poem : memoir

memoir


I want
someone
who swallows their voice,
turns away rather than heating their face –
anything not to awaken the reminder
all screams come from my father’s throat.

poem : paper walls

Ya Vez and I broke up at the same time of the tsunami in Asia - we both agreed it seemed the world was ending

paper walls

how the hand can reach into another room
palm against the textured wall

some hands aren’t as telepathic
feel no trigger of heat
during the pacing of floorboards
the cadence of vibrations toward the walls

one finger is damaged in making a phone call
and another still able to point out
the bad word used in place of please

damaged the tendons of the palm
the structure of the house
when a country on the other side of the world collapses

poem : curve

This is the last poem I wrote before the divorce...

curve

a scientist plotted the literary lives of the greats: Shakespeare, Poe,
Dickinson claiming they lived long past the height of their work,
charting all major publications and significant events to form
exacting arcs

other charts, like Wilde’s, offered the loss of early death,
suggesting a missing “great work” that never would be

I wonder where the strength of my arch lies now,
and why that path, for some scientist, cannot include
the day I heard the drums for Santa Barbara,
the night I really wanted to give my body away,
the evening I saw that one, across the room,
and knew
I reached
the first promised point
on that arc no one can dare chart

poem : easy enough

the beginning of the end...

easy enough
for Ya Vez's memory of Mercedes, who wasn't conquered/who did see and left

even now I know
you are not over your first lover

mujer
you say
when I go
I don’t come back
to the house I’ve burned

you carry your denial so strong
the stop light gets your frustration
turns to green go already

it’s easy to close the door on an ashed over house
when it’s you who’d had enough of the flame
but it wasn’t – she took your matches

and missing don’t mean
the phone has to ring
or the words are lost
during a bump-in-to while going groceries

missing
is that if any old salsa song came on
and she happened to be in the same room
you knowing you’d dance toward her,
be all offering

you deny my belief in the it-could-happen
but that sudden cold shoulder you give
talks more than you ever cared to

poem : arms

arms
a ghazal

people say our stories are sticky, restless arms
careful when placing them in the crook of our arms

like notes found in a back pocket, the creases
never undone : that first lover forever forming our arms

the plants don’t repot themselves, need the directive:
knees to the ground, the world of roots resting in arms

sacks of potatoes, plastic bags full of rice and bread
stuffers between pay checks, how we hold our arms

the war rages on, despite declared victory
why must our young work around menacing arms?

poor-sighted sleepwalkers move their glasses to other
places, leave the task of searching to sightful arms

small pillows on the sleeves of skin that are her arms
she holds memory like a nighttime rain, in her arms