Michael

michael can make a margarita
with whichever tequila you want
salt or no salt
michael can stand on the bar
and take a picture
of everyone
and then
if you ask him to strike a pose
when he passes back the camera
he will.
michael is a professional at most things
she makes me wanna give her
three dollar tips
on pretty much every drink.
now i think i saw michael at canal latino
in a tube top and a mini skirt
because that look that she's giving me now,
i remember it from then
every time i ask michael for a margarita
he gives me this look like i'm making him
walk on hot coals or
call all his old lovers
i love michael so much so i buy some more drinks
and give some more tips, and yell
THANK YOU MICHAEL
THANK YOU THANK YOU, MICHAEL
i yell all around her
arm-deep horseshoe bar.

why didn't you take me when i was a wilderness?

It's March in Carolina.
I'm breathless on the balcony
I hole up in my mind
with an old lover
the best man in this countryside
of strawberry shortcake and how'd'y'dos.
For long days we bounced on trampolines, drank hot chocolate
in the moonlight, I played
poker with his grandmother, let his red-headed brother
tie my hair with a pink ribbon.
We canoed up the river, swam naked
Sang poetry, drew worlds
nonetheless love flickers

He drew boundaries, bought himself a ticket
he had a suitcase, a motorcycle
and that directionless old perfection
lank-limbed, deep-dimpled
I get weak at the thought
and that's only the river-run memory
of his Southern bedroom talk

Seashells

Brainwashing the sea shells - by rolling them around in the bathtub

Hypnotize the downstairs neighbors by the sound

Thud thud high heel shoe thud thud? thud

I used to have a pair of hard heeled shoes

men would turn to stare when I walked behind them on the street

Thinking I was a seashell rolling around in a bathtub

hoping to be hypnotized, brainwashed thud thud

Drain the water, cold now, from the bottom of the bathtub

#9 / uninspired / scrap

home alone, it is all theoretical. cool as a cucumber, savvy sixteen.

three-dimensionality she said, yes that, addressing women, addressing the thing to talk about.

ix

One day she came back from her daily walk stunned by the revelation that one could be happy not only without love, but despite it.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Constituted by her hair changes
talked to in train stations
long blooded words wrapped tighter
legs taught or slacked moved through scenes

Why would I say these things
instead of I love you?

sometimes when i start to write
i have to stop
because i realize
i've just been quoting celine deon.

Damaged Goods

I liked the damage
of your goods
beneath the ways
that you were good
damage spread
the way damage would
in the shape of the spiral
your hair fell out
in the shape of the spiral
it wasn't good
in the neighborhood of the Upper West Side
on the pages of a Crime Victims Board application
to the sound of maniacal laughter
with the smell of burning bridges
as bridges would
bridges leading to the shape of the spiral
Merry Christmas
blah blah blah
damaged goods.

travel section

when i open the newspaper
just once,
i would like all the news
it contains
to be beautiful.

i would like the whole dang thing
to be like the travel section:
all beauty and delight
and laughing sun-kissed faces
in absolutely impossible sunhats
and suspiciously staged photographs of meals
so rich and delicous
they cannot be real, and yet, somehow, are.

and the only depressing news we can find
is that the ferry
to that unnamed charming island
will only run four times instead
of six
on sundays.

Faulty Machinery

we are faulty machinery
all nuts and bolts clanging together.

Our gear shifts grind and slip between us
in pieces that were once sauntered and sewed together.
We are faulty, never fully repaired
patched again and again
quickly while we wait for an upgrade
to a higher model of ourselves.

But, as nails chime to the ground
the cacophony of failed machinery sounds
beautiful.
Cling of gears against each other
the beeping
honking’
wheezing of dying engines
is imperfect yet true.

The faulty in the machinery
the failed embedded in the story of our construction
weaves, warps, and wires to
a beauty that no mechanic or historian can
re-coup.

[Take solace in your faulty, slapped together sides - they are part of you and create a new type of harmony]

Malko

Today I saw John Malkovich
scurrying through the Chelsea Market
in a blue baseball cap and a red hoodie
and a puffy jacket that seemed like
it was trying to puff up and over his chin.
He was eating something.