i like to think of myself as two people

the day i spent lolling on the couch

wishing for a safety to peel every leg hair off my body

to become curls of rubies atop my head

instead of razor nicks decorating a bathtub

sharp edges picked apart with rusted safety scissors

melting into white tile with the shimmer of saliva

and

the day i chopped apart everything i could find

pant legs revealing scrawny stink bugs wearing cherry sneakers

pencils like baby hairs 

hair alway could be cut without blood

and a fascination with strands on the neck followed

like wisps of water reeds glowing orange in polluted waters

Ampullae of Lorenzini

I don’t know how sharks tell time.
I like to think it is possible
through the same organ
they can sense electric fields,
the same organ that peeled
away long before my cousins
fled the trees, slowly trailing
the herd to the edge of the water,
to a memory, a glimpse
of silver and speed and death.
A fear laced tight in DNA,
a horizon broken by a single tooth.

I like to imagine
that the story about sharks
and a drop of blood isn’t true.
That my fictional
bleeding fingers
are just waving away those dead eyes.
I’m imagining I’m in a boat
accident, rubber lungs,
my pasta salad down
a blubbered throat. The rusty edge
of the rail digging into my tiny
man hands.

The first bite would be
burning sand. Not screaming,
not acceptance,
but an understanding.
Mouth-to-flesh handshake.
I know the shark
can feel the electric
kick in my muscles. Drinks
it in, a quench, a savor.
For 450 million years,
it waited in the void
for me to lean over the
charter boat’s air-brushed sides.

Selection from Night Poems

I am in the half-built bed, frame
of metal, where mattress meets
washed sheets. Out the window,
down the highway, the river
pushes: broken branch, horde
of bottles, carcass of pigeon.
A thin film of regret
laps the shore, the frame
of row home, of museum,
of light that sits in shadow.

The din of the TV, quiet children
in bedrooms, the anxiety
under my skin, a choking victim,
a sinking bus, the slow
tap of a single key. I can hear
the click of a fingernail,
before the sound appears.
No imagination can pull
me away, the slow boiling
of a river, of love, of everything
into the singularity of night.

The Exception

I’ll pretend

that word died, capsized

in Hurff Lake. The duck

boat’s seatbelt rusted shut

as she made out with Dorsey

on the blanket, her hands

down his trunks. 

I’ll dry myself

off, walk past, my sticky clay-streaked

legs warped together.

I don’t look. Her lips wet, the sound

of tongues around the rolling

clouds past the lake houses.

Move past, quickly towards the pavilion. 

They don’t mean anything.

Pretend that feeling is just

the first drops of cold rain.

Lyrical as a Shopping Cart

The truest madness is writing another poem, 

after selling three books in a year,

but the metaphors, similes, personifications

all pile up like groceries

in a cart after getting a new credit card,

and the melting chicken burgers

whisper the inspiration for sympathy cards,

ever as we hold hands,

believing our sweaty palms a love sonnet

while wrinkles and grey hairs rhyme poorly

among friends we haven’t seen in so long,

that they might as well be words

on crumpled paper.

Shorter Than You Think

We want to be a feature length film,

but most of us are snapshots- 

static moments we cherish,

until the names and dates scribbled

on the backs become less than ghosts, 

leaving a shoe box to wait

inside the bottom of a closet

for someone hoping to find forgotten jewellery

or money leftover from paranoia about banks,

only to dump the pictures on the floor,

as if a memory vomited from motion sickness,

while they fail to see

the edges of their own photograph.

If you come in Nature

Dreamy eyes are the nest of dream

Heart is mirror that reflects memories’ cream

Lap is full of love

Nature holds all the dove

Rivers overflow fellow feelings

Waves carry successful wings

Fountain spreads odor of the third eye’ case

Stars take bath with light of love and shyness

Whispering of the leaves recalls rainfall Fragrance awakens my breath all

We are one

Gentle breeze reads the heart of the winter

Flowers hide beauty and it does little matter

Baby birds are enjoying story in their nest

staying at home of course is the best.

The lazy eye of the world peeps in the lap

The winter reigns coldness in it’s own map

Only my love is spreading faster than breeze

My beloved is rolling time that never freeze.

The river of our two hearts beats as one

We are always together in the hut but none

Winter or anything can’t divide us any more

we are not two but one in the heart’s core.

stir fried offerings 

for vegetarians

pure friday

the day of congregation

oh ye adherents





shine

after the flood

sunflowers washed

away in tumultuous 

current






roofless belonging

a room to each

blue bird of paradise

water and seeds


at the bird feeder






contaminated 

dark fumes up above 

a scarcity of breath

the sirens and speakers 

signal evacuation 






families trapped 

on the rooftop others run 

to higher grounds

the heavy flood 


of strangled waterways





naked sky

sprinkles

stardusts

a body of beauty


to lust after







their love

private practice

the tell tale

wild daisies 


in her hair 





graveyard 

shift

approaching me

the cemetery digger


with the victim's eyes






the village boy:

learning to talk 

grandma bites her tongue 

when he mimics 


her tone on his name





slow world

under its weight

a tortoise

tumbles and flips


back in the pond