Call Me Well Again

I’ve survived another you

saliva infectious 

dreary and shopworn

I tear through the streets wildly 

search for 

someone’s discarded shred of home 

soft sheets 

a fireplace perhaps

light operatic music 

it’s just a fantasy

non-existent

any minute your truck will come barreling through

my thoughts of salvation

I’ll get by on a lower dosage 

of you

We’ll cut it down to three days a week 

I’ll end up stalking you

grip the light post 

to climb the rim of the dumpster 

try to peer in 

your window 

You’re agitated now 

I’m so low I’m a slinking

belly scraping beggar 

no real reason I’m lingering outside 

in thirty-five degrees 

wearing a denim jacket 

you shuffle me to the truck

I’m edging away 

from two failed marriages 

put it all on them 

but it was me me me 

When I’m well again

I’ll come calling

fresh as babies’ skin

holding a tray of Starbucks

While I Wait for my Lover 

The buzz and hum of New York City

fills the air 

I tuck into a restaurant for cover 

small

Italian 

quiet 

The couple at the table next to me

sort through sonogram prints

I feel a pang of jealousy at 

the little fetus forming in this woman’s 

belly

My lover 

late – and certainly not mine alone 

has no interest in children 

For his sake 

I forego this 

I cannot help but stare 

longingly into the abyss of those 

black and whites 

that little heart 

tiny head

this embryo I turn my body 

away from 

for martyrdom 

yet it’s the thing that calls to me

from some primal part of

my makeup 

I’m on the edge now

sacrificing the eggs 

I feel bouncing around 

in my uterus 

for some blind pact 

that later seals the deal

of which we will be much 

happier 

together 

without kids 

While I Wait for my Lover (Cont.)

The woman feels my eyes 

says it’s a boy

smiles uncontrollably 

I worm around in my seat

the couple finally gone

I am left alone

and this is how it will be

as I decided I’ve passed that exit 

many many highways before 

I’ll just wait for my lover to show up 

and order us scotch on the rocks 

for the long pull of loneliness 

has begun to root 

What Will Your Mother Say

When she finds your corpse

with foam bubbling

down your chin

eyes sunk deep 

in your sockets

black spreading around

your lids and mouth

the needle still stuck

frozen

You

in your aloneness

You 

in your dying

As your mother cracks open

lays across you

the spoon now cold

your spirit beats against the window 

pleads

with God

to let you

back in

To see her in a pile 

of grief and longing 

so deep

your soul evaporates

into the pain

What will she tell

your siblings

the school

the bus driver

the crossing guard

it was an accident

always is

Wait for the autopsy

to understand

what went wrong

deep in the gully of absent parenting 

divorce

boyfriend fondlers

What Will Your Mother Say (Cont.)

booze

cigs

marijuana

heroine

here……..

As you lay hardened

frothing

a slow last milky tear oozing

She still wants you

she begs 

to glue you 

for a day – just one day

even if it’s your druggy lean against the wall

eyes open to a slit

turtle movements 

slurred speech

if just that…than the hell of this 

to speak of you

now

in your deadness