les pauvres cœurs


Monday, February 23, 2009

Eve

She speaks of orchards as if
she has seen many
She sucks slurping sections
Spanish oranges as if
style is superfluous to
all the smoke she's made from
candied cigarettes under groves of leathered wood
She tends fruit as if
tending fruit and making love in springtime
were her only duties to the crown

I wait, first to admit
I'm an apple girl nectar doesn't
interest me and I like
words that rhyme better
though I too
tend
to fruits
yellow red green and gold
richly deeply dark in the February night

She'll not return even when
she's run out of Catalina Clementines
and things to suffer for.

And I wait,
crimson fruit round in hand
on top of walls
in corners
under beds
for a fraction section of attention as if
I need to say something in more than words.

Friday, February 13, 2009

cross-country move, part 2

by the time I am done
organizing
packing
cleaning
the only thing left of you
in my possession
will be two photographs
a postcard
and the squeaky cube rabbit dog toy
which was the first present
you ever gave me

and I don't miss you
anymore
but the rabbit gives me comfort
to know that once
someone loved me that much

dear daddy

dear daddy, we used to walk
on Tuesdays
your young father laughter
rang and rang
over the park swings,
thirty to thirty-five and
sometimes you woul take me out of school
to swing and slide and read.

dear daddy, all the pieces
of me
that are secretly you
I can't put my finger on but
I sure wish
I had your eyes,
even though mine are
forest clearing wild sunshine
and fields of gold.
I look in the mirror
I wonder where you are in me
as I touch belly thigh foot shoulder
nose ear cheek eyelash.
You must be in my face,
because mom is in my feet.

I curl back my lips
you in my teeth, daddy?
my tongue, pink and red
and gilded silver?
my smile, easy and shy?
Yes. In my cheeks, too,
I can see you, apple round
full of unrelenting pursuit of the
perfect
rock star sneer.
(I don't know who we're kidding with that, daddy,
we're too full of joy for music to be condescending)

dear daddy, the untouchable parts
of me
are you,
the restless tap-tap-tapping rhythm
on tables and legs
bending of book pages
and how my hands
clench
or curl naturally.
Mom always tries
to straighten my fingers but
I like to think they started doing that
in the womb
from all your years of music,
like hands for an instrument
was a star-wish you made for me in California,
a secret wish,
like my gender.

dear daddy, I think
you always trusted me with myself
better than I did
because of all those untouchable parts,
kept me being secretly you.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Modern Spaces

I am made of subspace
and each moment is a now moment--
when you feel 10--act 7
when you feel 7--act 5
and so on down the line.

when you feel 1--act 10
and emulate the overcast,
the topography of bloodspeech
was lost in kinetic translation.

she can drag her toe across the hardwood floor;
she cannot peek through.
You are a heart problem.
she can drag her toe across all the spanish rugs;
she can't see you.

I am made of subspace;
the Atlantic was not made for me to swim.

Every moment is a now moment
when you feel 1-- act 10
and scream as loud as you can;
take it from the top,
start over,
begin again.