well has run dry.

The best stories? Written by the very young:
lying back, not blinking into the sun,

creating characters from summer clouds,
slurping lemonade, never speaking aloud.

Sonnet for Rain

2007-06-30T10:58:00.000-05:00

After the rain passes,
the city is glad,
stirring water from umbrellas
and drawing them closed.

One little girl is sad
to see it end. She bounds
up to a tree so young
she can touch her thumbs

and fingertips around its trunk,
which she shakes, laughing,
until drops un-cling
from leaves on the boughs

and she is standing
under her own happy rain cloud.

Poem for Soul Mates

2007-06-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

A comic once said,
If each of us has just one,

only a handful
should find ours,

and only if we’re willing
to travel the world first.

While this may be, I twist
logic like a master key

into any lock, so I may find
my soul mate in you

without one single
stamp in my passport.

Why I Won't Ride Roller Coasters

2007-06-17T18:09:00.000-05:00

The ride itself, nearly orgasmic
after a pent-up thirty-minute wait,

is not rush enough to endure
that deliberate crawl to the top.

The Proposal

2007-06-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

For Erin and Brandon

Two days before the dinner
where he would show her
a magic trick
that ended in a ring,

she started into his pocket
for a map of the zoo.
Unable to explain
scrambling from her as if bitten,

he presented the ring then,
the ambience of
a traveling violinist traded for
squawks and flaps at the bird exhibit.

Memorial Day

2007-05-31T12:56:00.000-05:00

The living scatter to the graves
like dancers to their spots on stage.

25

2007-05-28T22:21:00.000-05:00

Friends speak of this looming birthday
as from inside a giant hourglass,
each heavy grain of sand
another date falling from the calendar.
They are powerless to stop it,
their expressions frozen like mimes'
as they feel around invisible boxes.

To me, twenty-five is the finish line
of an excrutiating race.
My legs won't carry me fast enough.

Beauty Standard

2007-05-23T16:41:00.000-05:00

I became obsessed with Winona Ryder's
arms, milk-colored and bed-sheet soft,
when I rented Reality Bites, age fifteen.

Stretched over her head
in glorious sunlight, they were luminous,
nearly translucent.

Before prom,
while others slipped inside heated coffins
or rotated on beach blankets
like chickens on the rotisserie,

I wore long sleeves on the hottest days.

Scenes of Finance

2007-05-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

I.
My father, paralyzed.
My mother, distracted,

across the room,
envelopes everywhere—

hospital bills she won’t pay
until after his death

ten years later.
I peek in

from the kitchen,
barefoot and six,

not yet understanding
her worried expression

reserved for checking me
for scrapes after a fall.

II.
Mailbox, walk home,
a song in my throat,

last student loan
payment sent.

It took only
a year to become

debt-free, but
only my mother or father

might understand
how good this feels.

Summer Recipe

2007-05-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

Forget a face smeared
with oil paints.

Watercolors only--
lashes black, cheeks pink.

Tie hair back,
no drying or styling.

Cell phone off.

Duck into a matinee
you've never heard of
for two hours
of free air conditioning.

Repeat often.

Ode

2007-02-24T16:43:00.000-06:00

My mother grew up in Holland,
knows every Dutch word
a native second-grader would,
but taught me only "fart."
Much less obscene, she'd declare
after asking who let out a poetje.

I remember the strange boast
my fifth-grade classmate made:
Some farts are ladylike quiet,
but mine crackle
like popcorn over a stove.

My friend's son loves trains,
calls his stomach a "boiler."
He farts, the sound his lips make
when blowing a raspberry,
to make his boiler feel better.

When I fart, I try blaming the dog,
old pipes, dead mice in the furnace,
but my boyfriend won't let me:
Don't you know the smell
is as unique to us as our fingerprints?

Fulcrum

2007-01-13T13:56:00.000-06:00

Your best poems used to be
just up ahead, under your feet
with each step like
an unfurling red carpet.

Now, the scene is winter.
You want to draw it
without the words blanket or anew
but can't, and that's when
you first realize
your best poems are already written.

Hyperbole Sonnet

2006-12-28T16:36:00.001-06:00

A week ago, I spilled a cup. Water
spread to my desk corners,
over, beyond, drowning the room,
an ocean swallowing up land.

For seven days and nights,
I scooped up buckets of the stuff,
tossed it out the open window,
until lotus flowers sprouted from mud.

Today, just as I wiped my brow,
finished, I noticed water spots
on a favorite picture. My dog,
once willing to sit, brown eyes open,

inside a frame all day, now does so
only because he's glued to the glass.

After Taking a Muscle Relaxant

2006-12-14T18:24:00.001-06:00

My mind stops calculating how many
tasks can fit inside an hour.

I lie back, stare at the novel
held over me just to block the sun.

I'm glad the grass is cool
and only a little wet from morning.

I'm glad the birds are making
music to fall asleep to.

The Hottest Day

2006-11-25T17:09:00.000-06:00

. . . and like the ants
who breathe fire
and exhale dust
under the magnifying glass
in the chubby hand
of an 8-yr-old boy,

I, too, will writhe
under such scrutiny.

High School

2006-11-22T17:30:00.000-06:00

I.
My students are like Polaroids:
ten seconds from developing,
but no one knows into what.

II.
At the bar, my old classmates,
home for Thanksgiving, brag
or shrug about the last ten years.

No matter who became the eye doctor,
sanitation worker, youth minister,
I'm amazed finally to know.

A Man Who Cooks

2006-10-18T18:01:00.000-05:00

He saves the potatoes for last,
declaring them his famous.
He dips one after another

into a dish of cold olive oil,
briefly as a face into baptismal water.
He dices. He coaxes each piece

from one side of the pan to the other.
Before my first bite, he blows out
steam beginning to warm our faces.

Another Rejection Letter:

2006-09-17T17:35:00.000-05:00

another little death. Begin again
the stages of grief. Denial
first (no, I haven't been fooling
myself this whole time).
Finally, accept this truth.

Poem to an Unborn Child

2006-09-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

When you get here, I'll marvel
at not knowing your name
or even Boy or girl? before,

at how this, your birthday,
had always slinked by
unnoticed like a shadow before.

Telling a Child about War

2006-08-26T16:10:00.000-05:00

She nods through most of it,
asks only one question:

What about the picture of the world
with people of every color

standing on it, still
as if on a stopped ferris wheel--

some on the North Pole,
some on the South Pole, and

all of them hand-in-hand
like paper dolls, all of them alike?

How to Apply Black Eyeliner

2006-08-20T19:02:00.000-05:00

Wait for the sun to drop
under the horizon

like a buoy under water.
Before it pops up again,

work a straight line
from the outer edge in,

then leave home
so someone will see you.

Ownership

2006-08-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

I plunge this poem
like a flag into soil,

like the dagger
into Juliet's heart.

The Baby-Sitters Club

2006-08-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

a series by Ann M. Martin

I.
For years those girls were my closest friends,
only instead of calling for them, stopping by,
I opened issue 12 or 64,
tucked under my arm or in my tote.

In the car, my mom said,
Put down the book and look outside,
as if the scene my mind painted
wasn't better than any real one.

II.
I turned nine while they were thirteen.
I turned thirteen while they were thirteen.
I'll turn twenty-five while they are thirteen.

I tell myself if they'd grown up, too,
I wouldn't have left them behind.
But the truth is, like Puff the dragon's friend,
I was always going to move on.

The Rest of My Life With You

2006-07-31T18:31:00.000-05:00

When the man in the movie proposed,
he said, I can't wait to spend
the rest of my life with you,

as if he were waiting to do that now,
as if until the wedding he's playing pretend.

Planning My Wedding

2006-07-29T22:19:00.000-05:00

Age six, I’d ride into the church on a pony,
the groom a headless suit.

Nine, I’d baton-twirl my way up the aisle.

Twelve, a ceremony on the mound
of a baseball stadium, lights blinding us to our guests.

Fifteen, impromptu service in a grocery store,
because Leonardo DiCaprio and I
couldn’t wait through a year of planning.

Nineteen, a wedding I couldn’t picture
with a man who wanted me to.

Twenty-two, the tentative wish
I told only my journal:
to someday marry this new boyfriend.
For once, the ceremony didn't matter--

the stage of an auditorium, spotlight swerving
from the grand piano to us and back;
or a big backyard, with a keyboard instead--
as long as the groom had his head.

Why I Can't Be Near You

2006-07-25T00:05:00.001-05:00

An answer to "Restraining Order Blues" by the Eels

Everybody knows you're not a violent man,
but loving you is like being crushed
by the whole weight of an ocean.

Hold this tin can; I'll take the other.
Let the string dip like a half-moon
into the fifty feet between us.

Say what you want,
but say it while you're so far away
you could fit in my palm.

Watching Our Stories

2006-07-20T15:57:00.000-05:00

He does not tease me, as others do,
about my soap opera. I met these characters
before anyone in my own town;
they'll go with me if ever I move.

He reasons his soap
is not so different from mine:
the men are called Hulk and Stone Cold
instead of Victor and Brad,

but he too has known them since childhood,
will know them still
when he's an old man reclining
in the hour before his afternoon nap;

and all of them fight,
good guy versus bad, for honor or love.

The True Love Waits Convention, Tenth Grade

2006-07-14T10:47:00.000-05:00

They said, Marriage before sex,
as if were another rule:
Look before crossing the street.
Don't swim after eating.

They said, Belong only to your spouse.
They said, Gift.

I scoffed at one 30-year-old speaker,
face marked like a road map,
greased hair stuck to his forehead,
who professed virginity was his choice.

The Water Skier

2006-07-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

She dances over the surface,
her skis tap shoes, the sky music.

She is a flash of light
reflected in the sea like sun.

New Year's Eve, 11 P.M.

2006-07-09T14:04:00.000-05:00

Time is tiny pebbles
slipping through the spaces

between my fingers.
I can’t stop it,

no matter how
tight I make my fists.

His Wife's Funeral

2006-07-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

Some high school theater student waited
to speak last. I hardly knew Laura,
his soliloquy began. She was David's mother,
nothing more, to me.

He met every pair of eyes
for a second each. After hearing your stories
of her, I'd give anything to have one, too.
He'd designed every word

to wring tears from this audience
like drops from a dish rag.
The symphony of blowing noses
proved his success. Grandstander.

If Laura and I had seen him together
at someone else's funeral,
she would've sworn by his sincerity,
jabbed me with her elbow for being cynical.

Job Interview Sonnet

2006-07-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

After a morning of white lies--
No, Mom, your call didn't wake me;
No, hon, these eggs aren't runny--
I choose honesty now?

She asks, Why here? She asks, Why us?
She wants affirmation;
she wants to know why
the quarterback has asked her to dance.

I say, Bills to pay.
I say, Gotta start somewhere.
I say these things in slow motion
while my mind tries furiously to stop me,

as it tries to stop every horror
film heroine from walking into her trap.

Watching Casablanca at Oma and Opa's House

2006-06-29T16:14:00.001-05:00

At 5:00, my grandfather wanted dinner,
my grandmother a swim.
He said, My stomach! She said, Old man,
stomped into the bedroom.

They switched over to Dutch
when fighting, then back to English,
conversations like a radio station
flickering out of my service area.

Oma returned in a blue bathing suit
and cap. Opa sputtered
as she slid open the deck’s door,
raised her arms, glorious

as a peacock stretching her feathers,
dove into water. Opa, frantic
to prove he hadn't lost, barked at me:
Have you seen Casablanca?

I shook my head. He said,
I thought we'd watch it before dinner.
And we did, volume turned up
to drown out Oma's splashes.

His Choice, They Say

2006-06-27T09:44:00.000-05:00

Gracious, they say, they don't hate him,
only his love for men. If this sin
were removed like an appendix
or tumor, they'd accept him.

They say disease, like alcoholism.
They say, Don't drink.
He may love as anyone does,
but with his heart only.
He may gaze at the long neck
of the wine glass, but not pick it up.

His choice, they say, is to live without
comfort in this lifetime--
to look without touching
like a kid in a chandelier store--
and be rewarded in the next,

or drink every drop this world
offers him, and pay hell for it.

Love Poems

2006-06-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

I. 1996

Him: Tonight, bowling?
Me: [He's wearing the blue shirt again.]
Him: Everything all right?
Me: [His eyes are that exact color. Cobalt? Slate?]
Him: Melissa?
Me: [Though the shirt may be a touch lighter.]
Him: How many fingers?

II. 2001

Her: How are you two?
Me: [flinging onto the couch]
Her: So . . . not good?
Me: Maybe I'd hate anyone after ten whole months.

III. 2006

Me: Guess what?
Him: [rolling eyes so they become white moons] What?
Me: I love you.
Him: [begrudgingly] I love you, too.
Me: Isn't that a lucky coincidence?

A Guide to My Poetry

2006-06-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

First the trigger, something true,
something that's happened to me

or you. Then storytelling. In life,
it's a lie to invent details--

to say he proposed in France
instead of a Denny's parking lot,

to say it happened to me, I,
at all, when I is really she--

but in poetry we remember
not what was but what could've been.

One-Night Stand

2006-06-15T15:58:00.003-05:00

She kissed him, hard, as if
lips could make music
by rubbing together like crickets’ legs.
Then she was crying,

her knees giving out; he never knew why.
He caught her before she fell, moved
with her to keep them balanced.
Soon they were dancing.

Theirs was a sad waltz.
It took them to every corner
of his living room.
It took them nowhere else.

Overheard, Pittsburg High School, 1997

2006-06-14T16:01:00.000-05:00

I.
I stood in the stall,
waited to flush when I heard my name.

Girl A: Why is Melissa
running for homecoming queen?
She's not even pretty.

Though outraged, I had to nod;
indeed I was not pretty.

Oh, I would be someday,
once I smiled a row of white teeth,
lined up evenly as posts on a picket fence;
once acne no longer puffed my nose
to twice its normal size.
But teenagers have so little patience.

Girl B: What's up with her hair?

At this, I frowned, confused, since
I didn't experiment with one side ponytail,
curled-and-sprayed bangs, or the like.
No black roots. No mohawk
or symbols shaved over my left ear.

Perhaps its crime was apathy,
never striving to make waves,
satisfied with playing it straight--
or limp, some might say.

Girl C: But she's so nice.

II.
I've heard we forget compliments,
while insults push to the surface

like bubbles in a pot of boiling water.
But nearly a decade later,

I've bookmarked the beginning
of that bathroom chat in my mind

only so each time I revisit the story,
I can feel the impact of the ending.

Drunk, the First Time

2006-06-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

At a wedding, miles from my mother,
I sipped wine, felt grown-up
at seventeen. I joined conversations
I couldn't have at school,
stabbed the air with a fork-
ful of cake when making a point.

Then the bride's dance with her father.
He twirled her, slow and grand as if
she were the ballerina on my jewelry box
at home. I trailed off mid-sentence
when they whirled past,
and after a moment, I tipped my head back.