Waiting Game (poem)

It’s a waiting game with changing rules.
Day turns to night and everything’s cooled
except for you.
I’ve learned not to ask questions
when you’re mad and quiet.
These are life lessons that I do
not challenge. I roll along
here, across from where you stare
into the blurring haze of dusk
where stars may start to burn
and it’s my turn to flip a switch inside.
Electricity was discovered, not invented.
Channeled, not controlled. I am your bulb
and I might break or fizz out
before this darkness makes you shout
about all the reasons you need me
to lose. It’s not a fight that I choose
but I can’t tell you no.
Instead, I say it’s the way
I learned to play this game: turn the board
and close your eyes, please, for me.

Used to this (poem)

I. You, you broke my heart again
(and not for the last time, I know).
That was tonight
II. and I had a dream
where you leaned into me and said
your girlfriend was blowing you
off tonight and you kissed me,
broken with passion, and I was surprised
by how quickly you walked away.
Stunned, I’d say, both of us.
III. There was a time before
where I meant everything I said
and you would listen and you would
react.
IV. Like the time I had a dream
you were swimming with my nephew
at least a year from now and my mother
greeted you warmly with a splash.
You looked at me and smiled and tossed
my nephew up for the water to catch.
V. I don’t know what to think anymore
I only know that I cannot choose
not to love you. Not even subconsciously.
Or especially. I am at a loss.
I am used to this.

Split My Infinitive (poem)

I love it when you
talk grammar to me,
correcting my verb usage,
un-dangling my participles,
refitting my prepositions,
clarifying my pronouns,
correcting my spelling.
You tell me you cringe
at the sight of a split
infinitive and my pulse spikes
knowing I taught you
that lesson. Oh, baby,
I’ll let you capitalize
all my proper nouns
if you’ll let me
fix your punctuation.
We can copyedit
each other today
for tomorrow’s presses.
The rules are clear,
not to be broken
by us, raw disciples,
our lips tingling
with the sweetness
of the perfect word
choice. Whisper it
closer, in my ear.

Pieces of Winter (poem)

Undercover, you ask:
Is there warmth left at the core?
But I ask the same.

We drape blankets across
our thick sheets of December-land,
our bodies the known geography
bound under this bedridden winter burden.
Snow falls like tears from the stuffy clouds
above our physical map and I see
the rocky soil of your face has thinned
and paled in the cold. Mine is chipped.
We are tucked into the earth, frozen
to the fabric of our listless lives, suffocated
and dry in the burning, chaffing winds.
I open my hands wide beneath the atmospheric
covers while you twine silent
frost through my fingers, over my tongue,
binding me to you, to the choking
avalanche of our new winter, discovered
and explored from the comfort of our bed:
absent and empty of natural warmth
and overstuffed with these uninvited
pieces of winter, but still
the only place where we can
burrow or hibernate
or surrender to our core

In the Event I Want to Frequent a Show (poem)

I am the last one
You pull close
to your sweaty body to say
thanks for coming out on a Sunday night
and you hold on to me
a little too long. There is a woman
standing nearby who you have failed
to introduce as your new girlfriend.
But we all know that’s who she is.
She is watching you press your body
against mine and she sees my face,
happy and loved, and she isn’t reacting.
We finally draw back and you say we will
talk tomorrow and all of us leave you
behind with her. I get in the car
and smell your spice everywhere all the way home.

File it away: (poem)

Martha was born
on March 28
(the Day of the Child
in the Week of Innocence)
which makes her
an Aries, fiery,
like my mother.

Leigh thought
that made her
a Gemini, like me.

He returned my call later,
after sending me straight
to voice mail, responded
to my laughing plea of
Where the hell are you?
I need to talk
about The West Wing
The drama! but he
only told me about Martha
having something in common
with his leaking tire.
(Except he called her
“the ex.” X. ecks.)
He said she can’t
make a decision
to save her life,
that she’s losing air
as quickly as his tire.
And I wonder why
he’s called me back
to talk about her,
and remember
he’s a Leo, born
on the Day of the Double
Agent, the Week of Balanced
Strength. Sneaky. Like
he couldn’t take my call
in front of her, but he’s more
than able to spend
his time with me
sliding her name
through his lips.


I’m in a weird
place tonight, he
finally said, abrupt.
I have to be up
in five hours
cuz that’s when
the water is best.
I want to remind him
I was born on the Day
of the Entertainer
in the Week of New
Language, which makes me
a daughter of the Air, faithless
to waves. But I’ll remember
what he’s said, I think.

I’ll file it all away.

Support Local Musicians (poem)

There are lyrics
unwritten
on the spine
of my courage, prickled
and unwavering and horribly
cliché.
What if I want
to sing
about porcupines
or paper hats?
What
if the sound of ice
in a glass
stirs more romance
in my gut
than a well-
executed kiss?
What if there’s nothing
original
to say
with my mouth
open?

God, I fucking love everyone who came out tonight.