Category: Living

Those were the heroin days
when brown pelicans
slapped their bellies
across our graves
free styling water rides
panties wrapped around their heads
when time was ordered, sorted
measured by the flavor in our veins 

We caught out breath on Iggy Pop
locked our teeth with Dylan
dug ourselves beneath the canvas
tasting dog hair, dirt, spent semen,
we marveled the grit between our bones
the bright white light
the heat that bent 

Like carnival barkers
we banged the drum from inside out
except, I never caught the rhythm
the syntax of a talker
echo of the big top, the high wire crowd
the he man she man trapeze gazelles

I was the doorstop, the clear the way
passed through, around, behind
keeping that there and me here
ghost me, shading the edges
pencil lead worn smooth

Rolling down my sleeves
I let go the door
all out and over, all out, all over

I search for inspiration
in the ticking of the clock
the meter, the melody,
the vibration
DNA
giving rhythm to my heart

I chase strands of time
too fine to loom
as they tighten,
thin
string a new dimension
too deep, too far, too all
neurons
leaping lights
across the universe  

Your hand
once centered right in my palm
rises above, beyond
my dreams for you, my love for you
my life I gladly give for you

as you suspend
the natural pull of gravity
I inhale
the beating of your heart

It’s that dawn again
fingering the window blinds
loosening the darkness
from my eyes
I let go the dreamscapes
the fading strands

If life is
a near death experience
let me drink the light until I drown
race the blood in my veins
pound the earth with vibrato
dig, dig, dig to China
plumb somersaults all the way down

I’ll shelter in the rain shadows
the downpour’s glow
and hold you
like this
in my arms

My neighbor fell in with the Baptists
her soul licked clean by Jesus
three feet deep in the Callahan River

With a thorough step
she walks between the lines
of her day glow bible
leaves her driveway and stands
on the corner, averts her eyes
for the laying on of hands?
the filling of the body?
carved into her bones
and begins
prophesying in tongues
incomprehensible
rat-a-tat-tat

I pity her
that she longer no hungers why
the sun rises, falls
what the stars
whisper to the moon

I close my window blinds
But for the grace of God
there I go

I know this dancer …

She draws her world with eyeliner
puddling mahogany at the corner of her eyes
frosted lavender dusts her lids the shimmer
of a tight sweater

I’m an artist
a little Picasso, she says,
and tells me wild imaginary things
of men that can’t resist touching her skin,
that ache to slide between her flesh
and cry with the fervor of the reborn

On the stage, she dips into the crowd
their animal selves gnaw the air and draw close
breathing her marrow
She fingers them – fathers, brothers, husbands, boys
like forgotten change in her pocket
coins lost in the bottom of her purse
gummed with bits of Juicy Fruit, tobacco
tainted with perfume samples ripped from magazines

With a lazy rhythm she rides the pole
squanders her art in foreplay
one dollar at a time
I’ll get out of there, she tells me
over a sink of dishes to her elbows
I want a car that doesn’t drain water every fifty miles
to walk into K-Mart and buy whatever I want

One day, a clear day, a jasmine laced sweet day
she’ll sweep her fine arch
on the right shoulder
and find herself in a waterfall

I want to tell this story
from the beginning
though I really only know the end.
When you were five
there were six of you
one pair of shoes
one good dress
you weren’t yet big enough
but you dreamed of buttoning the collar
around your neck
spinning like cotton candy
twirling the hem into a tutu 

when you were ten
and there were eight of you
two pair of shoes
one for the little ones
one for the bigger
you smoothed the dress
over your legs
knocked your knees
pulled at the hem
and folded into the davenport
losing your silhouette to the pillows 

when you were thirteen
and there were five of you,
the little ones died,
two pair of shoes
one put away
one for the rest of you,
wearing that dress
the hem hugging your thighs
just the way men like
you scurried through the door
like it was your fault 

when you were fifteen
there were three of you
the others had left
two pair of shoes
one still put away
one for all of you
the landlord wanted paid
you put on your Mother’s dress
grabbed the bottle of whiskey
took him to the root cellar
and paid the rent

when you were seventeen
there were two of you left
three pair of shoes
one was still put away
one for the other one
one you earned paying rent
you put on your own dress
slapped fifty dollars on the table
and hitchhiked to Savannah

when you were eighty-five
and there was one of you
I laced your feet into ballet slippers
fluffed the tutu around your
skinny slim body
and we rolled out the door
of the Magnolia Manor
shouting
Fuck the landlord!

Mystify me
pull diamonds from the night black
and paint my lips
the color of forever

wave your hand across all this
and feed a hundred thousand faces
from a hummingbird’s beak
and brush the broken, bruised, and bare
from the tender of my eyes
into a pastoral landscape
of singing valleys
and deep green grass

catch her as she dives the final swan,
less form than release,
swaddle her in the sun
start all over again
then
maybe I’ll drop to my knees
swear a soul to redeem
and pray to your name
amen