Moving In

You suggest
that we order our books
by color,
and level by level
of packing tape,
we undo
the semblance of order
we had.

Where once
there were authors
there is now
joy
we think.

My father smiles
condescendingly
while your mother asks
how we’ll find our books.

They worry over
the browning
of the palette,
the potential
complication
of splitting
light
into its components.

How beautiful I think
in the morning.

Found Poem from Morning Meeting / Cheery Start to the Day

“I can neither confirm nor deny
anything about A.C.S.”

Please don’t leave a suicidal child unattended.
If they’re homicidal let them run. Ha ha. Silence.

If there is a fire in the building
or a bomb
on the L train
you will be directed to do certain things—
shut your doors—
the intercom system does work
after all
in certain rooms.
We’re working on it.

Code blue—a kid’s down.
Some of us are pre-C.P.R. trained.
Some of us aren’t.
Someone will come.

God forbid one of our teachers or students die,
it is not an immediate crisis.
But there will be counseling set up.

Don’t speak to the press.

You will be given a copy
of the plan.

After Work Phone Call

At the end of the day
I want you
to be everything
I need

Which includes a hug,
a reassuring look,
a confidence,
an awe,
affection and an orgasm.
I want this all
at once
a taste of wine disaggregated
aptly swished, sniffed and sipped.

This concoction would surely
include umami and sweet
gone together wrong
rushed
like cold mashed potatoes
unwarmed
eaten for hunger.

I’m sorry
for spitting you out,
for hanging up.

The wires couldn’t conduct
the lobotomy I temporarily
craved
to over-satiate all my senses
into remembering
why each one is worth while.

You are joy
in all
your parts.

Again

I read
him a poem
and he said
“You read your poems
like you
hate yourself.”
I turned red.

I read you
a poem
and you said
“Read it again.”
I turned pink
and read it again.
“Again,” you said,
again.

To Young Artist

You often forget your book bag
and I’m too slow to realize
there are reasons.

But afterschool the other day
you shyly asked me if I ever watched you play
basketball.

I smiled and said I did
through the window by my desk
you run, pass and drive
harder than you fidget in here
where I asked again for you to write
about the events that made up your life.

You looked distracted and what’s more,
yelled, what the fuck was I asking you for?

Why should you tell anyone
what happened to you?
Face one more someone
unsure what to do,
telling you,
“Write about it,”
(I know, I do it too).

But here’s why,
you’re smarter than me
you’ve already seen
more than I’ll ever see,
and all I know about are these
dusty things, called books
where people escape
when they can’t face another
insufficient look,
or the moment they notice
the holes beneath our noses
are holes that can’t make much
but murmurs
and they’re mad, you’re mad, I’m mad
we’re yelling,
at spaces between faces on the train
at absence, and what comes
in between
people not saying what they feel or mean
leaving nothing but time
pen and page
to write down the things
you want to see change
and fear never do.

What can I tell you?
I watch you play
and learn
there must be something
worth saying.

Dream About Students Over the Summer

I am moving.

My stepmother’s exercise
weights do not fit.
I leave them unpacked.
(I’ll find room for them
somewhere, somehow.)

Suddenly I am standing —
the corner, you and your friends
13 and cliquey.
I am happy to see you
this is just like class
except we’re on the streets
and you’re excited to see me.
You write hurriedly on chart paper
I pull from my carpet bag, smiling.

My mother’s car pulls up
and the son of the upstairs neighbor
(who had a crush on her)
and I used to baby sit
gets out of the car
and he’s 13 now too
and telling me to hurry up
“Put your things
in the trunk,” quickly filling in
“We need to take the pictures,
just like last year,”
but his voice is this distant sound
dust shifting really loud,
and I keep asking what he means
when he starts yelling at me
“How could you forget?”
I’m still dumbstruck looking around
when his father steps out and starts yelling
and then my mother too
who I try to tell
that the weights really have to go in the car.
“But there’s no time,” she tells me, “There’s no time
we have to go take these family
photos,” I wrack my mind and still
I don’t remember,
this didn’t happen, this isn’t how it goes,
I’m starting to know
this doesn’t make sense

when a feral cat climbs out of the car.
I manage,
“Really, with us? We have to take this?”

But just as it’s about to attack
one of you
I grab it
mid air,
time seems to slow.
My old apartment fades
from the periphery I see
someone pick their son up
from the corner
“You coming back next year?”
he shouts.
“I’m kinda busy”
I think (feral cat still on hand)
but say “Of course,”
and he shakes his head
that way adults do
when they think “Oh you still
you can make sense of all this.”
And I want to scream,
“What am I supposed to do?”

Tall men on the corner overshadow you,
it’s getting dark
my hands are full
“I’m sorry,” I say
waking up.

Alexander Pope/Dismissal

Time was synchronized
in the Garden of Eden
I think,
as you plural
tell me
it is time
for dismissal.

Universal three pm
and other costs
of the knowledge tree accrue,
(the modern mind
has not been kind
to absolutes,
devouring measly crumbs
as sustenance
for propulsion).
I should throw the clock
across the classroom
smash your watch
make a scene
show you what it means—
what what means?
What does it mean

to discover the universal truths
yet unknown?
Study nature, or history, or regulations
(they are all one
and the same).
Discover values
not created by us
just abstract
what is
already there.

Celebrate structure;
simultaneously realize
its limitations.
(Oh, and walk on water
while you’re at it.)

After that,
you may be dismissed.

Anti-Sense

Swallowed a cherry pit,
felt happily alone,
when I giggled at the back of class
about what wombs can grow.

The professor rambled on
about the history of dissent,
why we need criticism,
and what I should have read
by now
maybe he forgot
how it feels
to go out on your own
the magic of the world and words
mixed up and unknown.

Maybe it’s as simple
as the trusty alphabet
repeatedly we must decide
what words to make
and to reject.

So simply,
if growing is going
without knowing
what yet means,

I choose
next.

Brain Cleanser

Togethering again
the chaos
of days unglued,
months spun by,
compiled newspapers
piling high
with things that happened
and receipted things I did
or spent
or spent time with.

Exhaustion comes
when it has been a while
since sleep, up fighting the long losing
battle mind mine of mine
sleeplessness fixing all that is tense,
for a world insisting on rarely
making any sense.

But tonight when you are not
here, I am less
tired, and though
this is true,
I would give up all
of my order
to spend time
with you.

Same Subway Separate Schools

On the subway home
two boys run into a girl
they once knew, on the train.
One says
“Ask her if she broke up with Kevin!”
(And they do).
She says she has and they ask why
and she shrugs a sigh
and boy one asks
if it was another girl
and boy two, if her sister
had to do with it
and she looks down
and says nothing.

They mention the food at her school
“It’s good” they’ve heard.
“How much?” they say.
She says “Thirty,”
and they say, “Per day?”
And she says “Thousand.
Per year,”
and all of a sudden it is clear
that they come from similar places
but went on different paths
so they stumble over what else to ask
though they look so tough
they want to know who had enough
to send her off and shortly she’s gone
in a trance of headphoned thoughts.

They laugh anxiously.

I sigh, hoping that this doesn’t mean
they won’t try to struggle through
whatever it is that made them sad
enough to ask a girl they barely knew
if the food was good

or if someday they could be understood,

not as rude,

just hungry,

for a real chance.

Denver

Clear spaces and blue skies
ain’t no place for a city girl’s mind
so tonight I’m just a dot on the skyline
flying back to where we might lie
and feel closely less alone again.

There’s little to trust in going slow
I need reminders—go, go, go
dodge this, fix that, me first, you last
unanswered open ended questions too vast
without alleys and cats
cries of echoes incomplete out here
too much space,
not enough near.

So what if I want a someone who knows
I need it back,
that I’m not crazy
expecting things to happen fast?

I’m just from where sunup starts
the night before
where sleep is like a conference call
all this doing and little being heard

I’m very near deaf already
so you’re gonna have to scream
if you want me,
I’m ready.

Sarah Marshall

I wish you were
partly inside me
seeing how everything shakes
and little is stable
but love that takes over
like flowers on a dining room table

and threatens
like next week.

Phone Call

I’ve called to tell you one thing,
but can’t and say another,
hoping you will
make the invisible
jump to conclusions
I need, I know
this doesn’t help.

There’s also nothing you can say
except everything
I can’t hear.

By Way of Response

I bought you a book
to keep postcards from me,
a cheap trick to keep you
cataloguing our continuance,
but the chickens have come home,
and my writing unglued
by unused postage
(a penny jar unemptied
weighing down pursed lips).

You write,
“Whenever I come here
I long for you.
Somehow the brick buildings
your hair,
the white window frames
the contours of your face
and that seeping glare,
sunlight through clouds,
always you.”

I put the postcard down
and have another sip of coffee.
This is Brooklyn after all
where a motorcycle revs,
a horn honks once,
twice more
a bus breaks
a generator hums,
a basketball bounces,
the bus keeps breaking,
stops keep stopping,
the sounds mumble, blur
fade, but for, you, who says:
“P.S.
Dream of here,
I will meet you under the lamplight.’

Crinkled maps
folded too long
fade, and starlight
in morning
goes unnoticed.
But we know
it glows,
anyway.

Riverside Drive

The plane prepares to take off
(but this is irrelevant).
There is the space between
platform and plane,
steps necessary,
to make mechanics
not mundane.

We have discovered little more
than the backstage hands
disguised and disguising
what we try not to see
the things that make strings sing
enjoying the undulations,
coherence unpinned.

But here comes the flaw:
the careful mechanics
of panic before
is what make moments worth
worrying for.

We hate what we make
because we won’t admit
what we need.

So listen, I am worried, indeed
that bridges shake
and tempt fate with dichotomized
we give up, or go on.

But consider shaking plane wings
make waters passable
and may let you swim.

So fill me with memories
like a rowboat with water.
Don’t offer me oars,
just tell me what’s true.

And one of those days when we walk
until our feet hate the pavement,
forgetting who heard what and not
as we ramble about leaving
our options open,
we will pass by the same
person we never noticed
before, who will wisely reply
“You’re gonna die
talking about your options.”

And then we’ll go swimming.

Orienteering/Outing with A Student (Jacob Ris Housing)

Your mother drops you
on 11th and 1st to meet me
(as if I can help).

The backseat bounces with bare potential
your brothers: two and four, carseated and unsure
what more days of limited ways
might mean.

Later, walking you home,
you say you will go ahead alone
(some quietness about making your way
through the maze)
and I am left to turn
on wearing heels (my greatest qualm)
to meander through
this single story discourse
of warm homes, I come from
one chapter after another
world turning the way it should.
How is it that you should be protecting me
when it should be you
who I can guard?

But your mother has lived
many times more
than I’ll ever have to handle
(in half the time)
all because she was born
a mile north
or east or west or south,
or somewhere
inconsequentially close.

We circle her magnet
reading around confinements
into margins she leaves
to you like flowers
hoping we will sprout
a garden.

On the corner,
someone’s perfume smells like narcissus,
and a staggering woman wears a fake gold chain.

“I think you can be President too,”
I call after you.

But you are gone
and I am spinning again
seeking directions on fertilizer
to a place where negative capability will bloom.

Things I Believe

I believe in old ladies
I believe in church hats,
I believe in young people
falling in love,
and in embarrassment.

I believe in front steps,
in morning, rereading
and in repeating.
I believe in missing,
I believe in being confused
I believe in the smile after
the subway takes you.

I believe in the skyline,
in trees, hard days, slow ways,
and in being soothed.

I believe in love long
after it has no more worth
and I believe in change,
in changing plans,
making myths
in color wheels,
in trists and myrth
in trying, in living
with my best
not being
near enough, in no such thing
as enough,
in enough
enough.

I believe in exhaustion
in seeing everything,
whether or not it wants to be seen
I believe in children
on the subway
with their feet dangling,
and in the world being big,
I believe in being small,
in being always,
I believe I am overwhelmed.

I believe in falling and catching,
in recognizing need.
I believe in the moment
someone’s eyes want
being close.
I believe in wanting
to share a point of view
I believe in loneliness
and misguided isolation too.

I believe in
trusting, in showing
in sight sharing
in seeing and never seeing
the same,
in again.

I believe in changing
I believe in taking
things with you
I believe in treasure
I believe in loss
in making emptiness and
light filling, fulfilling
scarring and escape.

I believe in no escaping,
I believe in dreaming,
I don't believe in sleep.

I believe in control
I believe in self,
I believe in knowing not for what
in misspelling
in mistakes.

I believe in stops, monuments
markers and sometimes even kerns.
I believe in swaying and winding
breadcrumbs away, away to
no way back.

I believe in pebbles
and remembering
in breaking fixtures
in fixing
in light bulbs
and in facts.

I believe
in crawling
beneath
jackets and sheets,
in Sundays and Mondays
and feeling too
lucky,
in loud, quiet, comfort
in muscles, ankles
and whatever is exposed.

I believe in
spinning sadness.

I believe in
what is and what is not.
I believe it is all about a red ribbon
someone did or did not tie in your hair,
what words someone did or did not say,
what words were or were not written there.

I believe in
symbols and sins
and unending
word searches.

I believe in searching,
not needing.
I believe in more
so much more than this.

What Does It Mean To Be A Teacher?

Does it mean not noticing the sounds outside
of upcoming spring, shrieks of laughter
when there are so many things to do?

Does it mean hearing the murmurs unmentioned
the sounds in a vacuum near unknown
and noticing what might otherwise hang
in the air and never touch your tiny ears?

Does it mean imagining what might sound nice
inspire you to know what might be right?

Does it mean finding a way
to let you see the way I say
and stay unafraid, stay, stay, and stay?

Does it mean asking the question:
“How the hell did this happen?”
just enough
so I don’t drown
in your tear ducts?

Or does it mean remembering after all,
that this is the history of us
and together we’ll fall
if America is born and raised,
preemptively wincing
and waiting for pain,
or worse ignored
by exhaustion
and put down
further on the list
of things to do
and what to
accomplish.

Or does it mean me,
looking at you
and asking once more,
“What else can I do?”

Simplicity

I am sitting in your loft bed
when I hear you say,
“Let me give you,
all you desire.”

I sit on the verge
of nervous laughter
dizzy with unknowing
what to say
to every fantasy granted,
and then I realize,
you are talking
to the cat.

Without a doubt
this much you can do,
and I am harder, it is true.

Outside a man sits topless
by the street window.
I imagine he has cats.

I will purr louder,
if you let me.

Solar Eclipse

This is it
once we may
watch what focuses us
go away, no longer that which makes obscure
what it is we think we see
just a line: moon, sun and me.

It will be unlike this tomorrow too
when the world becomes again anew.
But I would like to waltz with you,
anyway.

Before the morning breaks,
let me show you every fantasy
I have softly canopied,
afraid.

I know no shelter
near as strong
as what I've built in want of this
so if I ask you to come near
trust that it is safe
to create, to eclipse.

Just lay me on this bedless world
and hold me like
sunlight still matters
in a future yet unseen.

Windy

On the other side of where you are
there is someplace you want to be
(watch your feet not go straight,
or look up, end up, where you meant).

Some things cannot be compared
(there is too much there where
protons make nebulae eventually)
We cannot choose what to discern,
sentimental bleeds brutal
(we are dots in the world
amidst earthly pixilation)
choosing to not want
it all at once.

But what if we were bewildered always
nighttime crying darkness
morning smiling
all calling
hands flying above
pianoed peace
fingers faintly shaking
eyes averted seeking
where minds go—
that place of no contact
craved and reviled.

In search of somewhere love?
(I should tell you
how my sky breaks
before you make motion in me
know what it's like waking up from a dream in a dream
fantasy blurred and windy).

But I'm Tired

We hold these truths
to be self evident,
but we’re tired?

I know,
no,
that is not
how it goes
but it is hard to know
everyday, to stay on task,
stay and stay,
when it is early
and all I want
is to look away
from little face #22
who has needs
just like you and you
who blinks and says
“But listen, please, just to me
and see the obstacles
I cannot see. See
around what cannot be named
and move aside with ease and grace
all the pain you cannot erase.”

And as if I were just too slow,
you add one more thing and say,
“Ms., if you give up, I’m giving in,”
and truly what now can I do but stay
and say I’ll try for one more day.

Sonnet Song Balance Beam

I will wish you into perfect shape
I’ve wanted for my selfish self alone
and banish all ideas incapable
of making you feel blissfully at home.

I know I am full of mere pipe dreams
that might never near connect,
but if not orchestrated for this theme
what is worthwhile to protect?

You say there is no wrong direction
just a million places we might fall off,
but if you give me your full attention
I would be for you, what is soft.

Come and on my shoulder lay your tension
let me make all pain you feel unmentioned.

Smitten

You’re busy
making me like
alliterations again and
other little things
like smiles.

The world is sudden
and meant for seeing soon
and close and now.

Maybe we will see it as two
kids rolling downhill
green and blue,
green then blue,
green, blue, me, and you.

The things we see
will need to be felt
like red blushing
needs tight cheek muscles
tingling, touching fingers
and smiles.

Life is more
than reflections you know,
more than water blue from sky,

more like
you smiling
from me

and me smiling
from you.

Praxis

“Individuals have the ability to transform dominant discourses for libratory purposes.” – Lisa Delpit

We ask students
to become literate
in the discourse of their oppression
and scream when they will not
conform.

Rational, we remind ourselves
we are rational,
so we must scream
of frustration, not fury

at the need for a language
unknown, no dictionaries
to describe how we might communicate
amidst this messed
socialist experiment.
Test tubed children
as controls, teasing who might make it
to meaningful places
above others.

Success for all mantras along
as long as one is suspended between stairs
climbing somewhere
necessitating lost tracks
of before and after.

Can I arm you to do more
than scramble through clouds
on landscapes unmoving,
spiraling space allegiant to
burning sun?

Even buds compete for sun.
(So it is.)

But buds still come
towards spring -
inching along.

Snell's Law (Dear Couple)

Your accents are different.

That is all
though in attentiveness
you periodically panic
that you straddle continents.

But panicking is not periodic,
so let me reassure.

Remember the Bering Land Bridge
exists only under water—
a connection greater
than ocean ships shaking.

Were you impossibly in sync
(two conch shells around one head)
you would no longer be two,
instead overlapped
crest to trough,
no excitement to graph.

A wave alone
misses sea.
The dissonance of consonance
enables horizon.

And what would a world be worth
with no morning up
evening down
lunar cycle
out of step
nooks and crannies
catalysts, substrates
electrocardiograms.

You notice how light fills
the other’s lash. Enough to
cross from alone to another.

From somewhere sound,
to someplace quiet, you each listen
for the refractive index of the other

(like rays of light strike water,
the ocean is yours to walk).

The Eraser

“Who threw the eraser?
Who tripped into whom? Who pushed?
Who apologized? Whose father left
this morning?”

Newspaper on the doorstep:
“Children’s Health Insurance Plan
Vetoed.”

Veto.

It could be a vocabulary word.
“Children, copy it down—
this is how your country’s failing
you. Look I can show you how
to read this nonsense.
There goes thirty five billion dollars
that might have fixed your glasses,
that you sit and bind with scotch tape,
or made medicine for your cough,
even helped you
not get pregnant.

But no, look, the caption
they too haven’t learned to work
together we are trying to teach you
to do better
to be better than this
acceptance.

What can I do but tow this line?
Tell you that the eraser means more
and that this grimace is not madness
making its way to my face
it is how we build a life
around what we believe.

“Make every decision one you mean,
And yes I’ll stop class to make sure
you are proud of what you chose,
yes, we’ll grow slower
but we’ll know
when someone offers us thirty five billion dollars
not to reject it.

The truth seems so obvious
if you let it be.

So,
now,
who threw the eraser?”

Attempted Prism

It is easy to write myself through
the view, my bay window
stolid and sprinkled
with familied children and shouts
of “Watch out!”

But here,
scaffolding rises
around lost little lungs;
hammers hacking asbestos.

In this classroom
there is little
one could understand
without being a fly.
(We are all in too deep).

Windows are barred, dirty.
Not seeing out is how it is,
these things just are
(they say) and each day
fewer anecdotes suffice
to explain this disarray.

I could tell you of the morning
someone’s father left, the belled schedule
holding sadness, little bodies shaking,
eyes glazed straight ahead,
lost focus, wanting the will to wage
the mêlée of yesterday becoming tomorrow, today.

Or I could tell you what we read today
“The apple does not fall far from the tree,”
you see? And a small someone, who once wished
for invisibility, whispered,
“But sometimes, after it falls,
it just keeps rolling.”

And suddenly we have suddenly
from somewhere deep inside we laugh
guttural depths, rule breaking,
baffling, brilliance,
where, for a moment, we smile and know
what it is to be home here,
where scaffolding filters
light to a broken system.

For a moment, we know why
to try, desperately, to prism.

Fall Morning in Prospect Park

I catch myself
talking to the toaster
coaching “you’re not done,”
turning up the heat, slowly
learning the insignificance
of buttons.

I start to think,
if you were here
you might think I’ve lost
my mind,
only there is no you
who might actually think that.

There is the toaster,
who with some patience,
was coaxed to make me smile.

I have a hundred papers to grade,
thousands of words to consider,
constant curiosity,
who will notice, what changes,
where periods go,
how meaning is made.

Exhausted by the thought,
I take a walk—
a pack of roller bladders
stay in stroke,
a tornado of leaves
wakes behind a cop car,
a girl stands to pedal her bike,
a plane echoes in the grass,
a man smiles at me,
another plays saxophones.

There is so perspective—
you can hear a baby here
and a father cry, clutch, all at once
because the rest is even louder,
this land of no comparison
where shadows haunt.

To feel alone is to hear
everything, which is not bad,
only windy where we all must be both
together and separate at once.

Leaves turn,
soon it will be cold.
Pumpkins will patch us through
this October of lonesome mornings,
scattered holidays, little right here,
right now. Amidst change
I sit to think, if there is anything,
I could teach you.

I would like to show
how fleetingly beautiful it is
to be here, to notice, to know.

On Trying to Break Up Well

We're in the aftermath
of a paddle passing forward—
growing concentric circles
decreasing droplets, wondering if
you've sucked me dry.

It is not this simple,
the seaweed has my paddle,
and the river is no sink.
It continues, and we lack drain
pipes or any attachment
to self, still together.

On the bus home,
I nearly fall in
the portable toilet.

Where did the river go?
This is not the way kissing began.
We tell ourselves this is kindness,
romanticize herons
hidden in reeds.

Nurture knows not
where we went
for the weekend.

In the quiet
we hear sirens,
the city calling,
even time.

I will miss you,
I think, as the bus bumps back
to New York City.

September 7th, 2007

There is little sound on the train platform
less the busker’s foot tapping
something he hopes someone will hear.

It is late in the city that never
recycles right. Sleep steals
something daily,
rejuvenation at a premium.

I want to stay later, longer,
have tomorrow come already
when the kids run the halls again
class to class, the rush of routine.

Gaining their attention
I know not yet what
I would like to tell them.
There is a lot
they need
to know
though quiet seems so far
from important
and silence linked with sadness
and sadly something they must learn.

For other reasons we say
“Be quiet!”
Unknowing what words
they need to hear
what it is they need
to be able to
say.

How I Feel About Your Attitude And Your Notebook

I would like to say,
“I’m unsure
what I did
to offend you
on this glorious
morning”
with an ugly, sarcastic grin.

But you will sulk and say
“But I wasn’t talking,”
and I will say
“But you are now,”
and you will say
“But”
And I will say
“I don’t care,”
and it will not be a glorious morning
anymore.

Except the problem is I do
care, which is why I’m here
at this ungodly hour of the morning
wondering how to make you work.

So you really must
mind your attitude this minute
because I mind
when you don’t,
because you’re better
than that.

You are able to write
the moment your father never came
and still name the day you did well,
the way you taught second position.
You tell me the posture you choose, you know as yes
these moments you learn to have success.

“No, you will not speak to me that way,”
and “No, you may not sharpen your pencil
because we’re here to celebrate mistakes,”
the ink of decisions we make
choices again and again
and I would like for you to choose
to listen to yourself learn,
listen to yourself say,
“This attitude is less than I deserve,
and I will not tolerate
the cheap distraction of bad moods.”

Simply, I want you to write,
to take pen and craft
this attitude today to say:
it is my glorious morning
and I will find a real smile
through these pages.

Hoosier

In my new apartment
my father tells me
he tacked the “Hoosier” sign
to the cabinet
after it fell off.

It is my mothers’ cabinet,
their old house files forward
in the rolodex of images
as he gazes at it.

“I couldn’t get it quite right,”

“But at least you got it on”
I say.

I am the sugar
at the bottom
of their ice coffee

Brooklyn Stoop

From two blocks down
I see Marie’s distinctive frame—
the heavy shift from left foot to right
the square shoulders of a coat too big
and a body too frail.

You never know how lucid or not
she might be, shift stepping
towards November’s dementia.

Nobody likes to see an old lady
lost and cold.

In the summer, I thought her sharp,
sitting outside in her folded beach chair,
umbrella above when it rained.

You must know, this is not the beach,
this is a stoop in Brooklyn
overlooking long since paved streets
cracked and simple.

Once a friend passed her
on the way to our place for dinner
and Marie said, “Be a dear and help me
button my blouse.”

And once, my roommate walked her to the nursing home
twenty minutes at her shifted pace
just to find it wasn’t open that day,
then said, “Walk the other way
if you’re late.”

Her daughter lives a few houses down
anyway, there is a gaggle of grandchildren
full of smiles.

She used to work for Ford motor company
and always asks
“How was your day dear?”

We never walk the other way
in spite of ourselves
we learn the value
of being late.

We slow down
to the infiltrating wisdom,
the depressed footholds,
of a Brooklyn stoop.

Hansel and Gretel’s Pebbles

In the back car of the F train,
I hug the subway pole
again.

Lost and full of defenses
listed litanies of why
what I do cannot be good
enough, until you call me
on inability
to accept much moving
forward,

forward is nowhere I think
where there are cores of earth
beneath us, trees
rising with a sense of wonder.
Sense? Senses can’t recreate
the ways I would make
this moment real
with someone other
than this pole.

A child’s eyes shake
as a train passes.

For so long we follow
the light that does not move
seeking faith in somewhere
still.

You are not here, but could be
lost light in a photograph.

Honor Roll

The honor roll is posted
on dinky, pastel colored paper
un-centered and haphazard
between gold glittered stars,
glue-stick gunk still showing.
Kids chatter excitedly
about making it.

They are responsible for making meaning
I realize at parent teacher conferences
when of the mere 37 parents that come,
every honor-roll student is represented.

What hope do those kids have
who won’t even feel the pleasure
of the half glittered star
and poorly hung, pastel paper,
let alone someone who cares?

An eerie calm is all I’ve managed
a place where someone might think
for at least 45 minutes
that they might mean something.

What if, really, no one has told them that before.
Sure someone once scribbled a little compliment about hand-writing
But who ever had the strength to believe
They could make it. Not just say it
Sure some that could do
But who could through and through have thought you
Yes you could have your name in colors
Who drew attention to the blank
Your name could have filled
Who wasn’t scared to say, “Even if I see no way
I will make the time today to not
pretend and really say,
I know not how, I know not where
But I see your soul, and I see it clear
that there are moments
of deepest grace when your eyes flicker
and I know the deep disgrace of you not knowing
that you are eleven
so only eleven, and all things are
impossibly possible.

If I could hold that disbelief
and suspend you
I know you could fly.

Fall Window

I sit by my window
open to the wind
hardening nudity,
as winter comes
to us, confused.

What might happen next
little branch, to which I’ve grown
so attached?

I wonder if leaves ever want
to hear you say their name
even as they fall.

Counter

Sitting on the countertop
you tell me about accidentally
shooting a goose,
chaos flocking overhead,
a swirling cloud,
un-assured dreams.

Dust lifts off the 16-year-old dog,
you pat the space
bread nearly baked fills

I hold my own
knees and hope you hear
what I haven’t said
while wondering what wanting looks like

You say, “To say it
simply.”

I sit on the countertop
and wonder
what your thighs
loosely laid on a countertop
would feel like on my back—
if you would squeeze
my shoulders.

I want to feel your hands
I want to sit beside you.
I want to invite you in
to how my mind trips and falls

narcissistic intimacy.

Commute

Somewhere between tragic and heartbreaking
there is light

down the second avenue tunnel
a boy sits organizing papers
beside two men
topless, passed out
half alive or dead
we rush by.

Above ground two give free
newspapers we refuse,
though those two smile
in the rain.

The avenue smells of garbage, restaurant remnants,
late nights begetting early mornings.

A man ties his tie as he hurries
by, another staggers curb to storefront
head hung, heavy,
heavy the air seems today.

A woman walks her son
towards school
holding a teddy bear.

She weaves him between
the staples of this scene—
pigeons coming too close,
streets cracking at the seams.

The school scuffles
with hip high folk
wondering what will come.

Somewhere between tragic and heartbreaking
there is light.

Advice to a Young Coffee Drinker

I thought
it was a part of growing up,
drinking coffee
without milk

Turns out,
it happens
when you don’t have milk
week after week—

I know, stop right there,
don’t even bother to tell me
I know, I know, you just forgot.

And maybe you started to think
the corner store, so close, but yet
not worth your time
or energy.

You tell me there is value
in simply sipping something
you once thought caustic, and worse
you’ve noticed, it started to taste good.

Begin to worry, what will come
what else you’ll compromise
to make this world work
the way you imagined,
or didn’t.
Or maybe don’t,
but at least keep thinking.

For the morning,
that must be enough.

Star Student

“We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”- Barack Obama


I am worried for you
in a way I can no longer afford
to worry for myself—
knowing the limits of my own
hopefulness
the ways I can
pick myself up,

the ways I cannot.
The disappointment of not
getting up again, as high,
of witnessing
change.

You have the dictionary
seeing still (the unknown, be still)
what seems impossible.

Wastefully you wage it
on worthlessness
(those barely tremors
of sometimes laughter)
wealthy you are
with not knowing
the worth of self.

If only I knew how
to balance beam
this axis for you.

If I knew
to teach you fear,
or let you become afraid?

Circuitous logic paves roundabouts
to follow, arriving one after the other
(in rapid succession).

Will your future be merely a tautology?
Or am I to undo logic?
And who am I (?) to undo you
as if future were something
I once knew?

There are always exits.

Train Home

I ate your chocolate on the way home
awaiting canned laughter
only you could make real
by sideways glances.

I am good
at the wrong things,
embarrassed for not knowing
better about happiness.

We are each
other’s inflections.
“I knew I was happy then
but looking back, I wasn’t.”
And you who was,
retort “I never knew.”

If only we could combine these,
lay the graph of future
back down on the past
fill a crater with a mountain.

Try re-pitting a cherry after eating it—
enjoy knowing a happiness
as complex as growing.

But this is New York City,
we’re expected to want
pesticides, hormones,
a way to trope towards sun
underneath an awning.

I would like to tell you
the seed fertilizes, the roots take hold,
the big happiness is worth
the expense of the small—
when you watch the leaves allay
the wind. Cherry trees. Truth.

History insides out
again and you almost open,
again. Your top button
eases—could I slip
fingers in? Cherries unpicked,
remnants of what might
have been. I’ve been
fingering the batter bowl.

Men sing a cappella on the train
someone smells of piss,
blackjack on a cell phone with sound effects
turned on, heavy
collapse into the train
ride home.

Curious

Along First Avenue
houses line up
between what was and what is
boarded up windows
must lie in mere frames
where within light once streamed.

Traversing distance
in exponential leaves
commuters face the inexplicable
blocks of outlines compiled.
Fracturing venom and phloem back
stacked apartments.
Our supposed to senses distribute neural notions
Self-creating disconnections
in search of wonder only alone
in unknowing.

And yet I want to tell you
that this morning the sun rose
calm over the East River
though I did not see it
I know
it did

I wanted to say, “Colors
spread like only sky can,"
(but how afraid was I
laughed and said
something tangible instead
so the image in your head
would bear resemblance to what I see
to me—
though that image would
have nothing to do
with the joy of having seen it
or even you.
And then this pretense would be
simply what it seems—again.
But at least, alas, you will likely not
have disappeared).

Frames discolor and I cannot trace
the person whose memory has been erased
by a new layer of paint that comes and comes
with this continuance
—tan window frames on steely blue
color schemes old and new
inside which eyes have peered
out onto this scene for many years
the woman who sweeps
the same cement squares
past the Polish Deli, daily
kids recycle getting older
tailing rushed mothers
to a place that abducts trust
in the name of self-sufficience.

It rained earlier,
now it’s clear,
seasons never cease,
and I’m stuck
on the sky
in lieu of an explanation
to make me believe in this trek
up and back, up and back
making a journey
worthwhile to share.

The graffiti says snow
though it doesn’t often above subwayed tunnels.
When it gets too warm it rains the many individuals
never known.

Wonder must be collected,
kept, spreading itself before us
unsortable, in no need
of sorting.

A woman spits seeds into her palm.