Category: poetry

I start taking wagers on who
 shows back up first
 knowing it’s wrong to bet
on anything that talks
and quite frankly,
 you can’t,
Mrs. Shepherd told me in the 12th grade
during AP stats, still proud I aced that
class but you can’t stop
a sociopath
from never feeling again,
can you?
I say to him.
I have a Smith and Wesson.

but I add
people think angels can’t have
 guns and
 that’s not true,
hand him the weapon.
 we just can’t fire them.
hold it.
 get comfortable with it.

pink collar says
PRINCESS, I’m wearing
antlers and a dirty blonde
wig.  mock latex bodysuit
that rides my hips and
 I am
only half bitch
three inches from you
on the bed and
half loading bb bullets
in the cartridge and
plainly  drawing up
variables marked
xxx.

laugh out loud
 cuz they
don’t really get it yet.
it’s not just execution.
it’s not just
having the arsenal
but where to put it.
pull back my curtain,
show him the basket
with the blue calcite,
the burned scripture,
the crown.

 

“formula #1: inference”

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there are two giant
bruises on each thigh.
I am careful not to hit them
with my fingers except
I already have
and I shriek.
you don’t even ask.


I spent most of my time
that late winter
searching.
what you would say:
combing through options,
in flux and in search of
weight.
and some guy,

 a stranger
in my house, said to me
after I had given him reiki
for money, for rent,
for phone bill,
smirking on my apartment floor:
“Smile.” and added.
“What do you look like naked?”
and added
“How much to see?”

and I stood tall and robust
like a weed in Kensington’s
concrete garden:
stepped on but
won’t go away
and  then
suddenly growing
into a gun.
not only that,
but suddenly
 making rent.
fuck.
ok.

you don’t even ask. 

“doors #5”

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the first card I pull is the Magician.
say nothing about it.
my couch is stained from cat vomit
and chocolate ice cream
 and smells
like fresh linen spray.
I am uncomfortable
at all times, at all
hours of every day
and this is no exception.
I am trying not to look in
the mirror behind  you and
focus on the red wine in the glass,
bottle on altar, not comment
on eye color, guess placements without
ado, turning over cards to let you
know.

 

I try to explain to someone one day
what I am seeing in the mirror.
no one is there, I say this first
to myself on a walk
around, pass a little girl in pink dress.
fuck.
a haze, like a fog surrounding my body
begins to build and my voice,
almost like it’s been previously
recorded and then played back,
comes through me and I have to
repeat what she says.
but sometimes the track is off
so I am two seconds ahead of myself
and it’s hard to watch.

 

wait, stop, back
up. I’m muttering I think.
too complex.
stop myself when her brother looks.
no, don’t tell him that.

Australia looks better than Alaska.
that’s all I say.
we have some wands between us.
that’s all.
keep it to myself:
predicting
deaths of
others
and also
practicing
hugging people
when they walk
in the room.

 

“the magician”

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I’m a sociopath,
I practice in the car window.
it’s 92 degrees and I
am only half melt,
half kept a bitch
in a yard but
with a water bowl,
no chain. polyester
pink collar says “PRINCESS”
watching the screen door from eight
am to nine dark.
see if they’ll wave me in.
there are two kids with snow
cones dripping down their arms
nearby. I smile
you sneer.

 

he wants to know everything.
I tell him everything,
I say, turning towards the
young girl.
she is wearing a pink dress,
has long uncombed brown hair,
stick legs, her older brother nearby
 and is taken by
my insouciance.
my foul mouth that
yelled fuck
earlier for no reason.
my centipede tattoo.
he takes her sticky hand
and they race to the swings.
she turns to see if I’m still
wavering in the sun.
truth is, I’m actually
six feet in the ground
and only children can see
parallel lines.
I smile.

 

I’m wearing a mask,
not touching a thing,
sweltering. practicing
honesty.
practicing
hugging
people
when
they
walk
in the room.

 

“affection”

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I walked by my old apartment
just to feel it
grab me.
what I would miss most
were the stained glass windows
and the birds surrounding my house
but nothing else.

it was marked off with caution
tape and a sign that said
it was dangerous.
my side wall had burst.
water shot out.
the place flooded.
there were bricks everywhere.

people used to tell me
the place vibrated
and sometimes pictures fell
of the wall.
what I remember is the
mirror and the way they made
me undress and throw coins
on the floor, buy them
toffee. the way
they never told me
their name.

laying naked looking at the
ceiling guessing names,
 less than a year ago
before the wall burst. 

“Poltergeist”

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I don’t like to talk about my
house so I don’t
but the garage
is gone and so is everything
that was in it. my
childhood bedroom is gone
and so is everything that was
in it. one day the sink
will collapse. we have snakes
in there. other things too>.
  I have no
yearbooks. I have a couple
notes from my friends
and a swath from a cologne sample
my high school lover
used to wear between
fucking his wife and me,
a note he wrote me once.
but I am thinking of
myself younger
and the old lip gloss bottle,
 a roller, vanilla scented
but pink
that I had saved because it
reminded me of an entire
freezing december
on my crush’s bench
where sometimes they let me
wear their sweatshirts.

I am
holding my hands to the ground,
feeling vines wind up
my calves.
 repeating,
muttering.
the way they describe me to the
ambulance is someone who
looked like she saw the horizon
close in on her and
collapsed.
the way they describe me
to the first responder
is that I looked to be seized
by terror like she saw the
horizon closing in and
just fell
to the ground. 


“Persephone”

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when you find me
I am sitting on the dirt
twisting  a mask
in my fingers
and you could not catch
what I said only that it
was muttered,
repeated and there is something
not quite vapid about me,
but lost and then
filled with something
else. the first thing I say to you
is it’s torrential.
I expect you to know what to say
back. 

are my hands changing colors?
 I examine them myself,
fingers spread, string
around index, mouth cover
dangling.
I expect you to know what
to say back. 

“Carey”

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A neighbor once caught me staring at the license plates on my block.  I was five years old.  We lived in a court and I was allowed to play in the court by myself so long as I didn’t wander off too far anywhere else which I did often but I had grown used to crouching, hopping fences and often could slip in and out to Lea’s house undetected. I don’t know the circumstances of why I was outside but I do remember it was overcast. I do remember I had a light jacket on, probably a shade of pink. I am sure my hair was uncombed. I am sure my bangs felt too long. I am sure that I was trying to rid myself of this hindrance even so young, tossing it away with my hand constantly or tying it back in a ponytail, patting the back of my head when it was sopping from the heat wishing I could peel it off. When it was cooler, I left it alone. Left it down and I am sure I was wearing pink corduroy pants with brown spots in the center of the knees and they were permanent. I was sure I had been tucking my chin to my neck and twisting the pine needle with both hands and crouching, my knees strong then. My white sneakers scuffed. The tips of my shoelaces drawn brown with mud and I am sure I didn’t hear her approach me from behind. I am sure she heard me muttering. 

I had been going up the driveway of each neighbor’s house and sitting behind the car, in front of the license plate. She had seen me from her window.  I was looking closely at the license plate, that is all she could see. I was looking at each piece of information. VA for state tags. To be clear it was VA, like VAH. Like the sound it made. Vah. I would say it.  The letters in front of the numbers. Some would be doubled. Some in doubles. That felt special, like they were chosen to be doubles. Like some plates required scrutiny. This one had a green tag in the top left corner which was usual but also did not have repeating numbers. XGH-2879. It would have sounded better, I am saying out loud, XGH-2873 when I hear her.

“Honey?”

 

I was five and soft and supple and ingenue and so much deeper than I am now. She said what are you doing? from behind me which scared me. I was tiny and crouched there with my most favorite one to hold; the withered needle. I am sure she heard me. 

 I said I’m trying to read the code.

 

0

if i was a man,
i’d have a big dick.
I got a nine millimeter, I say,
casually, waving my hand over the wooden
board. hidden in this house.
I got this house lined with weapons.
I place the orange butcher knife
on the linoelum counter,
scraps of tomato still clinging so
I can
scoop the slug up from beneath the
dishwasher and put him
back in the shade.
he follows me out.
easily distracted.
we were having vegan charcuterie
and he is drinking chardonnay.
with me it’s always
something, plentiful,
homemade.
he’s seen half my knife collection
now and every inked guard;
the other half tucked in various places.
I gestured to the antique table,
to the pepper spray,
the hammer by the door.
I point out the ants
lining the sink.

swathed with charms,
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured it out.
I wear my arms in
muscle, others’ biceps.
keep them around cuz
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured
it out. point to the baseball bat.
show him my pearly growl.
this is where the poem begins

we both eye the slug moving
through the garden
til he disappears.
I begin pointing out
webs.
it’s 7:42 pm,
88 degrees and
the sun is out,
my shoulders dark.
we are both tan,
hurt, a possible onslaught
if we were not otherwise
stuffed and I am practicing
silence,
sitting on my bench.
we are two inches from each
other and I can’t help but
melt when the cool breath
hits my left cheek.
I’m plucking at the hem.
he grabs my hand
to stop my ticking.
what’s that?
he says.
this is where the poem begins.

 

0

 

they say I talk too much
and I’m inclined to agree,
perhaps I’ll
show them the scorpion etched
on my clavicle and no one
has ever seen my childhood home
but
I’m compromised
by the simple fact I think
I might be a ghost so I’m
always checking mirrors
and calling 911, waiting for
the fireman to touch my arm.
they say
“your leg is not numb, ma’am.”

but I can’t be sure so I make
him touch it again.
one trick is never tell them
anything. I like my men
to think I wait in lonely
cavern, ache
and pray for them.
palms clasped and reverent,
sort of rocking like that.
real southern too.
just sort of worshiping
the idolatry of shadow.
please.
they make me repeat it:
please. and thanks
for everything.

my men remember me
incessantly and always
cut out of starry dough:
soft, head half cocked
looking up at them
with servitude but
sideways like I’m
about to laugh,
grab their wrist.
“let go of control.”
then me in my day skirt,
hair covered and
muttering.
candle lit or twenty seven
if I’m out of time.
devout.
pocket full of them.
what a violent question.
you’re sunburned,
gone for weeks
now a wash of here
and forehead fervid,
humid wind clasping
the back of the choker
I’m wearing
while your left hand lifts
my skirt.
my thighs are soft,
reminiscent,
it’s the skin that brought
you back.
what’s that?
you say,
looking at the blue and
black ring of shadow
mouth
above
my  birthmark you swore
would identify my body
in a crowd.
bet no one sees this.

it’s the way your jaw
bulges as you bite your
ocean wet tongue
that was just kept safe
under my earlobe
before you begin to
pull the rope
til the emerald center
pushes hard against front
of my throat
almost as if you are going to
bring the stone inside me
and please.

what a violent question,
love.
“Five of Wands”

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