Made of Paper

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“Words are impoverishments, splendid poverties.”
—Charles Simic (from “Reading Philosophy at Night,” The Life of Images)

Melancholy settles in.
All room surfaces
get ghosted
back to silence.

Then she realizes
she gets to keep the poems
she writes. Their letters
won’t vaporize so quickly.

Discovers an exit
where she enters
a tall stone-clad tower.
She climbs its angled, wide stairs.

Reads names of towns
on the walls
as she gets higher
and higher. To the top. (baby)

Kind of like a lighthouse
shoved inland,
saving nothing,
where a dollhouse waits

below to be touched.
A jarring memory
of a napkin
from 45 years ago:

As she folds it
into a triangle
in that breakfast nook
in Indiana,

she tells herself
never forget

this moment.
Her father fries eggs, butters toast.
Bald, gray rectangles outside
expose a dry cold.

Cutout Black and Blues

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“It’s kind of like Houdini in reverse. Instead of trying to escape, you’re trying to be let in.”
—Tom Waits

Let words cure overnight. Beware
stale napkins that crumble
to a fine white powder
when you grab one off the stack
to wipe your face, blow your nose. Beware.

For a music lover,
you sure have bad timing.
Hurry hurry hurry.
How many days
will you wait? Hurry hurry hurry.

Sad funny lovers with bad livers
that give out too soon.
After all these years,
you still know what it means
to watch a video

filmed inside a liquor store
with your eyes closed.

You view coffee bean roasters
with your ears. A background hum
helps you count
those one seconds
at a time with wired precision.

The one who died
almost five years ago
used to wait for them
to unlock the door
at 9 am every day but

Sunday. What did he do on Sundays
when he couldn’t drive
to Wisconsin anymore?
He never drank
coffee. Yoo-hoo instead. Ensure

and vodka at the very end.
Houdini didn’t drink.

If he had decided to dive backwards
into a fish tank, he might have
never left. You used to squeeze yourself
through milk chutes
till you realized

you didn’t want
in. Outside

you remember that Indiana sky.
Sunset or sunrise,
the horizon holds corn
between its teeth.
No other silhouette will do.

#poem #poet #poetry

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“The left hand is thousands of years older
than the right, that’s why most people
still don’t know how to use it.”
—Dean Young (from “Dragonfly”)

You hold a number,
no, a number sign, no,
a hash, no, hashtag
in your left hand.

Ready to fling it
over the chainlink fence.

You hope it won’t behave
like a boomerang,

like an old lover
who returns
one too many times
without an alibi or straight line.

Each prong
has a parallel mate
no matter how
you flip it. Four simple lines

become a safety net
to catch you
when you leap.
A perch is a perch

is a lover
of freshwater

gasps. You hope
the neighboring bracket

pair makes a better
flotation device than hugger.

Last Day of Summer

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Gloom. Bathos. I don’t want to be
that girl. I remember when

being that girl
meant flying a kite in Central Park.

Winking at a department store mannequin.
Seeing it wink back.

Biting a white glove. I let go
of all the strings

I’m holding. The wind died
hours ago. I wave my empty hands

through still warm air.
Another season blurs

its edges into the next.
I don’t drown.

Maker Breaker Solar Jar Hacker

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I am the matchbook
you shove
under a wooden leg
to level the table
you use
as an idea factory.

I get down
on all fours
to prop up
a mirror that magnifies you
two times larger
than you were yesterday.

I have a delicious power
you wish
to taste.
Stick out your tongue
and say
anything you want.

What you thought
would be sweet
turns out to be
hot and spicy,
slightly bitter
around the edge.

No rasp can touch
these legs
I use to run
through reflecting pools
and invisible waterfalls
in the dark.

13 Years Flow Both Ways

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The last time
I took mushrooms
I got stuck

under the East River
in a subway car
for more than a half

century tucked into
an hour. More than
just another bad trip.

I wish I’d been alone
with only strangers
down there. Regrets.

I claim to have none.
Then another ex-lover
reel plays

in a too well-lighted room.
No blinds, shades, curtains,
not even a ratty sheet

to use
to cover those outsized
windows. I can’t tell the difference

between fresh and salt
water thoughts
from this view. An angry sun

leads to the worst
bouts of shame. When it’s over,
I always feel a little

embarrassed that I let it
get that far. That I’ve gotten
on the wrong train.

Can’t really blame the guy.
Not the subway, city
dwellers, or even the chemicals.

It’s never the river’s fault
especially when the river
is really a strait.

It Sways Chokes Bends

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Wait for me inside
the vestibule
of my inner ear.

You’ll make me dizzy.
I don’t mind.
It’s not you.

It’s that damn dimple.
The one that appears
on your left cheek

when you give me
that crooked smile.
I thought it signaled

your love.
Peel off
the red

raincoat. Turn
it inside out.
We all make each other

sick some
of the time
remaining in

the glass.
Nausea dissipates
when I walk it off.

When I snap
my fingers and forget
to hold my breath.

Retread

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Hit by a wake
of rainwater
a morning bus makes
as it barrels through
every puddle. Hit

by a gray thought—
losers, only losers. Hit

by a Dumptruck
song she hasn’t heard
in years. The Haunt.
Hit by all the names
she never remembers,

she hits back. The sound
of vulcanized rubber
on wet pavement
becomes her
secret overture.

Upper Mississippi

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As the train crosses over,
it stuns me again to be living

so close to the northern end
of this multithreaded river.

Entrenched beneath bluffs,
it’s just waiting

to have its hidden whitewater
rapids restored.

I would give away
every page of misguided poetry

I’ve written
to be so dignified.

To know exactly when
to make an exit.

Then it hits me—
a paddleboat slamming

against a dock. I tally
up all the moves

and miles logged
in rows of unlocked journals

and see
I’m the one

who has done the leaving.
Ghosted myself

as I seek
another body
of/or water
to inhabit.

Evening Creep

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She defrosts
her freezer
in the middle

of every third
lunar cycle. Hears
a man

at another table
mention shell game.
All she wants

to find beneath
is a trail in the sand
the original

dweller left
behind. Pretends
she’s just fine

through the other
two cycles

when inside
bearing walls
close in.

Others begin
to sway. Unstabilized
bookcases shake

loose thin books.
Poems appear
to leap

to their demise.
Words scatter.
Some flee

under door
sweeps. Others
slice window screens

to escape. As evening
creeps in sooner, longer

toward the autumnal
equinox, she longs
for the bravado

of no regrets
beneath a thunder moon.