You taught me how
to wear black
no matter what—
knit cap, trench,
Chelsea boots,
a hint of ginger
along the collarbone,
the last word
hidden in
our rammed understory.

nothing
nothing but a
nothing but a spider
nothing but a spider doing
its thing

A cobweb of frayed cords,
slats chewed into jagged teeth piers
after another superstorm
nowhere near where
he lived and died.

He’s been gone 15 months.
It’s time to reclaim the view.
I keep whiskers he left behind
in a container beside the wooden box
that holds his ashes.

war does not end
bodies wrecked into angels I might see
if you turned that damn thing off

the stars the stars the stars

knots in my backpack will come undone
the ones in my throat not a chance
on this planet I love

I do not drive
this planet I love
I do not want love I cannot drive

off this rock

she knows her way in any kind of darkness
notebook in hand in crowded clubs
she’s never really alone

I used to be her / I still am
the girl who drives
this pen further into the dirt

than wheels can ruin themselves
across another rural route
beware the grand public gesture

where do sentences come from
where do they go
when the lights go out

what about the neighborhoods
without names to stitch
their desperate syllables together

how can a place have no scenery
I never understood the difference
between the front row and stage

edge / moat / river

that cannot be crossed
without a bridge that stops lifting
or swinging long enough to jump onto

I used to talk to strangers
now I talk to myself
strangest of all

sometimes we steal
from the collective
imagination first

when that fails
we steal
from our younger selves

folk song traces in the filament

it took 26 years for me to think of the birds
that lived in the nest
those roofers torched by mistake

we all have a fire story to tell
that was mine
not yours

26 years
the distance between
my father and me

26 miles
the time between
innocence and this life I live now

the building speaks
in tongues before it bursts
into a torch song

the one I used to hum
to myself
on your stoop

willing you
to open the venetian blind
to have a look

this sidewalk the only true home I know

I only want to be
a sympathetic string
waiting patiently
for my octave
to awaken me
from this dead sleep
says no addict anywhere
there is a watering hole

caked in dirt.
I pull them out
before the healing is done.

Now I lay me down on a bed of nails
no more—no more getting
stuck in these lucid dreams of death.

another precarious morning to slip on
the surface of things best left unsaid
before the sirens the sound of boots
storming up the narrow stair
a door bursts open

the rooftop chapter ends before it begins
guitars and amps
a voice pauses mid-note
the view from a helicopter
as it hovers over an inevitable distance

between crooked smile
and withering glance
her Plan B begins
with scorched strands
of another alphabet

and sugar water she would draw
into an eye dropper
for the hummingbird please
come spring
she whimpers

I will
I will not fall
I will not fall over
I will not fall over the edge
tonight

names fall so short
slip so far under the rubber mat
I can’t see anything beyond
leftover shadows of words
worried into hints of guitar picks

release date TBD

fireplace flames in another commons
once again get reflected
onto the street
setting another parked car’s
tail pipe on fire

it ends / not well / not the end

of the world
not nothing
the next corridor beckons us
to say something
about this skyway life

snow falls / blows around / wind chill kicks in

gender neutral storms
on the horizon
ones with no name at all
plot-driven beauty
has become so overrated

the eyes always tell on me

I tell myself you told no one
the way we told ourselves
it wouldn’t be the last
tell-tale half skull stare
into the low-hanging sun

wasn’t it a railroad bridge we used to cross

so deep into the night
the other side
would glow
with the most delicious fright
don’t wait for permission to choke

on tears while flying over the blaze

where did he go

the beautiful boy
with long dark hair and beard
freshly cut blood red lips
true brown eyes

casting such a spell on me
I would give away the first born
I never had
to give away

to be his spygirl
on a secret mission to unearth
the real reason we want
to ruin everything by touching

warm skin on warm skin

the beautiful boy
who shouts

an eye for an eye
leaves the whole world blind

at a peace rally
on the steps
to Northrop Auditorium
less than a month after 9/11

emcees an erotic poetry slam
in an Irish pub where old wine
and new whiskey flow
on a bitter cold Valentine’s Day night

reappears for a sober reunion
in a church basement
soon knocking scraps of exquisite corpse
off the bed with me

warmer skin on warmer skin

the beautiful boy
16 years later
the age I was then
rumors of being found and scrubbed clean

a cellar door slams shut
the blood no longer so red
seeps into the warmest fibers
of the margin

where I have sidelined myself
to savor each stained word
of another narrow escape
near miss / enough

material finally gathered
to do this thing
Annie please say yes
to this lost beautiful boy

I’m searching for the chalk
in a warped wooden drawer.

I’m contemplating a quick plunge
into icy waters

if I can find an opening
this time of year

while the debate over fresh
or frozen rages on.

This craving for peas,
I respond.

I always loved George best,
even in 1967. My 3-year-old heart.

A quieter charisma. The fame.
Whose? The anxiety. Whose?

No pill to swallow
to cure this rock ‘n’ roll

roadkill recording—
obsessively hitting repeat.

If you had done a better job
teaching me those chords

(I got G, why not C?),
my guitar would gently weep

instead of this
unstrung, unwieldy instrument

I rattle to whisper

George not John or Ringo,
George not Paul,

George not you,
the other Paul.

My 3-year-old heart,
I always wanted to believe.

I had to reach into the wet cement
to retrieve my left hand.

I had to rethink which mark
to leave behind.

I had to fool myself
into believing

I might get away with
no visible trace

till the street lamps
hum themselves awake

to signal civil twilight
and gloriously illuminate all my anxieties,

the 79th Street Boat Basin
and Hudson coming into view below.