Most days here I can feel my heart unwinding
Loosing itself from the tight coils
Of stress, and hate, and fear.
Most days here I breathe deeply, cubic yards of oxygen,
And unaccustomed lungs don't quite understand
that the struggle for air is over,
The coast is close, the rip tides that threatened
Are no longer immediate.
Is this healing? Is this health?
I wonder if the scars will fade.

i don't think it is foolish to take the world's problems to heart.
i would rather be thin-skinned, vulnerable, chafing
with each instance of inequality and injustice,
than blind, numb, bare but unfeeling.
lack of empathy is its own set of chains.
better to be born fresh into each tragedy, marred again
by each new illness, than to pretend that insensibility
is health, that ignorance is substance.

In the beginning

(Which is to say, after the end)

I try not to say it;

I try to keep the words closer than skin,

Covered up like stretch marks and cellulite

And other ugly markers of age and gender and sex.

After the end, or in the beginning,

I focus on how full I feel,

Stockpiled and shored up against the coming freeze

When I cannot feel the heat of you

Or taste the salt of your body.

I focus on progress, on continued happiness,

On the machinations of daily movements so that 

I will just keep plodding, easily, into the future

And towards the end, or the next beginning. 

Am I home? Am I lost? I am 

Perpetually unsure, drunk on location, dazed

By the multiplicity of homelessness.

So at this end of time, looking forward into

My next ending, I think only of the closeness

Of the memories, the immediacy with which I can

Call you to mind, your mouth, your words, your eyes.

I think of these and call you home

And wait for my next beginning. 

over a hot mug of coffee, cupped in both hands
the smell inhaled more than the dark brew sipped at

over a blue formica tabletop, silver pedestal, tiled floor
sticky with food leavings and cigarette ash

over a worn-smooth wedding ring, two generations old
and the only jewelry she wears any more

over a rib cage rising and falling gently
tide upon tide, she tells me

the wrongness spreads through her body,
platelets that break more than they build

they're measuring her in months now
a few dozen weeks with a few dozen prescriptions

while my heart's rupture, the crack of it
might be audible, i know she doesn't want me to cry

in public so i don't, till she adds
she thinks she's too tired to be in love any more

I want a life full of words, written and spoken
And meant with the whole heart,
The honesty of affection and anger and love.

I want a life of dancing, of rhythm and movement,
Of motion and syncopation and the language
Your body speaks with mine.

I want a musical life, a symphony of sound,
Dense with harmony and
The delicate interweaving of multiple lines.

I want a life of color and shape, clarity, obscurity,
An artist's perspective of the scene
And the circumstance of you and i.

things we do to each other

once i told you that you are beautiful.
i have seen you, open and willing, tied breathless
to a future you were scared of;

inside the dim white walls you are confident,
maybe, or just lying, who can say? but i am willing
to follow you there;

i have stolen your siblings,
i have usurped your husband,
i have sung songs to your children,
i have lived inside your skin
and found it beautiful;

in my kleptomania i am still attached:
i desire you, desire the heat and the wet of you,
daydream about your skin and your mouth;

because i think this is what masculinity is, selfish,
worth disavowing servitude for: ownership through
whatever means. but i am female: i will win

and will give back. i do not need to keep
what i have taken. come back to bed, find yourself
under my hands, let me tell you what you are.

detritus

postcards from two years ago
fixed to the fridge with magnets (again,
and every time I move)
shoes with holes worn through under the kitchen table
nubbed pencils like beaks, carousing in the bottom of the junk drawer
a painting I did while drunk, the teal stumbling against the red underneath the black-
it was supposed to be a daisy

We steal our hours away like children
Scraping up minutes and moments
At the bottom of wishing wells.
You are the blood thump of my heart,
The heat of me when I am at my most fierce
In bed, or in battle.
When your slow hands traverse
The wide expanse of my flesh, I am remade
Into beautiful, peaceful, subordinate lust.
I am comfortable in your eyes,
The way you look at me, catalog me, suits me
And my primacy just right.
The time comes slow and leaves fast,
Too soon you are called away from my bed
Where I remain, hot and calling your name.

Being in love with you again is like coming home
And finding you again, is finding my better self,
I thought I had lost you, I thought I had lost us,
You are my waking and my dreaming and
All the restless steps I take during the day.

i think i am, perhaps, poison in bloom:
a colorful outpouring of natural attraction, and a heart
dense with toxicity.

i worry that your hands, in grazing over me,
in their beautiful meanderings over my skin,
will wither.

in the early days i could have tried harder,
done better, put myself right again, met the standards
i am supposed to meet.

but i am tired, aching and disconsolate, a gull
keening over the expanse of the lake, waiting for
the wider ocean.

the heart of a bird is flighty, lithe, but pure:
on straight pinions i wheel towards you now,
purged.

You've said what you had to say
You've said something true for you
And that's worth a response

You've said what I needed to know
Which is
You could not ever have loved me

Not put so blunt, but with every inch of
That self focused friendly way you have
Of tearing me, quietly, to pieces

I have been tired for many years but 
You with your bright eyes you have
Exhausted me

I think I know now what Ginsburg meant.
I think I shall go carousing down empty streets till
Quieted, I curl once about the house, and go to sleep.

Some days I look around and it's like
How did I even get this lost.
There was supposed to be a path, there were supposed to be clear choices.
Empty heart follows empty stomach follows
Faulty, stumbling feet.
When I leave, I will leave nothing of myself
And even less of you.

When I grow up I'd like to be a music box
Ballerina, and pirouette on tightly wound springs
That click with each revolution beneath my
Tightly bound feet. I'd like to be sheathed in pink
And childhood, be a memory instead of an action.
When I grow up I'd like to be gendered, normalized,
Less toy and more keepsake, a quiet reminder
On a shelf, of youth or what should have been.

when your fingers twitch
and my limbs fly in response, when your heart
sinks and i choke on the rising tide:
do not say submissive, do not say powerless,
do not pretend there is a lack of control.
when this is over
i'll return to my brightly-lit web,
my own little mysteries spun of silk and
my own incandescent lies;
for now your narrative is enough, the smell
and the sex and the sting of your love,
to keep me bound.

A canyon has words, too,
much more than echo, echo.
A canyon has steep walls
and an empty stomach,
a canyon has patience
that stretches for ages, eons,
much longer than the anger
of the river rushing through it.
A canyon has a history all its own,
is an independent ecosystem
with faults and flaws and fissures
separate still from the eddies they create.
A canyon has desire, has needs,
has miles and miles of dreams
unwinding along a path of hard resistance.

Spiders on the mantle, made it
Through the fire and up onto the brick:
Long legs splayed out, black on red.
John said there would be dragons,
I am not sure this is what he meant.
In another world she is straining,
Long legs splayed out, for a victory in blood:
Crowning achievement, the pink squall
Resounding when the tiny mouth opens, oh.
Here the fire is bitter orange,
Embers and ash and the stench of carbon,
And the light plays over my skin
Like a blessing for the bruises.
John said there would be dragons,
But I am purer than history, more dangerous
Than magic, more symptomatic than myth.

I want to build for you
I want to gather you up in both hands
I want to gather your past, present, and future
And build for you:
A path through the tall dark forest
With treetop waystations, filled with light;
Stair steps for the steep inclines
Rails to guide your hands, lanterns
Around each pine scented curve in the path;
I want to build for you
Among the giants, a way forward for your feet
When you are tired, a marked trail
For when you forget
(That I love you, that I need you, that I want you)
That the way home is upwards, always upwards
And always worth the climb.

in the doorway backlit
the long candlestick of your body
sheathed in metal, black, reflections:
the pulse of your smile
radiates, reflects my pleasure like moonlight.
you in that dress, your arms
lithe and bare at your sides,
i would like to leave handprints
on wrists, thighs, leave bruises
like love letters down your chest
from the heat and the pressure of my desire.

For the blisters on my feet

For the ache in my heart

For the cold sweats and nightmares

For the weight of anxiety

For the bruises and strains

For the time away from you

I just want to be able to say

It was worth it

I do not owe you an explanation:
for my fear, for my anger, for my nightmares.
I do not owe you
a reason for my reactions,
or excuses for any of my emotions.
I do not owe you words or ideas or affection,
but mostly, I do not owe you these things
as payment, like promises, or as penance.
I am not obligated to earn your trust;
I am not a debtor, but an owner,
not an achievement, but an actor.
I do not owe you an explanation
and if the blaze of my anger, and the ice
of my fear, and the heat of my sex
do not convince you of this,
then I lose nothing in losing you.

When I look at you
Something inside of me churns,
Something wet and heavy and wild;
What is it that I want? What is it
That I will give up so much to experience?
It is a losing battle, I will never
Win or be won: but for now, the journey,
The long slow march to the field,
The heartbeat as cadence and the slow sun
Sliding across tamped-down forest paths:
For now this is the solution, the respite,
A clear break in the conscious acceptance
Of what my life is allowed to be.

i feel drunk.
somewhere inside my blood
is the secret:
part heat, part motion, part lust,
licentiousness and the desire to consume.
your body, laid out
in front of me like a painting, like a platter,
is bright and beautiful:
i am drawn towards the light of your skin,
the curve of your hips, the depth
of your bright blue eyes.
my hands on you,
my mouth searching over you,
my soul inclined towards
the steep climb of your heart:
even still, i cannot attain.
i feel drunk, i would like to evaporate.

Siren, catcall, haunting melody:

alternatively mocking or adoring,

the word love on your lips

is a game, a promise, a joke, a curse.

Melodic or not, I am necessarily

harmonic, a counterpoint, a secondary voice

charmed by leadership, plagued by ego.

When I think about the words

And what they mean, they are perhaps

Not so terrifying as they might have been--

Not as constraining, not as defining.

The words are only a spoken imitation, after all,

Of what my body is already articulating:

Desire, attraction, approval, focus. 

Mistakes make me strong, make me

Surer-footed on the next incline;

after this it seems likely 

I will never fall again. 

forget the bread and the wine,
you are my meat and my mead, something older,
something primal and deep and filling.
forget art-- you are an artist
in the designs you trace on my skin, forget music--
your voice is the only melody i want to hear.
i leave cathedrals for the sanctity
of your cool, bright bed:
i fail catechism because the only doctrine i know
for sure is you, you are the only answer
i never question.
in your presence i learn grace, find temperance,
let you blow breath into parts of me
dormant since childhood: imagination, passion,
even innocence, since there is something
young and peaceable in believing
that you will not leave me to a foreign crucifixion.
you are my devotion, a ceaseless repetition:
i believe. i believe. i believe.

words unwinding slowly, haltingly, from
hands that don't want to give them up:
grief uncoiling around the heart,
loosing the strictures of silence and stoicism.
your life rises in front of me, 90 years
of work and family and God and love,
family and children and
the frontlines of World War II, the ocean
dashing up against your vessel to push you
back from the coastline, the gunfire, the inevitable.
two small sons, brown hair and blue eyes,
smart and curious and capable
of following the intricacies of your fingers
as you explained short-wave radio, radar, antenna
(they become an engineer and a pilot).
a wife who loves you, cares for you, cooks for you,
plays dominoes at the kitchen table with you,
who leaves you late in life, peacefully.
i imagine you in all the geographies of your life,
corn fields of ohio, tall grey mountains of washington,
the sun and wind of chicago.
in a life so full of places, and experiences, and people,
you are outlasted by your legacy:
your gentle humor, your kind smile, your love.
i am sad to give you up, but glad to have known you this well.

keith jarrett

i think i would like to do anything with my whole body.
just once.
for my brain and my heart to commune instead of carouse,
for my mouth to follow the leadership of my hands,
for the bend of my back to angle towards the sound of the music.
i think i would like to be wholly one person
just once.

When I am honest
(At my most brutal)
I know that you are nothing.
I know I will not make different choices because of you,
I will not change any of my destructive behaviors because of you.
When I am honest I know
That I am nothing, a flash of pale light
In a cosmos lit by the suns and the stars and
The churning and heavy heat of combustion.
Yet inside of this knowledge
Are all the petty desires that drive me,
Towards money and status and security
And sex.
When I can't succeed at work, when I can't
Keep a friendship together or a relationship from failing
And when I can't put together an existence that doesn't disgust me--
I can still make a man moan, make him shake
Between my legs, that small accomplishment
of someone else's pleasure, and sweat.
If you are the embodiment of the only power I have left, the only sure thing,
I am more likely to go than stay.

You are a weight on my heart, impending loss that I don't understand the depth of...

Guess it's true I'm not good at the one night stand
And maybe I don't sleep to make
Minutes into mirrors, magic out of hours.
In daylight I am vicious, hardened,
But in this dim room
Between your dark sheets
I can be malleable, delicate, desiring.
While you sleep I compile
Your smiles, your words, your sounds
Into a single silver plate,
Twilit metal hammered out
To the beating of your heart.
Tomorrow I'll be strong, I'll be funny, I'll be
Brief, slipping out just before you tire of me.
But in these last few hours, just
Let me rest awhile, with you.

the world is this huge and amazing place
with seven million people doing
several hundred thousand different activities

at the forefront of my mind
the most important thing i can think

i don't love you any more

i guess that's okay

i have always wanted to pick you up at the airport
somewhere between exiting security and the baggage claim
you would be walking towards me
our eyes would meet at exactly the right moment
or maybe
i would see you first, would see your tired eyes
and the heavy bag in your hand before
you would see my face light up with pleasure
at being reunited:
in the least realistic of these fantasies i am wearing
something inexplicably sexy, perfect makeup,
something that would make me look skinny.
maybe this is why
the fantasy can't ever be fulfilled, though you and i
cross the miles between us so regularly:
i am not skinny, my mascara
regularly runs and clumps, and i won't wear heels
when i know i'll be traipsing down long hallways
before clambering back towards public transit,
and flying makes us both
too tired to recognize pleasure in reuniting.
i have always wanted to pick you up at the airport
as a perfect person, offering a perfect home,
though i am not, and cannot.
this does not prevent me from lighting up
whenever you enter the room, and you have never failed
to come back to me.

i have asked you, i have chased you,
i have received you and i have heard you:
i have followed you around
with an open heart in my open hands
like a penitent.
i have invited you, i have cherished you,
i have bathed you in wine
and affection: i have burnished your heart
with heat, and sex, and time.
i have waited, willingly, for hours, for weeks,
and even years now, as i look back:
i have offered, religiously,
parts of myself that cannot truly be given away.
i have called you, i have sung to you,
i have begged and i have scolded you;
at least this time, when
your back is silhouetted, momentary,
in my doorway, i can say
i have done what can be done.
and i am done.

i want my tombstone to say,
she tried

when uncertainty is the strongest emotion--
doubt chasing lack finding questions--when uncertainty
is the rock in my stomach, the bile
of self-hatred burns right through it.
there is no doubt in my mind what your opinion of me is
or will be.

i want my tombstone to say, she
tried, and failed, but tried.
that somewhere on the earth there will be
a monument to failure
is almost
satisfying

at this point, it is only selfishness, it is only
a selfish desire to be wanted
that helps me think
that you could want me. but
i want my tombstone to say
she tried.

i am a desert, parched and shimmering,
reflective, disruptive, eroding.
i am a long journey from east to west, a path
of fire through an aching sky:
charted over wind-tossed hills,
topography of choice and chance.
i am larger than your imagination, deeper
than your prediction, wilder than
your fantasy: there will never be an end, of me.
i creep up your skin, grit and crust,
swarm between your flesh and your clothing
till you crawl with me, grind with me,
bleed for me.
i am a desert, fierce and gloating,
and i do not need a reason for this rage.

cold toes on the cold floor
the bathroom smells vaguely like bile
there is eyeliner striped on the sink

this is
all that i own

image is inherited: first came the body
and then our ideas of it,
execution before substance, effect
before planning

when i wake in the dark and the cold
i feel strong, buoyed by
desire, reaction, intensity

(add illness to
the sense of ownership i feel
over my body)

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of my body

or my voice

so i will speak, and

i will act.

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of truth

or of truly loving

so i will befriend, and entrust,

and adore.

because this year

i will not be afraid,

i will not be afraid of potentiality

or growth or even strain

so i will push, and i will work,

and i will sweat. 

because this year,

i will not be afraid.

the moon is a big white circle on the lake,

reflected in ribbons as the wind

pushes little tides from west to east.

here in the mountains the owls are quiet

but persistent, their muted calls 

quieting the patter in the underbrush. 

ripples push up against the dock

one at a time, a constant rhythm

against the pillars and the lonely red canoe.

it smells like pine, here.

the wind is cold and raises goose bumps

on bare thighs, slicing through the summer heat

as night sinks into the valley.

the moon is a big white circle on the lake,

your heart-shaped face just as pale and quiet

as the pale reflections it captures. 

i can't quite see past my eyelashes, so it's good

that your heart beats so loud

here under the trees, it keeps me connected

to your body, and your heat. 

why be honest when the words are frightening?
why tell secrets when what's hidden is anathema to the speaker?
you stay on the west coast, i'll stay on the east coast,
and between the two of us i'll lay down my anxiety, my nightmares,
and the hatred that comes from admitting the fear.

my girl she talks like sunshine,
words that slide smooth and golden down her chin and chest,
till you don't want her to break off the clause since
the words, warm and shimmering, might break too.
my girl her charm is in her shoulders, in the way she tilts her head
when she's listening to you,
big rapt eyes that latch onto you and analyze, seek, determine, destroy.
see my girl she don't play with like or lust or lack,
she plays for full-on love, love that makes nicholas sparks
look like your teenage cousin's diary, love that
makes mary magdalene look like madonna, love that
grinds you, crushes you, mauls you into a bloody pulp
and then sets you on your feet and whispers,
go on, you can do it.
my girl she is fierce in bed, demanding, desiring, ten
perfect claws that rake down my back and the hurried
pounding of her heart against my chest, her breath catching
and i can barely keep up with her whirlwind,
but i do.
my girl is the juice from a peach in an orchard,
sticky on your fingers, more memory than taste, and i taste her
whenever the wind comes in just right in the summer.
my girl she is sex, and summer, and sunshine,
and she burns me just right.