look at him looking.
like a total reject angel.
i gotta remember this.
it was a saint night,
& a saint day too.
one to tell the future about.
woke up to an afternoon
that looked like morning.
let's go to last night's party,
but let's go tonight.

Affirmation 12

Now that you've gone away you'll change your name.
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a thousand times. Actually,
I've never seen it but I know enough to know what to expect.
When we meet again, I won't even know you,
you'll have a different face and everything.

Harsh weather is a crucible.
The pigeons here are slowly becoming monstrous.
Two weeks may not be enough.
Wherever I go, you'll still go there with me.
First your absence, then the hypostatizing specter of your return.

Twice removed

Sew together those things.
Work harder at picking the right ones,
plucking them
from the jelly of the day they are stuck in.
Know which will rub against the others,
which will talk louder, which will curve around the tongue.
Find glasses so you can see them where they are.

a good year

"what a way to start the new year.
an unrequited dance party, a sprained ankle, a two show day, an injured actress..."

"but you know why i think it's gonna be a good year?"

i look at him standing there in a giant pod costume...

"why?"

" because last year, the very first thing i did was walk eight steps out my door and into a pile of dog shit. and i just laughed because i thought it was hysterical. but because of my attitude about it, i said to myself- this is going to be a great fuckin year... and it was."

He smiled at me as i wrapped the soft, yellow scarf around his costumed head.

Yeah, i thought. I like that.

"pratical ways to cleanse yourself of unwanted energies"

a photograph of this woman, probably in Florida, not California, her blue tie-dye dolphin shirt, health-food magic face, jungle-spa background.

my church of hot water and sea salt, then terror of specificity. where's the difference between good juju and OCD?

swimming pool in the high ceilinged, peeling pink paint room, dusty plastic plants, bath water warm.

one of my favorite people, with her wooliness, rose-petal tinctures, mind blowing electric toothbrush, kind almost-jokes about her neon-yogi friends. she seems to have found a good balance.

"sister mountain sister hamburger!"

worrying how it doesn't include those things, i do seem better at finding good shoes, at looking for you with my arms and legs.

Balance

In the northwest winter
the days have shrunk to eight hours in length
so tonight on the beach
we set fire to forty abandoned Christmas trees
one after another
going up in showers of sparks
and billowing orange smoke
that has left my lips cracked and dry.
The flames licked high against a black sky
and subconsciously,
I think the hollering twenty somethings
knew this was an important ritual
enacted by every culture,
every year
to hasten the return of the sun.

In the tradition of fallen summer fruit
I know that this winter will pass
and these dark days
spent drowsing over all things soft and wooden
will resolve into long hours of sun
that seem never to tick by

Still, come August I'll be a year older
and then we'll circle around again
back to the month I slid screaming into
and can't stop returning to.

Meanwhile the full moon rises above Seattle's west edge
for the, what, billionth time.

curlisto

This is a really great hair day.
Clean hair.
Curly hair.
Shiny hair.
Smooth hair.
Golden brown hair.
Not so frizzy hair.
Are you gonna get to see my hair?
Hair like this doesn't happen every day.
One-day-only hair.

romantic comedy

it is winter.
outside, it is snowing
big, wet, lazy snowflakes,
and i have just stoked the wood stove
and curled up beneath
my mother's yoga blanket.

i am watching one of those old
and familiar romantic comedies
of the late nineties or early aughts,
in which,
with disarming smiles and charm and wit,
meg ryan and tom hanks banter and bicker
and write love letters to strangers.

i miss those days,
when in naive wonder i really believed
that love would be like the movies
and romance would be filled with
clever quips and comedy
and accompanied by a soundtrack
of simple piano or quirky indie hits.
despite the comedic timing of
miscommunications and missed connections,
and the requisite challenge that must be overcome,
love would always end with a kiss in central park
or the meeting of hands
on the roof of the empire state building.

TWENTY-THREE

Butterfly led a lesson
on her love of second-hand clothes
creating a space
in the sixth grade English class
for her students to claim
pride in potential sources of shame
and they wrote
about being short, or poor, or uncool,
recognizing in their teacher
how confidence can be disarming.
After work,
we went to the Russian candy shop
around the corner from the school
under the tracks on 86th St.
The woman at the checkout said,
"You are so beautiful,
your features so European,"
and as Butterfly paid
for her coffee, she replied,
"I'm 100% African-American."
Her hands were like
the heavy velvet curtains
you see at old theaters,
framing the open set of her face,
her dark braids, brown eyes,
wide nose. We laughed,
Butterfly went to her car,
and I took the train home
to my empty Brooklyn apartment.
I was 23 years old.

KING

Hello you awful cat.
Looks like somebody's been cutting your tail off.
Or maybe I'm shrinking away from the fat facts, the Last Night:
the room, bursting with prey.
All the glazy eyes, the glittery blood,
hairsprayed heads thrown back, unprotected sticks and bats.
I just wanted to bury my head in a mane I recognized.
Now I'm all clawed up and shivering blood and you have this smirk, like,
"Sorry to be so graphic. Sorry to leave my pride lion around."
and it's fine, I understand. Every hunt needs a killer.