Her skin reeked of chlorine
and yours of cigarettes

She lay in the car, unconscious and unknowing
and you panted and petted and groped
and, sweating, you stole her sanity

If I were to write a poem about you,
my haunted Spanish artista,
I wonder what it would look like.

Can words on a paper
simple lines and colorless letters
sum up what I feel when
I see you fears?

The war. A war I cannot imagine,
young and innocent as I am.

Would the words be jarring,
a handful of stinging bullets,
LOUD and TOXIC,
bombs and sirens and screams?

Would they be sloooow and sluuured,
blood seeping into the streets,
or the last rattling breath
of a dying man?

Or would they be quiet?
The quiet would be worst, I think
an aftershock of loss and pain,
salty tears whispering down
the cheeks of mothers holding still children,
prayers murmured into the night.

Mi Dios
Ayudame
*Por favor

blue and purple clouds
rolling in a sudden storm
cold first rain of spring

You found me
simplicity,
harmonium,
quiet ***** humming
slow,
softness,
starts,
and the violin follows along

And you grow
oh so quickly
and my smile joins you
my body
my toes are tapping
and a man walks sturdy
stepping on your beat
with a smooth nonchalance

And I am lifted
my arms raising,
reaching,
and my legs
weightless

Enveloped in song
warmth,
lilting,
socks slipping on a wooden floor
clapping along
as your voice grows

Strings thrum
and my bones with them
and as you fade I slow
my twirling gentles
but my smile remains,
breathless
cheeks red and eyes
glowing.

We were your friends

We followed you,
listening,
wiping your tears
when the petty cruelties of teachers
were too much for you to bear

We knew of your loves,
what loves a middle-schooler can have,
of course,
and we relished your stories,
your knowledge

But you were afraid
afraid of our
looks,
words,
personalities,
and for your reputation

You cast us aside,
the used tissue
you showed me once
after blowing your nose in it
that fourth grade day

I had to hold my sister
as she cried

And I hate you

I want to crack open my skull
with my black pen
wedge it open
and have a look inside

I would poke around in there
touch the worms
that crawl through the gum
the slippery grey slime
I want to **** the
black beetles that join them

I would pull the thoughts
the twisted strings wrapped
so tight around the lumps
I want to loosen their hold
if for just one night

And taking out my brain
holding it carefully in two cupped palms
I would rinse it off in the sink
the mud flowing down my hands
the dust of fatigue
mixed with mucus
sliding down my wrists
and the bugs twisting around my fingers

And I would put it back
gently settle my brain
down into the yellow soup
cleaner now
and I would sew my head back up
and flatten down my hair
wipe away the blood

and go back to sleep

Ideas are so difficult to keep

I cannot trap them in jars;
they are not flitting lightening bugs
awaiting my capture

They slide through my fingers,
those impish creatures,
slippery silver minnows

But they are so beautiful,
my thoughts,
dancing down my palms
and diving off my fingertips

They pirouette in midair
landing,
sinking into the soil

Deep in the dirt and mud
they bloom.

He was a drunk,
and he left you
before you were grown

When we heard your name
we laughed;
we tried to figure it out,
this five letter puzzle
for the woman told us to call you Katie
spelled
K-E-I-R-I

Alone I,
knowing a touch of Spanish
spelled it out,
sounding out the letters
in a foreign tongue,
spitting round pebbles

When I asked you
you smiled,
lifting,
relived

Your father was confused
that night you were born,
in the loud hospital
immaculately clean
and white

Your nurse's name was Katie
and your father did not know
so he did the best he could
and wrote
in his large brown hand,
Keiri

You have his picture in a locket
and you look away as you tell me,
hiding that betraying blue

I know that feeling,
a stiffened back,
burning;
the hatred of the runaway man,
the traitor

And that other thing,
obstinate,
the rock in your throat;
the love of a father
who gave you
your name.

Smooth and swift
these words fill
the page,
black curves,
glistening
smudged by my hands

Or halting and stiff,
the graphite pencil,
wooden switches and swishes
and my terrible punctuation

Half-formed figures
and plots riddled
with holes,
my broken babies

I write these lines for you
small and quiet,
uneven spaces
and bad grammar,
because speaking is so loud
and my voice is hoarse
and my tongue trips
and stumbles,
and I cannot find the words
to say
to you.

That it doesn't hurt.

That there is no ball,
no yellow tumor,
no pain

Let's call it a star,
a little growing thing
with white legs
and glowing fingers

Let's say it's kicking me
when I lay down,
tiny diamond feet
pressing under my ribs

And when it takes me
let's say it grew,
swelled so large
and so bright
my body could not take it
and succumbed to its brilliance

So when I am laying
in a dark wood coffin
that star will be in me still
shining brightly

So nice to meet you
and your kind spirit

I listened,
enraptured,
eyes wide and
bones melting,
to you

I clung to your voice
soft as it was,
lilting and lyrical,
whispering S's and
beautiful B's

I wanted to try the words
taste them for myself,
savor them,
their sweetness

And when I found you again
surrounded by professors
chins wobbling with their praise
and their stiff arms;
you so tall
had run out of books

So Julie
(whom I owe my eternal gratitude
and $13.25)
handed me hers,
smiling,
understanding

And you,
tall woman,
soft wood,
you wrote me a line

so nice to meet you
and your kind spirit
x*

And I ran to class,
feet pounding the pavement,
so fast I could fly,
for you gave me
your wings.

I am supposed to compliment
your beauty,
your bark brown wings and
perfect form,
your delicate legs and
slender body

I am supposed to praise
your grace in flight,
your swiftness
and your speed

I am supposed to compare you to
the softness
of an autumn blanket,
the silent beauty
of a silver moon,
the rush, then stillness,
of a changing wind.

But when you landed on my arm,
you tiny beautiful being,

You scared the crap out of me.

Nineteen years it's been

And after nineteen years of learning -
Nineteen years of
see-through models,
****** magazines,
and the jutting bones of
anorexics -
  
After nineteen years of whispered hate,
I believe I have forgotten, dear Mother
what beauty is.

If I were to tell you my secrets
would you listen?

Or would you turn,
clean your nails
run your fingers through your hair
fidget
until I release you
from the strangeness
of another’s pain?

I believe in goosebumps,
the shiver

Your hand passed lightly
over my bare skin
lets me say so much more
than words ever could.

Every morning I check myself,
and every night too,
and sometimes after I ***,
hiding in the shower stalls
under sterile florescent lights

I can see the fat,
how it hangs down my body and
melts off my chest,
a misshapen bag of
curdled yogurt,
yellow

If I pull my stomach in,
*******
straining
the lumpy muscle peeps through,
deformed and grotesque

And yet,
I cannot help but notice
how my ribs show through my chest,
stubbornly squeezing through the fat and
forcing the flesh to my hips,
refusing to comply.

Apples are tantalizing.

They tease me,
their red and green brightness,
so crisp and juicy,
and my braces

Sleep is tantalizing.

Uninterrupted sleep
that is,
no *****-covered toilets
or hospital visits for kidney stones

And silk is tantalizing.

But I will never slip into sheets
your white silk ones
and feel those slippery folds
on my bare stomach -

I should cross that one off.

Thank you.*

Such abused words.

Too often they are a lie.
Lists of names barely remembered,
slurred together in a hasty speech,
a meaningless slip of arrogance.

I had no audience,
no beautiful faces
like drowning lights,
yellow eyes in a smoky room.
Fearful and cold,
I wrote them alone,
birthed in my mind
by desperation and giddiness,
those flighty muses.

But you were there,
my euchre girls
and boating boys,
and I held you
tightly to my chest.

I release them now
my handful of
teardrop butterflies,

And they fly home to you.

We want your every purpose:

we want your youth,
your rosy cheeks.
we want your shining brown skin
and your supple arms

we want your thoughts,
your cogs and spinning wheels.
we want your psychosis

and if you are drained,
sagging and grey
with only one last rattling breath left -

well,

we want that too.