first light

12 began something truly erotic
the beginning of fantasy ecstatic
early summer
surrounded by fruit trees
and hallowed fruitless women
sleeping in twin beds
emerging at dawn
i walk barefoot into the gardens
feeling the finial shadow
from high ground
he is there
climbing down from a ladder
his hair is so strange and wonderful
peaked up against the straight wisps on his neck
stretch and stain
the uniform of summer work
into the pear tree i lean
the cut clear
armhole of his shirt
i plunge into this summer longing
watching 16 so hopefully
wondering when all of those things
will ever be for me

venture from the insulate
to town
the pretty curled one
so sparkled among the hoods
folded me into her confidence
in the glazed heat
a place
with disparate things
kites and spoons
things to touch and buy
with dimes and nickels
returning in the armored sun
the slow heaviness
wisconsin summer
high afternoon
water around our stride
pacing past
he sits with a friend
in sympathetic resin
rounding his tongue
fingers angled delicately
cantilevered insect grace
ice pick elegance
up from the tip

mass goes quietly
the malevolence
that this place of women
requires a male
to tell them who to be
walking granite stairs
abrupt Italian
spoken by a woman
who has arrived at 109
only to be delivered
to this outside place
and when the day breaks again
she is so happy today
takes me to meet
with them
whispering softly
in so many languages
then we rush
down the stairs
driving out
where heat flattens the ground
and sharpens the meadow
we pick illicit berries
hiding
backed into thorns
as the work trucks
saunter grudgingly by
on the return
the dry grasses
slice my shins
and knees
now covered in black purple
berry ink

i watch the clock
next to the window
when it hits
he steps across
skinny cuffed jeans
the toes of his work boots
barely swing above the grass tips
i cram three berries into my mouth
i step out of the flat little house
backed up against the gold brick
the chewing burble suck
that berries evoke
i whisper incantations
willing him
to look to me
to give me
another view to dream
biting my juice blackened lip
black skins on my teeth
he won’t notice
he never does
and i fall into my narrow bed
cross overhead
this turning
i want madly
to dream of him
dreams are the only garden
where boys ever seem to like me
i blink upward
at the impact
the soles
of bloodied wooden feet
and so my respite from this painful edge
the thoughts i have
this coarse twin bed
prescribed to deter
any embrace
no will ever join you here
and as much as i love the tune
of the gardens
the companionship
the hum of books and contemplation
these precious slivers of monastic life
no one climbs into your side
it's just you
and your thinly woven blankets
each night
my fantasies too deep
for all of that
thick were the things
that seemed so out of reach
like the boy
pulling apples from the trees
and filling holes
on his elegant knees

as summer waned
he left my present
but never my mind
and i headed west
from franciscans to dominicans
from the soft light of nature love
the catechismic cult of animals and children
to the sharp minds
of foreign manuscripts
journeys to far off places
the marvelous stories
that accompanied
one to the other
so out of translation
as i head to this dark tower
no men at all
the business of scholarly consumption
the only priority
so admirable
and genderless
it is difficult to imagine
something in this place
that resembles sex
no fruit of any kind
unless it's of the mind
everywhere i go
i go alone
the city breaks against me
i buy a cactus with my own money
not knowing this tiny thorn covered being
will live on my windowsill
until i'm 23
past this whole lifetime
that is about to begin
i wander to the lake
the beat that i climb in
she takes the till
lays it in
the battery kicks up and the motor bucks
she is singing lightly
in mandarin
this thing
this moment
it is perfection
i spend my life trying
to climb back
the birds alight long dead trees
the young blonde boy
with dark eyes
he palms tiny leathery beings
turtle eggs
i take a picture
where he is blurred
and the eggs clear
this image travels with me
my whole life
looking down at turtle eggs
for an eternity
i wait to return

eala said

and when we call
she doesn't sound
happy to hear from us at all
angry turns left
into distant
and we speak to it
ignoring what it meant
for so long
never thinking
the price you pay
the price
for leaving her
friends from the past
barely served
until the last
i never thought
that's us
that's our future
this is what happens
when you leave her

wrong to go
hard to stay
the competitive round
of things that would be
breaking up
was never this easy
we should have
recovery meetings
sit around
talk about
what happens
when you
pack up your shit
under her red eyes
and leave
she's standing right there
glaring at strangers
as they pick through
our mislaid plans
you never get loved like this
no being
that breathes on this earth
needs you like this
she tries to spell it out
and when you break
from her heartbroken embrace
you always regret
and you left

standing in her robe
6ft nodding above the storm
shrinks narrow and small
holding up her end
the poignant terror
of this moment
you pull away
leave each other
to separate lives
separate plans
always hearing
the mantra
that strung in her head
please, don't go
don't leave yet

stripes

better than myself
everyone helpfully informing me
better than everyone else
this is the second time
i made a long-term
commitment
to mild and sweet
but she never is what she seems
her saccharine
is poison
to the poisonous
flip a switch
and she puffs
lights up the room
with a lethal gas
you forget who you are
where you've been
or that you were shaking
your rattle
when she walked in

1:38 St. James Cathedral, Seattle

saints walk misled pathways of forgotten gods
the silver ring taken from me and given back
i leeward bend so easily
the dappled color of a tempered embrace
i take this road with reluctant passengers
we go, we race
the atrophied umbilical tethers us to this place
one of many under
he finds use here and tells us what it meant
when did jesus become
so many sad things to weave around hollow lives?
when did he stop short of all things love and forgiveness?
we never look under our seats to see the hidden stage
but when the lights go on we recognize this gate
heaven under us
so much water at the bottom of a well
treading i look up and see your face and i know it is the last
the heavy knell of worship and its distracted rhythm
pulling back like a rainstorm unwilling to make us wet
my tread personified the trouble of sex
the violence
how we escape the things that keep us human
the things that keep us from being human
seeing through doesn't make it so
wander to the tight-edged roof of things to come
knowing doesn't mean i know
thinking doesn't untie the knot we willingly hang from this
hanging like so much unchallenged artifice we lean into it
our art carved out of us with tight scalpels
sent to alter the illusion
i reclaim the mystery
i take its breath
i pull it under me
i still remember where it fits
and the plagued membrane that stretched over it
forgiveness
forgiveness

criss cross

the slow moving bird i took out of the sky
i would have saved a feather but it wasn't worth my time
told the retriever 'leave it in pieces'
now it's done i can't even feel satisfied
your final fight so weak
your last gasp unsurprising
i only came for you after you came for me
you see, i never passed up the chance
to extract payment for unnecessary humiliation
i may not look like much but now you look back
you can hear the distant thunder
the grey sky turned black

he spends his time trying to put our hearts back
you ransack the place to see what you can get
our connection platonic, your removal surgical
you think your sex gives you the upper step
look into my eyes
in matters like these there is no higher aspect
step up to the console
you are deep blue's newest opponent
regret the day you fell into this moment

for a year i watch every move
i take back the nicotine
a little misdirection to indicate frustration
hand me the ashtray
this slow build
suits me fine
and every time you turn your back
i set a new charge
a new truth for you to fall on
every time you go down
no dwelling on success
i know what this is
i move on to what's next

we play like we're such good friends
standing around his hospital bed
your impulse so affected
cheeky champagne humor
about cum in your ass
looking at me like you have the upper hand
like i don't know about that
please girl, my life choices
are all about experience
jesus, i had to explain to you
what 'ms.' meant
what kaleidoscope of worn out hooch
do you offer these forlorn gentlemen
you are less than interesting
an amateur pro at best
but we'll get back to that

progeny
your subsistence yield
the eighteen year debt
and as we near the final curve
i can feel you looking for it
an obstacle i can't stop
a way to make the synch
permanent
i get sloppy
throw down some emotional manipulation
to accelerate this mission
messing with someone's karma like this
is nothing good or new for me
my poison dart reflex
compels me to excess

suddenly the oxygen pumped
into your vacuum
don't ask me to print out the stats
this judgement is final
pack your thongs, don't forget your bible
down your cheeks mascara and acid rain
no sierra leone
to tiffany cut your pain
the only blood stone is the one
you'll be drinking from
at the end of this sunny day
all debts now due
my sense of justice perpetually on loan
my sense of betrayal always first
and i pay for this childish impulse
that i wield so dangerously as an adult
mark me once, forever grudgeful
the feather i do keep

iris burn

ran a red light
shining heads
sun ignited chrome
dazzling cholos
inky neck sprawl
tribal mores
here alone
among prickly things
the lonely road
sunset exits taos
i am replete
no expectation of who
i mean to be
i curl up in the ancient hollow
listening to the distant drum
smoke to stars
from long extinguished fires
the ladders fall
hundreds of feet away
my life tears
in this breath
of who i thought i'd be
this was someone's life
their entire journey
above the red stone
the pits below
erosion honey comb
halcyon friction
the desert alone
she lived here
she did this
she came here
alone

Dear St. John's College pt. 1

You are the most unnerving being I have ever met. I am finding it hard to contain my shock and keep my expression locked. This whole discussion is making me more than nervous. All the trivia I can throw out might as well go out into the desert behind me. I won't have the easy upper hand, no quick draw charisma can save me. A complete about face in my experience. My wit won't get me anywhere in this place and that is such a relief. The soft spoken students break ground here in such a satisfying manner. You got something to say you must speak directly to the text and nothing else. No trivia. No context. No one's scholarship is going to help you accelerate over the bumps that occur in the process of this journey. It's the most vulnerable moment I have ever witnessed in a classroom and it's totally killing me. I finally see how all that false acceleration makes us think we have arrived at a true accomplishment. So often the finish line is our only motive. But in calling it an acceleration we misname its effect. We jump past the precious stones that create a true evolution of thought and a more authentic understanding of each concept. My pulse is thudding hard against my neck. Already I'm swimming at the back of the pack. Whether I am up to it, I desire this.