On the 8th Day

/ Arambler / 2 Comments

She sees herself poised
at the edge
of a pier. It’s not a mystery
how she got here. There
she goes again:

running across weathered boards
trying to catch fireflies.

She pauses
when she gets to the end.
Discovers she’s standing
by herself. The other
firefly catcher turned back

hours ago. Maybe days. Maybe
he turned back
a billion years ago.

His palms could be cupping
a glowing 8 at rest
on a pier
on the other side.

He’s not here. Unless.
She reviews the calm
bay water beyond her sandaled feet.
Unless all sleeping 8’s
spoon together when it cools.

I Think / I Believe / I Am

/ Arambler / 5 Comments

I think I am touched
by patterns in the dirt.
I believe I am a dirt eater.
I am New England dirt.

I think I am touched
by the way you think.
I believe I can touch you
with the soft side
of a thought.
I am only touching
your skin in a dream
I had four years ago.

I think I am the alphabet
recited backwards
underwater. I believe
I am underwater
hoping to stop fearing my words
will rust. I am a rusted inner hull
of a houseboat tethered to a dock
in the 79th Street Boat Basin.

I believe I am a map
of New York City
drawn with lipstick.
I think I am being memorized
in my sleep. I am all the dreams
I can’t remember when I wake.

I believe I am a sad cedar
in a ghost forest waiting
for someone to make me laugh.
I think I am saltwater
that has kissed too many Midwestern rivers.
I am a freshly dug canal on an island
that turns out to be the kneecap
of a giant soaking in his tub.

I think I am still moving too fast
down a gravel road
in a speeding car. I believe I am
one little scar
beneath my left eyebrow,
another faded on my right cheek.
I am a station wagon way-back
harboring two restless spies.

I think I am a memory
of two guys named Matt mooning us
from a Rabbit as it raced down a boulevard
of beer and 20-year-old bravado.
I believe I am a rabbit
in an otter’s body.
I am really just a fish
with arms and breasts.

I think I am unlicensed.
I believe I am unlicensed.
I am unlicensed
to do anything but this.

I think I believe I am
you. We
are all
a little bit touched.

Bénisse ces Petites Morts

/ Arambler / 2 Comments

No aneurysm can touch
that stored image
of the way we touched.

A Peaches t-shirt
and that thing
you could do to me
with your eyes

then, now, when
we’ve both gone
to our big deaths.

All fabric falls away
to reveal more
than our encasings could hold.

Hormones and the little ones
we celebrated
without mourners
in a darkened basement.

Tell me how it feels
to find your fingerprints
all over those hidden stars.

Lift Bridge

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A firefly hovers over a waterfall.
A hard-won contrast in the river valley
after dark. This tiny flashlight
directs her to the bend
where womb meets tomb whispers bomb.
Not a wrong note, a controlled explosion
relived in too tall echoes
that bounce against packed dirt block walls.
Somehow the bleeding stops. She smells
cattails, moss, yesterday’s morning rain,
knows his hand will swing to reach her soon.

Light Trespass

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a noisy street
lamp invades her
private property
she has none
who owns the sand
she lets slip
between her toes
must own
the shells
he collects
in a shoe box
where she used to store
those letters

her memory
is too much
with her
another power
given to the rip current
his, shards
of sea glass gems
in amber ruby cobalt
blue aurora borealis
rose swooning
above the horizon

an offing
that can’t be reached
where the road runs
under then beside itself
to spill over the pier

she’s done it before
who says they can’t touch
those lines as they vanish
doesn’t know
what it means
to be a wave

I Am Always Giving Away

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my power
even when the recipient
doesn’t remember
to take it
confusion about how
to operate those levers
a hidden mechanism
someone whispers
tavern wench
from another darkened room
my power
will drop ten stories
to break open on a sidewalk
like an egg
unfertilized and precious
my precious power

Feed

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Big Star for breakfast
Uncle Tupelo for lunch
A.A. Bondy happy hour
fingernails and ‘Mats

a lousy dinner
so many songs
to love under
the covers overnight

I am no December boy
not your butch
never loved
a September gurl

I am a December boy
from another century

“I take out my heart . . .
fire it from a cannon”

a free for all
on a roadblocked main drag
cyclists and pedestrians
take over civil twilight

“no race is run
in this direction”

high water warnings
on the horizon
I know the river’s swelling
better than my own palms.

Liquid Ars Poetica

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No word in this language
I inhale/exhale
can release the last 36 hours
to their rightful wild.

There’s James Brown.
Is he still alive?
A stranger asks.

Rogue stanzas need to interrupt love
poems when they begin to stick
too well to the soft side
of a fall into the river.

They snake around themselves
sometimes slithering
through tunnels, down slides
to exclaim

DUENDE, SAUDADE,
and other
single
word poems.

To laugh inside a church
while attending a funeral
is the most
beautiful answer

to float through
in a repainted blue canoe.

Attack

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Everyone stop talking.
I can’t hear
the grief hissing
in my head. It begins

in the heart,
spreads to the lungs
into the throat,
releases behind the eyes.

Not always exposed
through tear ducts.

I can’t hear
your laugh
leftover from the last time
we saw each other.

Decades ago. Drinks
and dancing
inside Euclid Tavern. Yes,
you were dancing.

I was always dancing
back then. We were
on again off again
in high school.

Old friends by the time
we got to that night.

You were destined
for love, marriage, children,
cooking, sailing, cycling—
a life lived large.

For me, the night
to end all nights,
dance to end all dances,
kiss to end all kisses,

you get the idea,
had just happened
in the Flats
the day before.

It would take years of too many
drinks followed by no more
drinks to discover a life
to be salvaged in a northern town.

Everyone stops talking. It has ended
with your heart.

I Have Some Decisions to Make

/ Arambler / 1 Comment

translates to

farewell to undressing
in the evergreen wood
through a prairie wetland
under a natural bridge
beside a drained creek

farewell to hiding
inside an abandoned
boathouse waiting
for familiar voices
to fade away

farewell to believing
your shame
is love

farewell
my love