Provence, 1998

We sat
on sun-warmed stone, a bench outside
the little house,
and looked out at the lavender fields.

She closed her eyes and inhaled,
the sleepy sweet smells of dusk in Provence,
of July and dinner and daughter
and over it all, the blanketing scent
of the waving purple hills below us,
layered silence-

Forehead on her cool shoulder,
I absorbed it all,
kept it like dried flowers for winter.

to Sanary-Sur-Mer

Its been too long, my friend, since your sand
scorched the backs of my legs.
Remember that thing you told me, about learning from mistakes
and moving on?
I looked up at the angled slice of moon above you and nodded,
but it was a lie. I didn't believe you.
Sanary, your jeweled seas were too much for me, the baked
cobbled streets filled my lungs with dust like a drug,
you had me at hello.

Sanary, when he left me crumbling like a ruined
chateau, I saw fruit and thought of you.
I tried to learn, I really did-

But the fire in my throat was hungry and angry,
and I craved the gelato and peace we ate together
out of plastic cups-

And I never learned to forget the sun.

There are days we live life
as if death were nowhere
in the background.
There are finger-painted mornings
and thick buggy afternoons when
we run barefoot down hills, crush
clover and bees with our dirty hells,
swinging buckets empty of all but
seashells.
There are evening when all
that we carry are our shoes
in our hands
and the ocean in our eyes.

To the Man Whose Car I Hit

In the white horizontal light
of a November afternoon, I pulled
into a parking space next to
your old black Mazda.

There was one cringing silent
moment- just a split second,
I swear- your car lifted, bounced-
nudged by my bumper- gently,
I promise!
In the spiderweb shadows thrown
by leafless branches, it was hard
to find the mark. Possible,
but difficult.

Why were you in Shop-Rite
that blinding Friday? Frozen pizza
in cardboard for a night alone, or perhaps
further down the aisle for your fiance's
favorite ice cream?
You were gone when I emerged
clutching my chocolate chips, started
my car and rumbled away-
I'm sorry.
I was cowardly.

But don't you think, stranger, that
it is better to live life zoomed out, anyhow?
Just... don't look too closely.

Have a Perfect Saturday Morning

It begins when the light drapes itself over you,
when you tread the waters of your dreams and gaze
up at the peach-colored ceilings of your eyelids. It begins
with the time before you.

Open your eyes to drowsy yellow light, the sun
is already high in the sky.
Linger.
Your crusted eyes and hazy smile
are precious moments-
hold fast to this peace.

When you finally roll from bed,
wrinkles traced from the flannel sheets to your hot cheeks,
stumble into your lemon-scented kitchen and descover
that he has warmed up the waffle iron.

Slice fresh strawberries.
Burst sweet juice on the wooden board, flash your knife
in the sunlight, take a deep breath:
fresh fruit, warm waffles, wood and sleep linger in the air.
Smile. Sit down and eat.

Porthole

Somewhere over Detroit, the ringing
in my ears cleared, and i looked out the
roundness of the window at a world
soft and sunny as a soap commercial.

Somewhere far below me his ashes lay buried
in the iron November earth, but here on the pleather seat,
face against a layer of plexiglass,
it is easier to compare sky to eyes and sun
to spirit
than to consider
daughters left behind.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Some days I just want to wear boots,
the real kind, leather with heels made to stomp.
I want to make noise, to kick my feet
and raise a ruckus, I want to flash my star-shaped
earrings in the evening light, I want to sparkle.
I want to see it all reflected in the wet
of your eyes, like children watching fireworks-
I aim to make your jaw drop.

Arianna

On the bright October morning
I found out that your father had died, the leaves
burned a beautiful orange and I laid my
cheek against the car window, iron claws
at my throat.
Like an amputee feeling for his arm, like a tongue
looking for a long-lost molar we are left
grasping at straws, coming across pictures,
sitting in traffic wondering where exactly we are headed.
My father sits at the scrubbed wood table staring
at his hands,
the skin around his eyes is loose and red,
and all I can think of is you, angry and desperate,
hair flying and lips pursed,
empty hands and empty heart screaming with every breath,
slicing your feet on your broken life as you make your way for the door.

I need to write a poem

about toothache and loss and vacancy signs.
but its not easy. im not there yet.

Cure

Pause for a moment, here, take
the round of my face between your soft hands,
Lets both close our eyes and become
Butter, lets be warm and yellow and pure,
melting syrupy puddles, nothing more.
Let the crunch deep inside of you liquefy,
Please lets just be moldable and quiet for a moment.

Jack

In his pumpkin-scented kitchen
The knives were slippery, and
Toothed orange mouths opened wide for her.

ShugaLips

And in the castle that night
she ate jellied delicacies until
the sugar ran in her blood,

it was her mother’s idea.
Girls that are sweet are never
lost, only consumed.

I Don't Know Where This Came From

If I skated
with blades tentative in the thin
crevices of your face,
if I made myself small enough to tuck,
if I could bounce
along the pavement behind you down
the concrete steps into the rosy-pink
evening parking lot,
what would you do if I hung off of your shoe laces?
I just want to fade with your jeans,
comfortable and warm.

every time we hit the parking lot we turn heads

In the pale light of seven pm
I dipped the end of my braid into
the ripples of the sky,
everything shivered and a chilly creeping breeze
tucked itself into my pockets.
You were in the car with the heated seats on,
pop music playing softly, waiting
for me to say goodbye.

Oranges

What he brought was
simplicity, in a basket of oranges.
She peeled and sliced them into mouths
and eyes and skin fresh and spicy-
she made him a big wedge of smile
and he ate it whole,
lips smacking citrus sparkles,
and she smelled him all the way home.

This is not a poem

because it is impossible to write poems when you are happy and busy and stressed and it is summer.

the end.

Croissants

Late in the night he comes, ma petite, mon chere,
kiss on the nose like a kitten's-
ma belle fille, des bonnes reves.

In the morning he will wake you
with butter in a pan, his smile is wide
as a cat's, his eyes are like yours, mon cherie.
He brings you a mug of je t'aime
with your eggs, yolk-y sunlit room,
cavernous with his laugh.

He reaches for the suitcases,
full of ma petite, mon chere even as you grab
his slick hands, at the door you are asking,
begging, but he says only ah, ma belle fille,
and slips through the cracks in your fingers.

Red riding-hood tripped,
thats why the cookies were a little dirty.
Her skinned knee dribbled red
into her white socks, chocolate chips
on the ground like bugs, she ran,
knees pumping and elbows reaching,
leaving cookies as she went,
the house was red brick and white shutters,
inside: her grandmother,
consumed by a smile.

Sacre Coeur, 1942

An exit sign glows above the cathedral door
and he feels his way along the edges,
wooden pews smooth and cool,
he lowers himself to the granite floor
in the center of an aisle.

His jewish grandmother would faint
to see him here- her hands fluttering
like worried butterflies, concern
etching her forehead--

The ceilings arch pale into
the distance, airy white marble
columns like spun sugar,
a fairy palace.

His elbows rest on the floor
and he tips his head back,
cavernous moon-room striped
with colored light, silent
and flickering, beacon
of holy hope and horror.

In this delicate cave of peace
on this hill here above
occupied Paris- food
for the boy, hungry for more.

The bricks blush red and solid in the heat of midday.
He is proud of his handiwork, this man
in navy coveralls who spends his life
building walls. He is strong and careful.

It is a rhythm he falls into like a drunkard
into his bottle, comfortable:
spread perfectly even layers of mortar,
thick and level as a well- iced cake,

place the bricks, interlocking like friends, maybe
like lovers, he doesn't know, this average
joe- he knows only the red
and the white and the rhythm,

this bruise-thumbed man with the red face
and china-chip rheumy eyes, he hums
the confident hum of one who knows what he is doing-

and he does not wonder about those who will live
and pound their fists and die behind the walls
of the building he climbs a step higher to finish.

His dusty radio crackles and blares with empty love
songs, his mind is a well-built blushing wall, he is safe.

Bar Sur Loup (an attempt at using form)

Silent on the carved hillside, village
of cool stone and old men, we dragged
clacking suitcases up cobbled streets.
Love is the opened door from sweating
burnt stone and cucumbers on glass.

Silent Provencal night, sudden
cicada screams deafening, my
feet bare on warm marble- safe in
the midnight sunset I hid
Love, the silent stone men and open door.

Director

I'm producing a play in my head-
it might be a musical- a real
crowd pleaser, and you play several parts:
you will spend hurried moments in the darkness
of backstage changing roles.
I gave you some monologues- sorry-
they'll be difficult to memorize
but I figured you were the best one
to explain why it was that the damsel
was in distress.

How to Fuck Up Completely (from a prompt)

The first step is to find
people to hurt. Fucking up is no good
in isolation- if no one cares, you haven't truly
done wrong. Consider of course
family members, but also teachers, mentors, friends.
Find someone who is truly proud of you
when you bake a delicate souffle,
who makes you soup when you are sick,
Find someone who applauds your hard work
and encourages you to apply to Princeton.

The second step is to stop thinking.
Toss back shots, carry guns, fall in love
with expensive dresses and take them
from shops simply because you want them.
Listen to advice and then discard it.
Laugh at cops, pee on doorsteps,
decide that you want to have your grandmother's ring
and drop by to search for it at three a.m.
Wake up on glass-studded concrete half clothed
and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

To the Robin's Child

What can I say to you, this small dark
puddle of bone and tissue, paper
shell half crushed?

It is green here, and warm and moist.
The grass is foamed with white clover,
the trees turning dark for summer.
The sky today is heavy and the color of old
snow-

Perhaps your mother's tiny yellow foot
slipped, maybe they fought-your parents-
over dinner about his mother coming to stay,
maybe he kicked in anger, punching
clawed toes, then stood horrified.

Or perhaps the storms that shook
my windows this week shook her wings,
your poor small mother with far too many
small skulls to protect.

As it is you will miss the trip south come
October - your siblings
will perch on telephone wires in suburban Georgia
and wonder.

Dangers surround them- plate glass
windows pale as the sky, orange cats
with yellow eyes that glow in the evening.

In the morning drizzle all i can see here are
the threads of your neck,
your tiny closed eye.

Self-Pity Late At Night

"Wouldn't you love somebody to love?" - Jefferson Airplane

I find it painful how
even now I can be left desperate.
When I was small, I watched fish in tanks
and felt sorry for them,
now I only wonder what they see.
What I really want is to be bundled up
in cotton and held
until time has ended, and we will watch
the snow outside and wait in silence until
I know I am safe.
I can only see as fish see, stationary,
and what I really want
is for you to turn me in circles.

Musings, post breakfast

(several entirely separate ideas)

In the light i can see now
that I'm still in control, I
can zoom out and admire your breath
on my bare shoulders, in this pale morning
I take snapshots to frame cooly
behind glass.

At the zoo you can see
the great cat that paces a path into the edge
of the grass and what you expect
me to do now is compare myself
to the pathetically reduced majesty, but really
I identify with the grass.

Signs of Madness:
I want to see the world in primary colors
like on an ancient tired TV-
rub me with buttercups and I can almost
believe it is sunlight.
Pull the pits from ripe avocados-
sucking noises, oily knobs of wood.
I want smooth green skin, I wish
I could understand what it is you are telling me
but counter clockwise seems to be
the only way to go these days-
and you are standing still.

What I Have Learned

I'm pretty sure now
that falling in love involves falling
in love with the whole world.
That my eyes are clearer and my skin
softer and I'm pretty sure
I love the rain because of you.
I still kill ants on the counter-top
but I do it
lovingly,
A silly word I know but when you're
wearing neon nail polish
and carrying a secret smile like some silk
undergarment tight against your
abdomen, the quiet hum of One Who Is Loved,
what can you do but
hug trees and kiss
the quivering buds of lilies?

Secret

I have this primal hunger
to be an artist.
I want to inhabit tall- ceilinged rooms
full of dusty light, and smelling
strongly of ideas and mysteries and turpentine.
I want to spread gooey colors
on stretched canvas, to dab and stroke
and squint my eyes,
I want to use my hands.
I want streaks of paint on my cheek and on
my jeans and in my hair,
I want to smudge charcoal with my thumb
and make something
beautiful.

Speechless

Funny how broken hearts
roll off the tongue, stick to the page,
arrange themselves tragically before you.

Interesting how happiness is slippery,
how i wander through streets and cakes,
search the undersides of old boats-
All I want is to do it justice, but
all my words are Gone.

Breakfast

Today as I buttered my toast,
I thought of you.
The creamy yellow melted slowly
into my mother's brown bread
and I was remembered the way
the cookies burned while you giggled into my neck.

Special

When the morning came in through the window
and painted every small hair on your shoulder golden,
you jumped from the bed and pulled my hand-
you said that today was the day.

Later in the dusk I wondered quietly
what day it had been- your shoes glowing
in the evening, I stood and watched your retreat.

Artist

I was thinking today of paint,
of drips and gobs of color,
rich and bright and full of potential.
I was thinking today of fingertips,
of dabbing your nose with blue
and adding some yellow to your forehead.
I have an urge to fling, to dip
my arms in primary colors
and whirl in circles, pinwheeling
hues and splatters.
I want to role myself in stripes
of a acrylic and crawl into bed with you,
to leave abstraction on the white sheets.

Cravings

Lace up your shoes and look me in the eyes,
its time to run until we sleep on our feet,
its time to find out how tall pine trees will grow.
I want to bang your mother's copper pot
on the bottom with a wooden spoon,
I want to bake a cookie for every
lost child and I want you,
solid and sure as granite and steel-toed boots,
and I want you.

Navigation

I want to draw you a map
like the one I found in my textbook,
land masses lonely in pale oceans,
colored arrows that designate
troop movements, shipping lines, exploration.
I will show you my islands and oceans,
the arrows will lead you,
they will keep you from the cliffs
and quicksand,
keep you safe from me.

Afternoon

Over tea she told me
he was leaving her, the china was
blue with delicate cherry blossoms.
I offered her a scone and she stained
her napkin with mascara and tea leaves,
peppermint steam rose in the air
and caught in her lashes.
I buttered my bread and ate him angrily,
consumed her pain with cream and sugar.

Sunday

I am going on a picnic,
I will spread colors around me and
sleep on the sunny cotton,
Lunch will come later
and the pale straw basket will reveal
strawberries bright as jewels
and the mysterious darkness of red wine.
Moisture will pearl on the glass bottle of
ice water, running rivulets down the steamy sides.
I will spread golden honey thick and rich
on fresh bread, and
if you don’t mind, could I borrow your eyes?
I would like to see as you do,
I would like to smile.

Symphony

The violins began at dawn,
from deep blue to pale rose,
the violas plucked strings and the basses joined in.
I rolled over and the chords rose,
the harmonies were complex and
still you slept.

worry

Sometimes I think I am
that girl, the one over there that they circle around,
she’s only fooling, and the only one she fools is herself.
Sometimes I worry that
I am rotten inside,
Sometimes
I want to warn you,
Sometimes I beg you to run away.

more

bits and peices from the edges of my english notes..

It was March,
the moonlight was spread
perfectly icy-thin on the water
and the night was so full
that the bard owl swam through velvet
and I climbed stairs
upwards until dawn

....


Within these pale blue lines
I will lay myself,
I will stretch prone
before you, and wait.
Stitched like a cotton shirt
I will cover your back quietly-
you'll never know I'm there.

Love Poem

I’ve been working on your love poem,
it happens in my head, it has to do with
The weight of a down comforter on my back,
something along the lines of
jelly beans and oversized sweatshirts.
I’ve been working on
how you place your legs when you sit,
how you curve your back when you are tired.
I want to describe warm breath at dawn,
I want to trace your lines with crayon and
fill you in.

encounter

Barefoot in the drizzle, she
paused there on the pavement to look at me.
I felt so solid there, we shared the same air and yet
her breath was universal,
She was everything and suddenly
Nothing.

New York

The woman crying on the street
pressed her hands together as if to cling
to the early March air,
squared her shoulders and put her leather pumps back on.
I wanted to run after her, shoelaces and tangled hair flailing,
grab her smooth hand and
ask her where she was going
and if I could follow.

March Moon

Tonight I found myself
tangled in moonlight, spring moonlight-
(the air is still cold but
the sky seems closer, the way it does in July).
I wrote you a letter in the darkness of the sky,
folded it around myself, a quilt of starry cotton
and closed my eyes.

Charlotte's Trap

The air is full of
young spiders, their threads tied to the wind,
legs scrambling for a hold on the breezy sun.
Watch your head, they are desperate and
I want you for myself.

dogs

The dogs of my childhood
are growing old.

They lounge on theraputic beds,
their ragged tongues waving.

The dogs of my childhood
spend their days under trees
and in garages and stretched on kitchen floors,
their arthritic limbs twitching
in memories of the teddy bears they tore,
their noses quivering with steaks stolen
right off the grill.

The dogs of my childhood
are lifted laboriously onto their feet
and drag their bent backs around the block,

The dogs of my childhood are grey at the noses,
their breath fetid,

The dogs of my childhood
show smiles of rotted teeth, drool dribbles
onto their smelly beds,

The dogs of my childhood
sleep noisily,
exhaling great sighs
into the night.

New Subject Matter (from the margin of my english notes)

Pick up the shell,
curled like a baby's ear
and deep purple within.
I want you to continue now,
down the beach,
I want you to
feel the airborne salt on your face,
to see the wind,
to hear the slow sink
into twilight.

don't you dare close your eyes

Will you come with me?
The sandy streets are ready for us.
The other night I woke and stared,
all I could see was silence.
The open sky is ours,
put on your sunglasses and we will
run barefoot along the yellow lines,
we wont make a sound and we won’t stop
until we reach the edge.

Song of Myself (under construction)

Song of Myself

Once upon a time, I
was a child beneath beneath a forsythia bush. The flowers were small and yellow
and the branches thin. I crawled inside, the dirt was black
and sweet-smelling.
There was only me,
and the sky peeking watery blue through the branches and
the early spring forsythia all around.

I am a girl of many shades,
I am one of fiery temper and fierce joy, I am one of sleepy indifference.

Is a person defined by their possessions?
I am well read books and loved photographs, I am big plastic earrings and many, many shoes. I am bright dresses and sweet perfume, pillows and pens and a handful of thumbtacks.

Is a person defined by what they love most?
I am a far-flung family, a handful of beautiful girls, a tabby cat, I am a mother, a father, a brother, a boy or two, I am sunlight and chocolate and laughter and thick green grass.

Is a person defined by what moves them?
I am a pair of eyes, an open ocean, I am the 1812 overture and the word Hallelujah, I am an eclipse in a vast night sky, I am words and photographs and the smell of Paella and of fir trees.

Is a person defined by their religion?
I believe in my family gathered around a candlelit dinner table,
I believe in love and joy and in full self-expression.
I believe in the power of laughing and of crying, and of the smiles of children.
I believe that if we give freely of ourselves and keep open hearts we will change the world one day.
I believe in the possibility of peace, I believe that life is one great and endless possibility.

Is a person defined by their past?
I once cried over an episode of “Sex and the City”.
I once spent an entire day lying in the sun on my back porch.
I once baked a triple layer cake.
I used to believe that little men on swivel chairs lived in traffic lights
I once was knocked out of a sailboat by its boom,
I once smashed a coconut open on the street.

I fully intend to surprise you.

I aim to live big and with enthusiasm, love hard and fall fast,
to rise far and dive deep.
I want to speak ten languages,
I want to eat spicy strange foods in tropical places,
I want to fall in love in Italy and deep-sea dive in New Zealand,
I want to open a restaurant in Switzerland, I want to climb Kilimanjaro and parachute over the Himalayas.

I kick my feet out when I run, my nose is big and my ears asymmetrical.
My taste in music is broad and often not exactly cultured or mature.
There are stuffed animals in my room
I write poems, I am excited by airline food and automatic doors.
I am a sap, a gooey person, I fall head over heels for clichés.
I play sports badly and with great enthusiasm
I can quote Lord of the Rings and Star Wars,
I am fond of Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson,
I sing very loudly and very badly and with real emotion.

I can say “happiness comes in small packages” with a straight face because it is the truth.

I love my bed. I like comfort and warmth, I like to lie with another person at my back, I like arms around me.
I crave chocolate in any form.
I crave excitement and I crave sleepy sunlit mornings.
I like dancing, I like screaming song lyrics into the night,
I am happiest on summer nights swimming in the smooth water,
running wet down the dock, rolling in the sand,
warming my face by an open fire.
I am happiest stretched like a cat in the sun,
I am happiest in the quiet comfort of a friend

I like running fast, I like jell-o in individual cups,
I used to lie underneath the dining room table for hours
looking up at the grain of the wood.

How to live a life, how to define a life lived, how to explain the process of living?

Once upon a time I buried a garden snake in the back yard,
a full funeral with an inscribed headstone,
I cried over his broken green body
and placed earth and flowers over it.

i solemnly swear

the other day i
sat on the sidewalk with my boots in the gutter
and snowflakes in my eyelashes.

when i looked to the grey sky of Boston,
the snow seemed to fall upwards, all was tilted,
i shivered there on the street.

now my favorite jeans are a little dirty on the butt,
my boots are a little drier and i have a happy heart.

will you come with me?
the sandy streets are ready for us.

eclipse

Last night I
watched you through my father's telescope on the back porch,
the night was a deep ocean, icy cold,
and the stars were piercing in their brightness.
Red moon, what secrets do you hold?
I watch your craters,
I've examined every inch and still I cannot see,
Red moon, what is this promise you hold for me?

Be Mine

And do you remember that night,
when the frozen air screamed,
and you smoked a cigar watching the sun rise?

I told you I had just dropped by but the truth is
I spent the night on your doorstep,
just me and the doormat
waiting for your feet.

Love Song

So i was thinking
that we could switch places.
You could sing Beatles songs into the night
and I could try on every shoe in the store,
humming along.

Valentine

Inside, it was dark
and the cardboard smelled of age,
but she bore it, she was patient
and curled, and in the end

he opened the heart-shaped box
lifted the paper
and was disappointed.

Nike

You left a colorful sneaker at my house,
the right one, lonely in the tangles of my sheets.
I sat on the edge of my bed with a sharpie
and covered it all over, the day-glow yellow,
The stripes of blue and the white edges,
I blackened it all, down to the tips of the orange laces.
I thought of your lonely right foot,
I thought of your right leg entangled in mine,
and I scribbled harder until
all of the color was gone.

impossible to feign

339 (241)

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true-
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe-

The eyes glaze once-and that is Death-
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.

-Emily Dickinson



i'll never trust you again.

Lilly White

When she passes,
a ghost, a haunting has-been,
do you see her,
the girl with the high forehead
and clear, wide eyes?

Her anger is a wisp of cloud
she thrusts at your retreating back,
her misery an apple
rotting under a tree.

You have forgotten her name.
The walls have consumed her,
she is cream-colored brick that
you will pass every day without a glance
and yet, her eyes
will see you still.

Meal

That night at the fast food restaurant
I received my choice, paper-wrapped
filled a cup with a rumble from the ice machine
and slid into a plastic booth by the window.
Together my reflection and I
spread catsup from foil packets and
ate you, bite by bite
until you were gone, sesame buns and all.

eventual

A dream of togetherness
Turned into a brighter mess
A faint sigh my spoken best
Now, now

Make way for the simple hours
No finding the time it’s ours
A fate or it's a desire
I know

So I was the lucky one
Reading letters, not writing them
Taking pictures of anyone
I know

So let the sun shine
So let the sun shine
So let the sun shine
Let it come
To show us that tomorrow is eventual
We know it when the day is done

Au Revoir Simone lyrics, "Lucky One"

Journalism

I’ve been thinking about
writing lives in newspaper headlines:
High School Boy Claims Love
Girl Frantically Pops Cough Drops Before Trying to Speak

Or maybe tabloid headlines:
Extra! Extra! He Won’t Look At Her!
Her Scandalous Confession: When He Speaks To Me, I Want To Die
A Girl’s Anger: I Want Him To Hurt Like Me

There would be black columns of facts
And colorful pictures taken from unattractive angles and
I was thinking maybe if I
dissected them?

… I’m running out of ideas. The sky is streaked with orange
and i have nowhere to sleep.

Let Me Break the Ice

And somehow
It never seemed to matter

Because, after all,
Actions are said to speak louder

And your words,
They were beautiful but so
Quiet. So very like
italian frescos, striking and yet
A peeling lie, a crumbling tribute to your indifference.