Light and Shadows

I was never alone, not when
the light was shining and my shadow
accompanied me here and there.
Then the clouds came and she left
me in the cold, damp rain, hiding
from the thunder in a closet.

Then I was truly alone.

I Would

If you were to call
my name from here,
and I was standing
in England, I would
hear it.

If you were to kiss
your pillow, while imagining
it was me, I would feel
the ghost of your lips
on mine.

If you were to squeeze
the corner of my desk,
and that desk was, in your mind,
my hand, I might perceive
that as well.

If you were to tell me
you loved me, I would call
you a liar.

The Loneliest Girl In The World

Sometimes, I feel quite
like the loneliest girl
in the whole world. It’s
not easy, being her.

You could probably figure
that out, though, by the look
on her face. Exhausted,
bored, generally dead in the eyes.

I say she because I only feel
like this loneliest girl. I’ve no
evidence to suggest I really
am her.

But who is to say I am not?
I would not push away the man
to show me I am wrong.

Present her to me; I dare you.

Days Like This

The air around us had a certain
quality to it that was so like the ocean
air that I forgot we were actually
home. Even the sky above
had a hazy sort of look and the sun
was almost too bright. For a while,
we lied in the sun, spinning blades
of grass and listening to music
that was entirely too loud. It did
not take long before we felt
we were in our own uncharted
world. There are no maps
for days like this.

Killing Time

All the cynics are out tonight
and their idea of a good time
is whispering doubt in my ears.
What else are they going to do
with the hours they have left
before they die?

I bite at them but they laugh:
any opposition is expected.
They are, after all, cynics.
They make my skin itch
and my throat closes up
so I can’t scream. Oh, yes,
all the cynics are out tonight.

Every last one of them.

Pride

What would you think? Would you
be proud? I don’t think you ever
were very proud of me. Maybe
impressed, probably jealous,
you always did have that envy
thing going for you. Everything
was a competition, wasn’t it?
Since when is a relationship
about being better than the person
you’re with?

A Perfect Storm

And the writing storm has begun,
she said, and one word will take
up an entire page, an entire book.
We will write for centuries,
she said, and never stop, even if
our hands cramp and our wrists
cry out and our eyes lose their vision,
we will go on writing.

If The Weather Were Nicer

Maybe, if the weather were nicer,
and you were out of school, and we
were in the park like we were that time,
it would feel like summer.

Maybe, if the weather were nicer,
and ice cream was sliding down my hand,
like it were a water slide at Beaver Lake
(God that thing terrified me)
it would feel like summer.

Maybe, if the weather were nicer,
and watermelon sat on the counter—
no point putting it in the fridge,
we nibble all day – and chocolate
melted in our hands, like our hearts,
it would feel like summer.

Maybe, if the weather were nicer,
and the clouds didn’t sit just so over our heads
for so long, and we licked our popsicles
and jumped rope after swimming
in the pool or the lake – have your choice,
I don’t mind – and we were fish for a day,
it would feel like summer.

That's Why

It would be kind of funny, wouldn’t it?
If you knew I wrote all this stuff
about you – all these horrible, personal
things – and you told me I had to take
it down? I would fight, just like I always
do, just like we always do, it was what
we were – are – best at. Think that’s why
we got along so well, don’t you? Well,
don’t you? Never did give me straight
answers, never really listened, I suppose.
Then again, neither did I. No, and that’s
why we’re so bad, so good, so everything.
But suppose you did find all this:
would you even know
it was all
about
you?

Library

No, no, I won’t go until the lights
are out, until the lights are out and the ceiling
has fallen. Even then, I will creep
among the books, tip them open,
look inside, have a read, and sleep
for a while in the rubble. You’ll have to pull
me out, pull me out, you see, I won’t
leave this place, won’t leave for the world.

A Chat

She asked me questions
I did not have answers
for, so I stood there,
shivering and nauseous,
wondering how I should
answer.

I kept my mouth shut
and let her talk.

For a House-Elf

I wanted to kiss his forehead,
to do something that showed
my gratitude, that proved something
to this poor, dying creature. There
was nothing I could do. Already,
his eyes were exhibiting the blankness
of the dead. Blood soaked his tunic
and then my hands. While I turned
my palms over and over, gazing
at the life dripping down, I realized
I had not killed him directly, but the blood
of the elf was on my hands.

A Baseball Poem

I will never write a perfect
poem about baseball. It just
won’t happen. So why try?

I’ll tell you exactly why to try:
Baseball is perfection. It is the game
of kings, the play of paupers.

The grass diamond is more an emerald
than anything else. A jewel cut
so precisely and pristinely it glows.

Even the ball itself has a certain texture
which cannot be replicated. Trust me,
I’ve tried.

The smell of that fresh dirt, watered down
every so often, the cleanest smell
in the world; that doesn’t fade come winter.

Who knows, maybe every poem concerning
the bases, and the bats, and the balls,
are perfect.

Why? Because it’s baseball.

A Couple and the Sun

Oh my God, what in the world
is that thing in the sky? It glows.
It sparkles, it shines, it blinds me.
My, I think it is the sun. How dare
it bare its huge face to the world
again?

Well, dear, I’d like to hug him.
Reel him down to the earth and give
him a king’s welcome, let him brighten
my skin, my hair, my voice, my heart.
Yes, dear, I’d rather like to hug him.

That thing is an abomination, to use
a cliché. Such an obscene thing
to do. You are ridiculous, darling. Truly,
I mean it. Leave me for it if you wish.
I shan’t be surprised.

Ah, yes, leave you. That is the solution:
I will marry the sun. I will marry a thousand
stars. How can you be so out
of your mind, dear? Don’t you see,
dear? I’d endure an eternity
of rainy days, if only I could spend them
with you.

For Camden Pierce Hughes

He was wrapped in a blanket,
his eyes shut. He could only
be sleeping. But outside? In the wet
ferns and the saturated mulch?
Something was not right.

Sweet dreams, little boy. Enjoy
your adventures in the forest-castle,
meet your legends, eat your dreams.

The Bookworm

They called me the Bookworm
so I spent my hours burrowing
into the pages, slipping between
the lines, sniffing the words, and eating
the letters. All of them slipped
down my torso easily, my mouth fitting
around each symbol. It was all
delicious, sweet and tart like apples,
with a skin that snapped when I closed my teeth
on them. The juice ran down my chin,
and I licked it up, the savory drops falling
down my throat. Oh, yes, I was the
Bookworm.

Cities

I watched them erect entire cities
on the shores and river banks
while my brain swelled in my skull,
squeezing out the blood, until it waterfalled
out of my ears and I had to scream,
my hands cupped by the lobes.

The built and built until I became
skeletal on those beaches, my feet
sinking deeper into the sand. They never
heard me, not once. My fists beat
the water and the salt splashed into my eyes,
blinding me as it stung and my head
continued to pound and the blood went
on rushing out.

I shouted into the night while pillars
were hoisted into the sky and lights crowded
out the stars from the atmosphere.
And for days, I cried.

Tell Me

Tell me a story, distract me from doubts,
hate, sadness, all of it. I don’t want
to think anymore, and I think you’re
the cure. Prove me right, I dare you. And
you know you want to. Do this for me;
I’ll owe you. Make the monsters crawl
from my ears, the poison leak from my nostrils.
I just don’t want to think of anything
but you and your sweet voice.

Foreign Languages

I am fluent in English,
French, German, Latin,
Italian, and a dozen
languages you’ve never
heard of.

But most importantly,
I am fluent in love.

Sweet

They told me I would be your boss
one day, so I brought some shovels
out into the yard and sat in my driveway
until you arrived. For two weeks
I ordered you around, making you dig
while I made digs at you, little bites
into your flesh and your brain. Little bites
that festered for those two weeks
and probably still do. Meanwhile, I scratched
at my head and wondered if it was the right
thing to do. Revenge. The word tastes
good even in my mouth. But should I do
to you what you did to me, just for that taste?
It has a bitter aftertaste and I’m not so sure
it’s worth it.

Until I decide otherwise,
keep digging.

A Living

There is a row of light
switches on the wall.
They go: off on off on
off on on on. I count
ceiling lights for a living
and it doesn’t pay very well,
not it doesn’t get me much
money at all, but it’s
simple and I’m the same,
so we’re a great match,
that is, we are a pair of matches,
burning up the air molecules
and stealing oxygen
from third-world countries,
where my aunt vacations
on Saturdays and sometimes
Mondays when she doesn’t want
to go to work, counting
the lights on the ceiling.

Ellipses

Her conversations were filled
with ellipses. They eclipsed
her words, and her silences
became more meaningful
than any sound she managed
to produce. They said, “I
love you. Don’t leave me.
Call me. Forget me. Leave me.
Break me. Love me.”

But mostly, they said,
“I don’t know what to say.”

Incognito

Good girls, she tells him,
are only bad girls who
don’t get caught.

So they have sex
in the backseat of his orange
pickup truck.

Good girls, she reminds him,
aren’t out past curfew:
take me home.

He nods and pushes
her hair out of her face,
breathing on her lipsneckshoulderjaw.

Good girls, she explains to him,
don’t date bad boys,
unless they’re bad girls

in disguise.

For a long time, he sits in her
driveway and stares at the stars,
wondering what she meant.

Killing Time

I have nothing to do but wait,
so I will watch the steam
spiral up from the streets,
and watch rich boys follow
their richer girlfriends
around and ask myself
questions I will never
have answers for.

But I won’t say a single word.

A Request

Lie to me. Go ahead.
It won’t make a difference.
I can usually tell,
anyway. So if you lie all the time,
I’ll figure out what’s what,
and we can go on as if you always
told me the truth.

Where Rain Comes From

Angels, I told my son,
are forgetful. Sometimes,
they forget to turn off
the water in the bathtub,
so earth gets rain. That’s
why rain smells so special,
too, I said.

He asked me where the thunder
came from and I explained
God liked to go bowling
whenever the angels
made a mess of the bathroom.

“And lightening?” was next.
“Lightening,” I said, “is Mr. Clean
coming in and mopping up
all the water. The lights reflect
off his shiny head and so we
get lightening.”

“Oh,” my son said. He left me
to play. I was glad to give
him a little magic
while he was still
young enough to believe it.

Polar

The air had become heavy
with cigarette smoke
and gasoline. Summer,
I knew, was coming,
emerging in the dark
like the sun on the horizon.

I inhaled the thick air,
letting my lungs
become infected, my mind
hazy.

You stood by and shivered
as if you were cold,
and I spun in the imperial
fields that went on forever,
past the horizon, past the sky.

You kept your arms
tight around themselves,
as if you were hiding
a secret that only winter
could understand.

Eras

“Hey you.”
That’s all it takes
to start a new era.

He forgot
about you and remembered
you all in three minutes.

You stood to his left,
cleared your throat,
said, “Hey you.”

And somehow, everything
was new again.

Conversation

There are things
I could talk about
for not just hours,
but days.
You, my dear,
my plague,
are one of them.

Like Plath

Could I be Plath
? Lead a double
life?
American and
Brit, poet and prose
author, sane and in-
sane, mother and daughter.
I would, if only
someone
dared me.

Book Stores

You have ruined book
stores for me. What
an awful, inconsiderate
thing to do.

But while I browse
the shelves, touching
my finger to each
spine, tasting the words,
I begin to time travel.

I time travel to the hours
we ambled around novels
together. I might pause
at a volume and you
would make some comment
about how it sucked even
though you hadn’t read
it yourself. And you kept

your fingertips to my hips
with playful affection.

You see? I lost myself
again in the stacks. This
is why I hate book stores.

In the Library

When we looked out the window
and saw the grass pushing
at each other like dominoes
and the rain misting the entire
landscape, we worried.

We were without umbrellas,
without coats, with laptops,
with dry clothes, with flipflops.

Steam rose from the hills
and overhead, the clouds ran
races and stumbled over
each other.

So we talked about ourselves,
our homes, our words
somersaulting together
like the clouds

until the rain stopped.

Nightmare

It was odd, that morning.
Dreaming of you has such
strange consequences. I think
I shook in my sleep; you terrified
me. You lifted your shirt
a little and let me see a sliver
of your hip. I wanted to wake up
and when I did, I was desperate
to go back asleep. As soon as I closed
my eyes, you were there again,
and things were happening.
Things were happening around us
and near us and by us. Or, by you.
I was mostly paralyzed. And again,
I needed to be awake.

An Epiphany

I figured out something today,
staring out at the dandelions
and the buttercups swimming
in the pool of grass: Life
is too damn hard.

Facts

This body has not been with
your body. I’ve read in text
books that your cells replace
themselves so you never really
have just one body. And based
on that, I can say, I have never
met you. I have never touched
you. I have never kissed you.
I have never seen you.

At least, not today-you.
But even science
can’t change
the past.

Serenade

Every night, he sat outside her
window and played guitar
until his fingers bled
and his brain spun from the melodies
twisting in and out
of his ears.

Every night, she sat inside her
room and pulled a brush
through her hair, humming along,
but never going to the window
to fully enjoy it.

One night, he sat outside her
window and played guitar
and, by eleven, when the moon
had impregnated the sky,
he asked for a drink of water.

This night, she sat inside her
room and pulled a brush
from her drawer, but did not
approach the kitchen, enjoying
the dying songs of the man.

That night, he lie outside her
window and died
while the notes from his guitar
and the groans in his throat
drifted up to her ears.

Mobile Home

We traced our fingers along the paper
shores of Boston Harbor for hours
until you had to go home. I wanted, as
I reached after you, for you to stay
with me and never go home. You
are my home. Your eyes are (what else?)
the windows. A bed is what your chest
has become. Meanwhile, your hands
are the doorknobs and you’ve made
an oven of your mouth. I don’t need
any more than this. But I am not
your home.

Walls

Kissing you was like taking
a warm shower. My muscles
fell and I would slump
against a wall, with only
you to hold me up. Those
were the lovely days.
Now I slump against walls
and there’s no one there
to catch me when I slip.