Time

The general momentum of things won't stop scratching this heat-warped record of songs we used to sing to one another under the sycamore tree that reached up to the sky out of the snow or the long grasses.


The time that passed, even in the shine of the January snowfall, even in the March melt, has never come to a pitched heat, never even a dramatic swell, but only marched relentlessly on one second-hand tick after another, with no climax and no resolution.


Billie Holiday's voice on a disc has dug out in a few tiny canyons that she circles around and around, following the sun overhead, spiralling back to the beginning as if she could visit the same place in time, ever, ever, ever.


Now even the compression of Madeleine Peyroux's mp3 points to a certain instant in time, a year that must hear everything more clearly, louder than before, blowing out the frequencies as if somehow we can mount time's momentum, as if somehow we can ride it harder and faster until it is ready to drop, and finally, our weary songs can sleep.


But the songs keep existing forever, slipping deeper into the past, falling forward helplessly into the future.

And time won't pick up its step one bit, even if we sing until it tears our throats.

Things Explained To Me

Pen on paper helps
To keep what’s told
Inside your brain ( I never wrote that down, til now)

That’s the thing
That’s the thing about –

I’ve got brain, but
Particulars slips quick

Tamara told me her Dad was in the military.
“I knew every rank, you bet.”

I should probably know something by now

Have you ever seen somebody die?
Have you ever felt it?

Jolts and chimes across all time.

Affirmation 4

Here I mean to firmly affirm, and not mope around any more.
I'm tired of stressing and obsessing. It doesn't matter what people do.
It seems like there's a lot of drifting apart in a lot of these poems,
and everyone knowing one another less well. I'm going to know people
more. I'm going to start to feel tougher. Winter won't be
kicking my shins this time around. Once I feel tougher,
I'll be tougher. I'll wrest my life from the hands of depression.
I'll clean my humidifier and keep my room nice.
Once I'm tougher, I'll find some people, and I'll get to know them.
Then I'll find the people I already knew, and I'll know them more,
too. These are not resolutions. Resolutions are what you break.
This is just some stuff that's going to happen.

I'll bake kouign amann, and the butter won't crack the dough
when I'm rolling it out and folding it. Some of the people I know
and I will draw comics together. Some of the people I know
and I will keep our eyes on the police. In the morning
I will warm up my lower register, and then I will find the courage
to fearlessly summon the tenor, even though everyone
at the bus stop below my window can hear me.

SEVEN

The lighthouse sits aloof
far up the beach
from where my sister
and I and two friends act out
the story of Stone Soup
for our parents. The beach
is dark stones deposited thick
like forgetfulness though I cannot
think this yet, and next I am skipping
from trembling stone to stone
in the shallow water wearing
a red t-shirt that says,
"I didn't come here by accident -
I came here on porpoise"
which I got on this trip to Maine.
I want to see two eyes
and a slick mammal head
pop up from the yawning Atlantic
and lead me further
from New Jersey, further from
third grade than I ever dreamed
possible, into the lighthouse
where every day
I will climb the spiral steps
with a bucket of fresh fish
and crabs and where
I'll cast black stones
like wishes from the top of the tower
into the sea.

After the day at 6 flags

I wanted to peel off your sunburnt skin.

Save it all in the ash tray,

coral colored.

As it dried and shriveled with passing days

I'd remember how I'd shucked off the day gone wrong.

Back then I didn't know you well enough to touch you.

Now I know you less.

twenty-five twenty-ten/minus eighteen, not to be read aloud

Fat-burn, pat-down, motorcycle, carpet bag,
stopping at this kid would really be too good to be true.

We still need the bergamot but our joints are all buttered into their sockets now, not trying so much to "BOY BANDIT HAS PIZZAS DELIVERED TO EDGE OF FOREST!"

Still in love with all the old whistles, just a little less embarrassed by it now, I'm sorry I said you were tough.

Jerkers

Ireland gobbles up an economic cancer,
waits ten years, then craps a crab.

Boys wearing pants with patched knees
push down the same girl, then ten years later

line up in front of her ruler.
Eat right and your baby won't decide its own fate,

Draw great pictures and the water won't get sucked back into the earth
and leave a thin climate, and umbrellas punched full of holes.

last night my friend flopped onto her bed and said to me,
"I don't know how you plan to be straight and expect

anyone to keep up with you."
Maybe if she knew that I march out in short brown hair,

darting eyes and a banner smile,
holding one hand over my hard-earned Wendy.

cold fusion

You feel like ice
Your hands send chills through me when you grasp my hips
Bitter cold brushes against my skin with your touch
Put your frigid hands in mine
It heats up

You taste like combustion
Your lips burn when they press against mine
Smoldering and yet I want more
Pour some water on the flames
It only aggravates

You stink of smoke
Your breath smothers me
Can’t see through the dirty clouds
Can’t breathe through the thick haze
Open a window

The air clears
I am alone.

bye.

goodbyes are hard.
i've always hated endings... even happy ones.
i try to be fluid.
i try to be ok bout it.
so i listen to awful pop music.
and remember details.
and think about girls i want to kiss,
tattoos i want to get,
songs i wanna sing,
and i dance it out.
it helps.
for a little bit.

memory, in four parts

I.
here is what i remember:

it is raining,
and we are running down the path
between our houses.
as we splash along,
reckless feet beneath us,
our sneakers
squelch and lurch along.

you are faster than me
--longer legs, stronger muscles--
but as we reach the space between
where you live
and where i live
you stop and duck beneath
the porch light of my door and
when i reach you, finally,
you are laughing,
head thrown back, knees bent.

our shirts stick to our skin,
and now i am laughing too.
the rain is beating hard against the tin roof,
the palest echo of my heart against
its ribcage, as you
pull your arms around me
and trace the shape of my face with your palm.

II.
here is what i discover:

that there,
beneath the porch light
in a fall downpour,

you taste of rain.

III.
here is the truth:

there is no storm.
there is no porch light, no running,
no laughter,
no moment where our faces were so close
i could no longer see
your white breath mingling with mine.
there is no memory.

IV.
here is what i know now:

there is you, and the space between us

and sometimes
that is enough.