Selected Poems

First Date

She was hair and bruises with a shot of ragamuffin. Skin dusty white, her eyes aqua green. She strolled toward me like the last word, adrift within her own circumstance. My first face smiled, my second sniffed with pleasure. This is the hardest part, I thought. It was predictable and lovely, and my heart struggled to accommodate it. I moaned softly and wished for something terrible.


that winter

your twitching bunny nose
       the way, at the door
   your eyes unlocked

you are a dark mountain road
   sunless sea
a falling shape on the white lawn

a second skin I grew that winter

       on december 17th

you lifted out of your bra

my thoughts slowed to the pace of
   drifting snow

your eyes looked up at me
        newly sexed
    disturbing the air

i thought the house was breathing
    but
   it was only us

a jump of white wine
   in your swollen throat


buffalo

i left a place where

   i was unhappy

          but

it did not make me happy to leave

i suffer from the fear

   of what has already happened

because some loves are

    more potent than others

this breakup

 

     stutters

       repeats in me

as terror

J is not here

     the stupid world continues