Flexability

I'm not asking you to give like a willow
a delicate waif chasing the wind.
But even California steel knows
how to bend before the brittle and break.
 

Mountains

There is nothing so great about feeling so small
As knowing I fit so perfectly between your arms.

Tending the Garden

The Spanish moss drapes like green lace from the live oaks.
Daffodils kiss dandelions and crabgrass embraces the dogwood. Burdock grows alongside the succulents and patches of oxalis begin to outpace the buttercups.
Drop your tools to rust in a pile of poison ivy and paperwhites as you sit cross-legged in open wonder at this single moment.

For The Man Who Does Not Exist

A set of three poems:

Dearest Dear,
I love you. And it's not your fault. There was nothing either of us could have done.
There was no fighting, no cheating, no crying in the backyard or screaming until the neighbors called the police. There was no fizzle, no limp, no exhalation or sigh. To be honest, I have seen this coming for months. Like winter or perhaps spring, it crept through the air and into my chest.
I see it in the way he pours his coffee and sips his tea. In the shape of his breast, the curve of his thigh, the depth of his kiss and the shade of his cheek.
I love you and it can't be your fault. There was nothing either of us could have done.
I am not a scientist and you were never born.


I'm sorry for using you like this.
For closing my eyes and seeing our life together. You and I and Milton in bed. Naked on a rainy day reading our favorite passages from memory.
I know you were never a Milton man. I should have known.
But I wanted you to be. I wanted it so badly.
So I mummified you. Filled the skin with the memory of someone who was dead.
Cremated your soul to wear your shell.
I am truly sorry for your loss.
But to tell you the God's honest truth,
If I had to, I'd do it again.


There are, there have been plenty of men that were better in bed. Better kissers, and all.
But no one, and I mean no one else has ever whispered to me about the 104th Congress like you.
And when I'm with him, and I'm moaning as you know I do.
I can't quite explain why "This feels better than Newt's lecture at liberty," is such a natural response.

phosphorescence

glass skies coat the surface
barnacles hold driftwood and
something bites your ankles in the
the silty brackish water
but it somehow feels like home

Sleep Tight

I would sleep with you again tonight
if you weren't still married to your convictions.
My love for you isn't as strong as the fear
they would kill me before morning.

Witness

The difference
between friendship and an alibi
is that someone came by to ask.

It's not an accident.

It's not an accident that the female body has two self-cleaning organs.
By the time the next moon waxes
every trace of you will be gone from both.
You can track time by watching the stars, charting every change of degree.
Yes you can track the time by watching the stars or you can feel it as you rock with the ebb and flow of the sea.

Welcome in.

Have a seat here, just anywhere you'd like.
The silver has been polished,
the cast iron seasoned.
Everything has been prepared with care.


Never mind by whom.
Many have sat here before you.
Our hospitality knows no bounds.
And some things, good sir, are better with wear.

Goodnight

Some beds, like poems, are better left unshared.

Away

My eyes can handle the distance
and I enjoy the space in bed.
My legs can spread
my arms can sprawl,
But my nipples, man I'll tell you,
they miss you enough for us all.

The Geography Is Against Us

"But why?" she asked? And I'm not proud, but I lied right then and there.
The geography's against us dear, you are there and I am here.
It's not that I don't love you. It's not that I don't care.
It's just this damned geography is against us.
I chose here and you chose there.

Wrong Person

I don't mean to be rude, but I think you're trying to rob the wrong person.
I'm a white girl
who lives in the city
a white girl with short hair.
I put my name on the "not to be fucked with" list in 1984.

I'll take the

cat calls and
stomach cramps
all for 70 cents on the dollar

if it means I get to have something in common with a person as badass as you.

Growing

There are things hidden inside you I want to pull out
to use as a blanket.
Only I will know it is you
holding me in such heavy wet darkness.

It's not contagious.

No amount of kissing, swishing, rubbing, brushing, holding, folding, licking, loving, blinking, needing, bowing, vowing is going to make me contract your ivy league degree.

i'm sorry

it's not a question of loving you more
it's a problem of missing her less.

Footpaths

I've run so far east of Eden,
I just pray that the world is round.
And I wonder how can I be this lost,
if there is not a found.

On the Market

I don't want to move to the Mission.
I want to move to 2006.
Where can I find a realtor for that?

Touchdown

You signed your lease in Boston two days after I landed in Oakland.
Thanks for helping me avoid the conversation about what color to paint
her nursery.