healing

Once I was sick
My skin was grey
And I didn't know my own name
I lived in a sick house
And my sickly sister came to nurse me
She brought me
With her last strength
Across the sea
Where I
Weak as I was
Rescued a very sick friend

My revelations are these

Actually
No one is well

And

God has a strange way of healing

beauty is the idol of my family

Yesterday I met an ugly man

But he was beautiful 

To me

And it pains me to think

That all of my loved ones

Swooped in

Like vultures 

To tell me

To dig the line deeper

In the sand

Between us

Voices in my head

Now heavy

As if with bodies

Whispering judgements

I cannot bear to hear

please

I understand

That you will make your first impression

And so will I

Just let it be in pencil

bloom

And sometimes I think
My life must be very beautiful
For there is always some small vine
Poking
Pushing
Insisting
To bloom

kitty & walter (the painted veil)

The light
The twisting of features
The change
I see
When a human learns
She's a lover
When a sleeper learns
To wake
When the wicked learns
To forgive

Forgive twice

See
There was something there
Beyond the darkness
And now
It illuminates her face
Growing
From the painful birth
Of vulnerability
Finally...

Love

for akash, the bangladeshi rose peddler

I don't want to know what you've seen
Shit
If it was only Italian after Italian
Fumbling out of Italian cars
Same faces, different partners
Outside street-spilling bars
Broken hearts and wine bottles
Crushed like blood under the stars...

If it was only this, as you told me,
You could fill a book
But I've seen your hungry mouth rejected
That youthful face turned one-hundred and one
No more roses they cried
But you were never undone
And each time you saw me, Bella! an extra rose
No use refusing, you always won

And I remember a blurry photo
That you showed me on your phone
Of a daughter you'd yet to hold
Born a thousand miles back home
And I remember you hopping trains
With no ticket in hand
And I remember
I suppose
It was something powerful to give
I suppose
Well...weren't we both alone
And far from family
And tired of Italy
Of surviving?
I remember your approval
When I told you I was leaving
"Fai bene!"
I don't know how
You had any light left to give
How
How
HOW thick is your skin?

matilda

Come

I’ll drink your tears

And feel your lungs heave against mine

Sink under the weight of time

Your wet hair in my face

You know it’s been a heavy night

The pressure of the starry light

Pushed you up and out of bed

To cry ‘til morning came

"ghosted"

Stop following me
I mean
Not you
Your ghost
I see him everywhere
I guess
That's what happens
When you leave
But don't say
Goodbye

in the presence of my enemies

I had a vision
While they were singing
I sat at a long table
Gently lit with candles
And blooming flowers
Filled with foods of every delicacy
Hot and fragrant
Sweet and spiced
I was starving
For I had been in battle
My tired carcass
Not even strong enough to cry
But I grasped the heartiest thing
And shoved it in my mouth
Barely chewing from delight
Each bite so good
So good
I felt like a bride in celebration
Fear was a stranger I no longer knew
This food filled my body
While all around me was dark
And the noise of the battle swelled
I ate and I ate
Full-hearted
Alive
Deeply satisfied
Like only the longing heart knows
And the more I ate
The more the clashes of death behind me
Seemed to my ears
The sounds of worship

rocks in my head

The wind howled and swirled around us
Violently
Like a cold hug
The waves crashed below
Shouting
And spraying
Almost singing
But unable to move us from where we sat
On that rock
You were my rock
Steady
Slow to change
Quick to forgive
Your compass set to my delight
What strange rest I found in your desolation
And if I am mad
Then I am mad about you
And always for you
Even choosing to believe
There will be enough Light to guide us
Whatever
The elements bring

to our hummer

Dear hummingbird,

Do you come every morning 

For the flowers 

Or for me? 

It's as if you know

What joy you give

venezia con mia sorella

I remember
That night
Born of words that cut like knives
And silences... they'd cut, too
I remember
After hours by the canals
Hours apart
And of abandoned men
How we took the midnight gondola
To the highest tower
And there
As if with holy wine
We drank
And made our peace under the stars.

white guilt/white neighborhood

HELLO
You said

A stranger

Exiting where I would enter

HI
I smiled back

Trying to be friendly

And casual

Trying not to think

That I smiled because of the shootings 

To compensate for my whiteness

What I wanted to say was

Thank you
For saying HELLO

No one speaks to each other here

tell me

Tell me
How
When I've only just met you
I can no longer remember
What
My heart was like without you
Before
You crawled into every corner
And built castles
And scribbled dreams
And left all your words
Like jewels in a treasure box
Have they
Always been there?
Have I
Always loved you?
Sweet child
Tell me

pretend

When you kiss me

Every now and then

Hold my head in your hands

Look into my eyes

And pretend

You don't just want me for my body

Pretend

It mattered

If your eyes were open

Or closed

Pretend 

That you only saw me

ode to the swedish clouds

You stooped down to greet me
Down by the lake
Silent and still
Like glass

I felt your teasing
Are you really so plump and so happy
So generously whipped
Like fresh butter

Here I've climbed to the top of the world
Practically the North Pole
And what would happen
If I stepped out onto this water-mirror
If I bouldered up that hill over there

Would you actually let me hold you
You marshmallow-puff of beauty
You playful, cotton hug

I would wear you as my dress
All the days after my wedding
The days that get sweeter
And full

the professor's vision

Last night I met God.
She was red.
Like fire.
Like love.
She spread-open her long, soft wings
And called to me like a mother hen.

The earth shook
At the rain of her tears,
And I stood there
Trembling and
Un-sheltered,
For I was not willing...

platonic

How much do I miss you?
When I remember
Not often

I am thinking of our last embrace
How I ran into the station
Ten minutes early
How I lied to cut-short the suffering

Good thing you knew nothing about trains

Good thing I found some sun

Good thing you've picked up the pieces of your shattered dreams

Each one an intricate puzzle

Don't forget

The clouds are dark
Where I used to live
With you

But I don't think of you so much now
Only instinctually
Only to tell you everything

When I remember...

Not often

conversations with God

Every morning your sighs blow to me
Across my pillowcase

Your hand reaches out
Touches my cheek

"Awake with me"
You whisper

With my eyes still closed, I lie
"You are not ready for love"

I say
To silence

What will happen if I open my eyes?

pick me

I saw it hanging there

A ripe sort-of fruit

Suspended in the sunlight

Red and soft and beating...

My heart.

l'uomo dell'autobus

I know the many corners
And closets
And hallways
Of your story
How you wooed your wife
At the lago
Picking strawberries
How you puffed with pleasure
For not one
But two
Handsome sons
All your stories dripped
Of Imperial Pride
That blood
Still alive in your body
You spoke of Dante
And I lied
When I returned
Your book, too foreign for my soul
The first time I saw your knife
I was almost
Almost afraid
But boredom will be put to use
I think I was your equal
There without shelter
There unwelcome
Waiting for salvation from a hard-day's work
Sometimes you looked
With desire
But old desire
Less for me than for you
I know that without you
I felt exposed
To the elements
To the hungry traffic
I know that in your absence
I stood
With Fear
My other, faithful Companion
I know that I clenched my ticket
Soaked of sweat
Hoping to free it
From my shaking hands
And I know that one day I will pass our spot
Maybe you'll be there
Maybe not
But I will see you, chewing grass
Though I won't call to you
I couldn't
Three years
And I never knew your name.

i saw a gift withheld

When will the mothers say, “Enough!”

When will they look at their babies and agree,

“He is no longer a part of me”?

When will the mothers release

The fathers from their undone crime,

Admit, “He’s yours as much as mine”?

For what does the father have

That the mother does not give him?

hands

I remember strolling up to you
As you waited for me on the corner
Head down in your phone
Behind the faithful busker

I watched you and wondered
What you saw in me
What made you come
And wait

Hey
I grabbed your arm
And kissed your cheek
It triggered a smile
You squeezed me tight

You let me walk out to the ocean
By then my lips were chapped
But you kept on singing
That song about love

And nudging me
And searching
With your eyes
For my hand

And I almost released it
From its pocket-shelter
I swear I almost

Slipped


My hand



In yours




I--

erased

All of me is tired, a quill run dry
Where's the witch who fed me contempt like a drug?
I'd like to tell her my name
I'd like to write down the list
Of all
The lovers
She
Erased

Who's to blame if I'm a half-read book
If I tempt you to skip some pages I call "blank"?
They bleed of unkind revision
I'd like to cut off the hand
That marred
My truth
And
Left

valentine's morning

I've escaped here to the water
To hide in the mist with the other un-lovers
I'd like to ask the Fog Families why
They take their babies out in the cold
And the magic
To sit on a blanket
Where the waves meet the shore

But I am running faster
Every heartbeat proof
That muscle still functions
If I were brave I'd come out to you
If the un-sheltered ones hadn't played their power games
If I were less encaged out here in the wide-open...
I'd come out to the rocks and listen

But I continue
I pass one who's unpacked his suitcases
All he owns
Here in the sand
"Nice sunglasses!" he says
I exhale a laugh--where was that buried?

They were heart-shaped.

i'd forgotten

The angry ones are the lovers
They still have something to fight for
They still have someplace to fight from

I stopped loving when I lost my voice
Somewhere after they called me Mean
Somewhere before I lost my mind

When the leeches were leeching
But my home was still a sheltered thing
Not this hermit-shell I know now

Until she renamed me in the dark
And I nearly dropped my tear-stained phone
And the children's voices called me back

Back to my body, shaking and afraid
Back to the garden where we all felt free
Where I sometimes remembered to smile

I heard chains breaking, on like an echo
Somewhere in the dungeon of my heart
And Someone calling me by a name I'd forgotten:

Lover.