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.