I had a dog who loved to fetch

I had a dog who loved to fetch
until I threw him a
quarter stick of dynamite.
Wag of tail,
woof. And then,
kablooie.

Capricorn

i've forgotten, maybe, 

what made me remarkable to my parents  -- 

the placement of the stars on my birthday,

orion's refutable irrelevance,
his sword a pointed indication;

an index finger stretched in
constellary condemnation --
i've forgotten

what this  means for me  --  (my "cosmic space")  --

proverbial butterflies' wings.

I thought my arms were swords;
To embrace me was to bleed.

but i have known the inside of your mouth for 

quick, intimate moments--

there it is! the soft, billowy sail of cheek, 

the private flesh of neck; 

the dog-tooth, sharp, provocative, the plaintive, 

crazy tongue. and i recall,

under a harvest moon, looks that

even at the time seemed

slightly more than half-intended, 

looks whose futures worm-holed us into infinite

scenarios: soft osculations and 

oft walks along the wintry potomac;

skinned rabbits! too much salt!

brazen manifestos of the heart!

incorrect, (y)our incorrections,
treading waters,

boilings over,
sittings in church with that particular

church-light i was taught to distrust,

and your kneelings at the pew 

in an attitude of humility -- my own indiscretion,

confusion, my deliberate sinnings, my 

socratic questionings; if
god, then what,

if not, then
who, and

that first day in church with that particular

church-light all i saw was you -- neither god nor
constellation -- 

and the future made the sound a flower makes

as it unfolds inside a drum,
My hearts iambic thrum. You

a rhythm moved to match and meet
that which cannot be un become.

and, now, when we're together,

lying wet as mermaids once we've slipped apart,

my heart… my heart.

The Inuit People

Some people, you say,

Are just not meant to be happy.

A headline about the Inuit people reads,

Sun wrong, stars wrong, earth tilting on axis.

I take your hand and it lays there like a cod,

Resolute, irrelevant, and mostly dead.

The cat is sick with a genetic defect.

Every day the little lungs fill up with fluid and it

Takes a doctor to drain them.

The cat is becoming expensive.

His eyes cross and leak mucus, his fur is clumped,

His tail is a halfhearted lag;

Whatever it is that constitutes life in this cat is

diminishing. Some cats, I say, are just not

meant to be happy, and you say,

why do your breasts droop so,

so unlike in the magazines,

and I take your hand and it twitches on my breast

like a cod; enormous, cold, funereal.

One cannot force love,

It is as naturally occurring as death.

The sun is wrong, the stars are wrong,

Your moon is in Capricorn, my Jupiter

Is a cornucopia of misguided goodness;

Scorpio inserts himself between us,

The earth tilts precipitous and we wake to

Constant fall.

You grow up till you’re 18 and then you begin to die,

My mother is fond of saying, and also,

Let’s get this show on the road.

He’s worried that I’m ending the poem with

Too many sad words.

Wrong Irrelevant, halfhearted, diminishing.

            --What do you mean by “funereal?”

He tells me to be happy.

“Our happiness summits, it perpendiculates and it parallels,

Our happinesses diverge, divorce, grow fingers,

Rake through men’s hair—“

Show me again how the Eskimo kiss –

We are guileless, remote from one another,

Regretful.

The cat curls into itself, licking his paws,

And we glom to one another like new cells,

Let’s make us something new.

The Weather

You always start your stories with the weather,

So I’ll start with the weather:

It’s spring, insect-ridden, 

Like a bad broth, 

And what’s supposed to be savory is

Sweet-tasting, overripe.

I’m on the train saying your name to myself, and

Resenting the way it sounds:

Mex-i-co, fort-i-tude, blue-ber-ry.

“Too much fucking salt,” you said, and I wished my 

Arm had bruised at just that.

Now I’m hopping into pools of light on the

Midnight sidewalk, counting my fingers, noticing

My shoes falling off of my feet,

Thinking words like cowboy, and bluestockings, and noire. 

I’m finding my own fantasies so boring these days.

Marrying you, for example.

“You’re not the one I’m worried about,”

Dad says, and I feel like I’ve pulled off a heist,

Like my hems are lined with stolen diamonds.

Still, he tells me,

“Come home soon.” Come back to Pacific waters and

Golden rod and avocados hanging heavy as stones;

Come back to the mustard plant and the cracked Bauerware, 

To the blood libel, to the glib inanity of our conversation,

Come back to the relentless idiocy of our love.”

I’ve made a family for myself of stones and flowers.

You are my flower, they are my stones.

California dries beneath my feet; the colors bleach.

The dogs depress me because they don’t understand me,

My eczema returns, I lose weight, I gain it back, I stay pale.

We talk on the phone and you say, “come home.”

To the jarring deli lights, to the soft, stinking waters,

To the electric fear, the autumnal incandescence, to the moonlit

Bike rides and cocaine, to the silhouetted water towers, 

come back to the secret banality of our love.

2011

one day, sweetheart

sweetheart, i spent the day opening windows and

blowing smoke out of them, all my particles getting

all mixed up in everything else's. i want to be remembered

me for my beauty, and you for your madness.

it's not been a normal sort of year. it hasn't been since

childhood, before normal sorts of years became a thing.

i love you, i love you, i love you. all day, letting all kinds of

particles in and out, in and out, in and out.

i had a dream last night you kissed my sister on the mouth.

i find myself folded in sheets, listening to you making coffee upstairs,

smelling the night on my breath, sour like bad meat, my belly

an endless, whorl of a drain, and adrenaline affecting unexpected

parts of me. you come in with your papercut smile too sharp to grab hold of,

too unknowable to ever know; but your kiss is good, you are innocent. i feel like i'd

doubt myself a million times before i ever doubted you.

i don't trust god, i don't trust the law, and i don't trust you. i don't trust

anybody who's ever looked at me cross-eyed, including myself. your mouth is

pliable, tensile, strong, eager, quick. i trust it better than i trust you, like

an animal it's a truth-teller, changing shapes. i love you, i'm sending particles

at you, in and out.

it's time to leave the windows open in our houses. spring is here, lifting

old tobacco from my note paper, illuminating dust and smudge.

wait for my signal if you know it;

in the summer i will be healthy and sincere. one day you and i

will have six barefoot children roaming around our little wood house in big sur,

and we will sell pickles and beer for a living, and the only

fights we ever have is over who already filled in the crossword,

right sweetheart, and whose turn it is to give the dog a bath.

mushrooms

the way i'd like to love you is the way

mushrooms creep up in the still forest,

fragrant and damp,

mysterious night-watchers,

their peculiar heads dream-nodes, spirit-nodes,

and soft as a far-far-away moon.

i'd love to love you like millions of bacteria

softly gnawing away at the precious head,

hushed diamonds, starlit vagueries,

the giddy metal scents of dirt,

of iron, zinc, aluminum, rock, moss and dried spit;

a final slurp of tongues as we both fall back,

umbrella-headed, gentle,

from those unfathomable inches above the earth.

Nostalgia

What she misses is the pale-faced swimming pool days.

The days of evil-eye sour candy and

murderer's crabgrass. The many hours of

hot-seasoned sunlight making prisms of the hose water

snaking through the air;

isosceles cut cucumber sandwiches and

cloud mayonnaise for lunch,

dinner parties with the wicked magician and

his son, with all the musical humans with their sundry

flukes and jams--

Her mothers hands, always on her back,

rearranging the map of her insides.

2006