incandescent, i pause
in the doorway, just a shadow
outlined by darkness
but shining with the clarity
of midnight--
a perfect proof of shape
and form, with fingertips
just barely brushing
the wooden frame.
and you, for all your grand
great ideas, for the time
you have spent thinking
and pondering
and cogitating and agitating--
you are struck silent
by the figure i present,
by the curves
that disappear into silence
and the bend in my elbows
and the arch of
one mocking eyebrow.
feather-light i brush
just slightly against the air
in the room, spreading scent
and wafting womanhood
over your ego,
then turn and whisper
out the door,
down the hall,
into the night.

oh that slight sidling away from the issue,
the words that run away with my
miscreant mouth-- troublesome tongue--
come find me, find me where i lay and strip
the very marrow from my bones,
let us argue about the meaning of art
and whether god and nature truly exist.
and my fingers, dancing nimbly around yours,
writing circles onto the bare skin of your back
and palms that flash like hummingbirds
against your broad and carefree chest
while my back arches for your touch,
hopeful hips-- lithe legs-- i seek you
early in the morning, or late
at night when it's too quiet for peace.
my body that keens like a seagull
when you're gone, searching empty shores
for your track-- eager eyes-- sunburned skin--
chasing you home or nowhere, to find you
where you would keep me for more than a minute.

so bring me winter,
lay the season at my feet
with all its snow and frostbite--
with its cold acerbity,
dangerous fields of ice,
bring me winter
and make it my wedding gift.
all your words could do
was leave me shivering,
but winter,
winter could kill me
or leave me breathless and shaking
at your door.

the world is such a complicated thing.

you must be willing to get injured.

one day i slunk along a path
that led to whoknowswhere,
forgetting all my mother's wrath
and abandoning her care.
the sun was gold, the roses pink,
the dirt was packed down tight
on a path that traveled to the brink
of a copse immersed in light.
i perched a moment, pausing there
outside the verdant scene,
and breathed in sweetly scented air,
touched grasses, lush and lean.
a few steps more and i could be
part of that peaceful view,
yet something made me wait to see
and contemplate and brood.
as i considered wading in
a movement caught my eye,
a tiny sparrow and her kin
hopped out, leapt up, to fly.
the chicks were still unsteady
on their newly feathered wings
that spread and flapped, unready
to support the new fledglings.
the little sparrows squawked and strained
and struggled to attain
the elegance that was ingrained
in blood and bone and brain.
of six, just five whirled into air
and left one far behind,
and dove upwards without a care
as the sixth rebuked his kind.
the lonely sixth did struggle back
and forth along the trees,
when one missed hop threw him off track
and onto my bent knees.
a shrewd young eye then studied me,
the claws caught on my skin,
and he chirped then looked back to see
what had happened to his kin.
my heart beat hard with eagerness
to touch and know this bird,
the blood was pounding with a stress
and a speed the sparrow heard.
he cocked his head and winked his eye
then spread his fragile wings
and took off to the empty sky
where all his brothers sing.
so i stayed crouched outside the grove
and watched them fly awhile,
a multitude that played in droves
and splayed an aerial mile.

his pulse is firm, his hands insist,
as i mold to his form:
an offering pure in lust and bliss
so even flesh conforms.

the night seeps underneath the door
and into his dark eyes
which prick my skin and start the war
with beauty as its prize.

what he demands i freely cede
and wait for the reprise:
another round of growing need
and asking, gently, please.

a thousand deadly drops of sweat
merge inside our hands,
to seek the beat and make a threat
where pleasure seeks to stand.

and when the battle's all but won
his skin declares the right:
that even when the war is done
it's only for the night.

when the contentedness slips up my spine
like a slide rule
(you are happy once, you are happy twice)
it's time to review the measurement:
the step by step abrasion
that makes me willful and inchoate.
when i was this high
(gesture about hip-height with the hand)
i was buried under prose, line by line the words
came pouring out of gnawed-on pens.
then here
(a little higher now)
the words found order, found reason,
found a logic in illogic that made them rhyme
and gave them rhythm.
and now i wonder, for the height i have now,
what i have given up for this viewpoint:
coordination, fascination,
or even just a grounding of emotions.
but the slide rule keeps sliding,
measuring my mountain of subservience and lust
and counting the times that you come:
i am happy once, i am happy twice.

it's so complicated,
this desire to be broken:
to know myself as strong, fearless, confident,
and seeking someone to fault that.
in the moments of my deepest self-awareness,
my heart grinds away
in the mire of success, seeking inspiration
among stones that shouldn't be turned:
what is despair if not tipping the scales,
if not finding myself alone
but as independent as the golden calf?
and what i need is a darker soul,
someone else's grit
to erode my control and careful plans.
it's complicated, even the admitting of it
must be done carefully and silently;
yet this conception of my disgrace,
so well formed in bed at night,
finds its home in your palms
and your teeth
and the way your mouth latches onto mine.
the marks are left for morning,
the selfhood left for dead.

my insides are hollow,
a slender secret that seeks and seeks
and only finds when it finds you.
like some cheap candy,
sticking to the roof of your mouth
but all pleasure on the tongue:
but easy, easy to find.
and when i'm shaking,
when my palms are opening and closing
crying their own cries against your broad back,
will it be enough then
to be exactly what i am and not
one single thing more?
it is the eternal fear of woman, see:
all the secrets of the world cannot conceal
the fact that i am who i am,
straight down to my belly
especially when you're looking at me like that.
so sure, come on and seek,
with your eyes, the heat of your blood and
great rough palms, come seek.
i will be easy enough to find.

the first night stands alone again,
a crux atop the hill:
the slope curves down, ironic grin,
for us to take our fill.

the first night offers just one chance
to feed, to starve, to prove:
one shot to guess the steps to dance
and coordinate with you.

the first night is a lonely peak
that demands as much as gives:
our hands are clasped, the bed will creak,
as sex takes breath to live.

the first night scolds you long and hard
for giving it away:
you slut, you couldn't leave one shard
of dignity for today.

the first night makes the second go
much quicker than before:
he takes his fill and leaves you, though
he leaves you wanting more.

in the dark byways of the world,
sunk inside the glistening bricks of seaside alleys
and conjoined to blank concrete in los angeles,
in the paths where no one thinks to walk
there are secrets, and they hide me from you.
here between the tall brick homes,
where the sidewalk blocks don't connect so square,
i slip between the cracks and against the pebbles
and under the cement, and the roads
bear their burden over my head and do not comment.
along these paths, then, i am free to walk
and wander as i will, against or away
from the sun or the rain, towards heat
or enveloping cold, and the roads don't speak,
they don't even know my name.
i help to push a single blade of grass
into unlikely places, between bricks and blocks,
hoping you see it and wonder of me.
i'm not dead, but these roads don't know my name
and they give me shelter and won't give me away.

she bites the peach,
the juices run
all down her chin
and in the sun
she glistens there
the sticky shine
adorns her mouth,
the tongue that twines
between the lips
to catch the drips
before they fall
onto her lap
to glimmer there
like amber sap.

i don't need an observer to be beautiful,
and you don't have to praise me
for my actions and my words to have worth.
just look, just look-- one pale hand
with five long fingers, manicured prettily,
has more power than your closed fist.
the correct observation to make
is that perhaps i could be fine on my own,
should i choose to be!
i don't choose, i want you, come here
and observe, do you want to see the motions
or just hear the words that bring us together?
tell me what you need, baby, tell me
what it is you think you deserve.

what do you like, can i read your codes?
the game of femininity, to second-guess your wants:
if the curve of my hip was gently in evidence,
if my hand traced the image, would you notice?
or should i instead wear the higher heels,
let my legs feel longer, stretch them out long
and threaten to wrap them around your waist--
if the corner of my mouth indicated that
as a possibility, would you notice? if my breath
were to slowly increase against the hum
of my heart against your rib cage,
if my eyes opened just a little brighter,
would you notice, would you care?
what is there here to keep you, what offering?
the body is such an inchoate mess, wild in motion,
forming ideas in the heat of action and reaction:
what is there here you could want, what could i
put on display to meet your gaze? since my eyes
could never be lifted directly,
i've been taught other ways: with fingertips,
with darkened eyelashes and reddened lips,
with knowing what my hips look like when i walk,
i can meet your gaze only with attributes.
is it enough, will you notice?

when even seatides skirt away
from where you lay your head,
it's time to leave that sullied bay
and follow where you're led.

the path goes on along the shore
away from where you camped,
and you must follow blindly or
risk dying in the damp.

you must go forward, farther on,
to find what you would seek:
a road, a goal, a clearer dawn,
not hidden in the deep.

even unconsciously, the human heart is responsive.
if every rhyme has already been spoken,
your joy has already been encapsulated
by someone else's pen, surely and beautifully.
you doubt the words on the page, though they march
smartly across the space, covering distance:
you doubt the emotions they drag from you
and i'll allow you that separation, for now.

always something so fucked up about poets from the midwest,
like no matter who we want to be all that grain alcohol
from previous generations is just gonna saturate us anyways.
always another cow-tipping joke, always another campfire.
always something a little bit strange, a little bit strained,
something we've got to prove about iowa or indiana—
maybe it goes back to basic america, that westward expansion
which created a whole new breed of nationalists
who broke new earth and their own backs and at this point
just can't be reasoned with, the hurts so sustained.
so born of simple stubborn people and raised inside the fences
and faces all white, the poets start grasping for rhythm,
diction and form, mashing eliot and cummings into don williams
and hoping something interesting comes out of it.
something always a little messed coming out of the midwest,
a little suspiciously skewed as we try to escape the stigma
of beer or amish country or corn fields or something.

the ascension is in my ears,
a rapidly growing pulse--
why should i have to stay inside the lines,
why should i be restricted?
it grows here, seeping down into my heart,
down through the spine and my bones and the marrow
curdles at the touch of it.
i am pounding, beating, throbbing
with its growth.
i am so many images all grown up
and swallowed by one bitter mouth:
the wedding dress,
sacagawea and her shoes and the mountains,
an edifice built specifically for books,
the blooming of a single flower.
like a daytime tv special
i am dramatic, unfolding, virginal and sexual
and seeking always seeking for the beat.
oh, it hurts, and i wish you were here to hold me.
the ascension begins and ends
with you.

if sighing on your chest i laid
and sought the beat of blood beneath,
if seeking solace, sick or afraid,
i crowned you with a thorny wreath--
you would not seek to take it off,
nor take the bond that comes innate?
the choice is clear and in the trough
the feed for hungry minds is bait.
we gather here and seek your hands
to stay the ills of wandering feet,
though common sense denies and bans
the hope that brings us here to meet.
should you be false the story's still good
and keeps us rooted where we stood.

seven hungry heads
maintaining seven hungry mouths
that gape, that cry
that circle in the sky like underfed vultures
and sing, and sing,
with seven separate melodies
a moaning song of need,
of dying and perishing and withering
for lack, for lack, for lack.
seven gaping mouths
singing seven tearful songs,
asking where you are
and how you got there and
lusting for more words,
more sustenance, more ears to hear
and hearts to devour,
for food, for food, for food.
seven eager heads
swivel with fourteen searching eyes
looking for bodies,
for flesh or for motion
or bright colors, anything to catch
at seven starving minds:
there is nothing like the miracle
of ascension to pound
sobriety into a world that used to shine,
where seven hungry dragon heads
mount a guard and do not sleep.

like if i could just be some
brown-skinned green-eyed goddess,
with long legs topped by little else,
i could have everything i want--
like if i could fulfill
someone else's dream or expectation,
i could get what i need from you.
all these pretty lies, stepping in file
from your mouth to my ear,
whose fault is it that i should cling
to such falsehoods?
there is a promise on your lips
for something bigger and better but
i must deserve it, by wearing stilettos
and mascara and one of those chains
winding from my ears to my navel.
like if i could just be something slight
and pretty, it would be enough.
and when you're bored,
when there is something else sugary
and tanned walking by,
what would be left for me? just some dream,
not even an ideal, just a moment
belonging inside a club but never out.
i keep the heels in the closet,
the makeup in its bag,
the loneliness close to my heart.

i am sweet, when you bite
and the juices run down your chin
like a path to righteousness--
sweet like lowered eyelids
on a sunday night, the gentle touch
on your broad back when i tell you
that i'm yours, all yours.
coquettish hands that can't compete,
i am sweet and you are strong
and there is a dark room
waiting to be discovered.

i am cruel, cruel like sex
that calls for corners of bars,
poorly lit bathroom stalls where the hands
grasp for flesh and fear.
cruel with fingernails that leave marks
like daggers in the wood, like arrows
or darts, straight to the mark,
and ten perfect lines down your back.
i am cruel like a winter snow
that freezes, melts, freezes, and leaves
the grass gasping for air
and your heart pleading for room.

you are harsh, violent with words
that tear like thunderstorms on summer nights,
the window ajar and all the babies
with their ears on their pillows
can still hear your hate,
harsh like the strike of hammer,
the blow that foretells a long process
of putting myself back together when
i'm fragile and you're the anvil
and the fire, all at once.

i am strong like a back that won't break
under sunburn, labor, endless treks
without a hint of water, sweet water--
you are a breath of cool air
and the mint leaves at the bottom of the glass,
i am strong and you are sweet
and there is a world that needs knowing.

the illness spreads:
the platelets push, like dainty fingertips,
along the walls of my veins.
my skin bursts here, reflecting pain there,
all wrapped up and tied
with an apex of mortality, ring
around my restless soul.

when i am dead i suspect
there will be relief, though there is no way
to tell for sure.
when i am dead there might be stars
in the sky, or just stairs
endless stairs
leading upwards, nowhere, slowly.

the aches make me shudder, bring skin and joint
and muscle together in a tight little jig.
why aren't you here to hold me?
i shake with grief,
for the loss of a body and the birth of
a new pain, one that rises like bile
and feasts on my throat.
here, the doctor says, placing it gently in my arms,
here is your long-awaited child.
it twists on my chest, howls tunelessly.

from a bar across my shoulders,
the vertical strength in my spine, i have hands now
that do not hesitate to kill.
the weight of that choice is heated and heavy
and sits in my heart,
waiting for attention but patient for consequence.
i pick up the yoke to dance gaily on the deathbed,
to seek retention for humanity.
where there is none left,
i leave a little of myself behind.