one paragraph at a time

something for everyone

2009-12-22T18:30:00.000-08:00

I want the water to fill your glass the moment
it sees your thirst.
I want the staircase to meet your footfalls.
I want the line to the freeway to move like breath.
I want the wind flattering your hairline, the rainshower
a welcome refreshment. I want the parking space to fit your car.
I want the birds on your back deck to warble in the exact way
they did during your childhood. I want the photographs
of all your holiday dinners buzzing with a certain unnamable
happiness. I want the dry cleaners to understand
your outrageous requests.
I want the man calling your house to survey
your thoughts on phone companies to remember
the evening is precious as silk. I want your new jeans to not
come undone in the wash. I want snow to land on your eyelashes
like it does in the movies, an etheric, slow-moving kiss.
I want a letter to arrive the moment
you feel most unwelcome of your own company.
I want the scent of lemons in the air. I want the power lines
overshadowed by the view your neighborhood offers at twilight.
I want the downtown ice rink to keep your fantasies aloft.
I want the moon to articulate your most punishing silence.
I want the willow tree revived and teeming, the broken daisies
resurrected and obstinate with brightness.
I want the labyrinth of what ifs narrowed
to a single, poignant sentence.
I want the tulips to be wild as clover, as fog, as good intentions.
I want your heart to cut through its own brutality,
for your body to see everything about you that’s beautiful.
I want love to come at you in thick pats of butter,
in strands of spun sugar, heavy and light as cream.
I want it to bathe your skin until you are nothing
but forgiveness, until your shadows have disappeared,
until all of your perfect right angles have collapsed,
until you are a curve of a curve,
and your hands slide forward and open
and are able, at last, to feel everything.

believe

2009-12-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

Maybe the camera crew is at someone else’s house,
a spotlight haloing over another’s fleshy story.
Maybe the mailman is delivering the good news
to your neighbor, or a different city entirely,
and you come home to a rash of catalogues,
the second notice for a doctor’s bill, a plea
from the do-gooders for whatever you can spare.
Maybe you haven’t cleaned your kitchen floor in weeks,
forgotten to nourish the front garden, spilled too much
coffee in your car, weaving through traffic.
Maybe you are 10 pounds heavier than last year.
Maybe your skin is betraying your age.
Maybe winter is ravaging your heart.
Maybe you are afraid, or lonely, or furious, or wanting out
of every commitment you entered with such vigor and trust.
Maybe you’ve bitten your nails down to the quick,
chosen your meals badly, ignored the advice of those
who know you best. Maybe you are stubborn as a toddler.
Maybe you are clumsy or foolish or hasty or reckless.
Maybe you haven’t read all the books you’re supposed to.
Maybe your handwriting is still illegible after all these years.
Maybe you spent too much on a pair of shoes you didn’t need.
Maybe you left the window open and the rain ruined the cake.
Maybe you’ve destroyed everything you've ever wanted to save.

Still.

If anything, believe in your own strange loveliness.
How your body, even as it stumbles, angles for light.
The way you hold a dandelion with such yearning and tenderness,
the whole world stops spinning.

alliance

2009-12-08T00:16:00.001-08:00

“You have to make an alliance with your anguish,” he said,
“not wage war against it.” And I thought of all the fists
I had shaken at misfortune: games lost
because the shot clock ran out,
a good meal scorched in a forgotten oven,
money dropped on a dress worn only once,
the bully in 6th grade, the math test in 9th,
the wrong outfit at Halloween.
But of course, this isn’t what he meant.

If I were brave enough, I’d tell you how my heart
has raged for love, stretched thin as a high wire.
If I were brave enough, I’d tell you
how my body has been fighting to stay upright
on every precipitous downhill the city
throws at it. If I were brave enough,
I’d climb into your lap and weep with longing.
All I can say is that any attempt at beauty and hope
is land-mined with failure.
And so the perilous track-making begins.
Wending our way through,
there are possible clutches at sunlight, at windows, at yes.
We are each of us inches from death.
We are each of us inches from life.
We are each of us inches from one another.

prayer for my legs

2009-11-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

Carry me back to the Umbrian countryside,
its sunflower fields and coils of hay.
Return me to that restaurant spilling
to the cobblestone street, the wine
we drank slowly to make the money last.
Bring me to the dark courtyard where a family’s
weekend laundry hung and we shared
an impromptu kiss that reminded me
summer wasn’t yet over.
Walk me to the moonlit bridge, the ancient, ambient river,
the carnival, the cones of gelato faltering in the evening heat.
Deliver me to the farmhouse villa, the bread oven
breathing out drifts of red onion and basil and garlic.
Guide me poolside, then in, for leisurely laps
until four o’clock signals our siesta.
Wrap your inches around her torso, the teepee
of her ribs, her supine back.
Lead me to the beach where the water-foam
recedes to reveal a whole city of pale, pink shells.
Hurry me up the train platform just before the whistle blows.
Shuttle me down the aisle of a plane
that will cross the Alps.
Pull me through the apse of a thousand-year-old church,
the Uffizi’s snake of tourists, the fragrant chatter
of a late summer farmer’s market.
Stomp me through puddles of new rain, fresh snow,
a thick pile of maple leaves.
Stay with me through a hard-earned win on the court,
a bike ride along the California coastline,
a peace march, the zigzag down Lombard,
the Green Street stairs, afternoon rollerblading
under the Golden Gate, the climb up the trail in Fairfax
that ends at a waterfall.
Anchor me to gravel, to a surfboard,
to the 31 steps from my kitchen to the front door.
Bend me to the whims of yoga and snowshoeing and the Lindy Hop.
Follow me through six hours of a holiday party,
a babysitting job, an interview in heels,
the elliptical machine at the gym, the blocks
to the butcher’s, a morning of blackberry picking,
the rise of Chenery Street toward cinnamon rolls,
an impromptu jog around the stadium track.
Tiptoe me through the room where my nephew sleeps,
past a family of deer, through a field of the season’s last harvest.
Hold me through long lines at the movies and crowded
downtown trains and gondola rides
to the top of Heavenly.
Fasten me to water skis and costume boots.
Glide me on the ice rink come winter.
Slip me under the tongue
of basketball shoes.
Come. Follow me. Stay close.
I have so much still to tell
even though
I keep forgetting
to thank you.

pear

2009-11-04T07:59:00.001-08:00

These last weeks, it’s been the pomegranate
stealing her attention with its circus of bright seeds.
She has made fancy drinks with it, crushed fistfuls
into a shaker glass, stained
the last millimeters of her fingernails.
Prayers have been made
in her midnight kitchen, tiny jewels
fed into the waiting mouth of a lover,
the counters flecked crimson,
summer swan-diving into autumn,
everything in her flayed open.

When she saw the pear,
she did not take it home thinking it would buy her
time, a better career, more money in the bank.
Though it would be easy to lavish praise
on that first bite, its tart smack against her teeth,
it was not a bible or soothsayer or a pile of stones
pointing northward.
She could extol its hippy silhouette on her windowsill,
but she did not imagine her reflection in its burnished frame.

Still, she could tell you something in her transfigured
before that particular section of the produce aisle,
how among the dalliances of citrus and artichoke,
the set stages of broccoli and purple cabbage,
the comic blunders of peas,
what she saw was an army
of mothers.

signs of autumn

2009-10-28T10:57:00.001-07:00

the first day the scarf comes out
apple cider on the stove
heather grey
rust orange
aubergine
clouds like drifting punctuation marks
the couch
a good book
the coffee table kissed by heels
deep sleep
dreamless night
slow mornings
breath
hands pressing on the car heater
soft skin
chapstick
midsections
casseroles
long embraces
the magic carpet of a leaf pile
children and the first runny noses
store windows announcing Halloween
letting the jaw go slack
wrist-warmers
thick socks
the wind kicking up a notch
the view from Mt. Monadnock
movie rentals
Rt. 128 North
Rt. 2 West
the train tracks in Leominster
Bursey's farm stand
results from the algebra test
tryouts for the winter play
Parent's Weekend
soccer games
wool
afternoon light
a path in the woods
time like gold crystals
the slim margin between evening and night
letting go
winding down
turning in
saying yes, come here,
come here.

Breakfastor Meditations on love

2009-10-08T14:43:00.001-07:00

1.
Butter. Thick cuts of it into a pan.
Two eggs. A white bowl.
The kettle onl.
Espresso teaspooned into a French press.
Twenty rotations of the wrist,
the eggs poured in.
And then, all of it, waiting.
It is a matter of time, of course,
but still. Waiting.
I am waiting.

2.
I do not want to order the complicated pancakes
with the sour cream batter and the stone fruit compote
or the omelet bulging at the seams
with a small farm of fall vegetables.
It’s a shame. This restaurant is known for such specialties.
The chef has won praise in the local press,
a legion of devotees, a street named after him.
The tourists keep coming, the menu keeps growing,
the kitchen staff forced to keep up with the demand.

3.
My father was a magician with maple syrup.
He made it, from scratch, every Saturday morning,
while the French toast soaked in its egg bath.
Water, sugar, maple flavoring.
It took me years to realize this wasn’t the real thing.

4.
New Year’s Day. By the stove, a stack
of crepes. On the counter, smoked salmon,
three kinds of cream cheese, bagels,
fruit salad. Bottles of Prosecco chilling in the fridge.
I am ready.
In minutes, the house will be full of hungry bodies.
The disassembly will begin.

5.
When we drove across country, my sister and I disagreed
on only one thing.
She would rise, grumpy, not hungry at all.
I insisted
on breakfast.
While she sat and I ate, a silence swelled between us.

6.
On a friend’s refrigerator door, family snapshots.
A magnetic alphabet. Drawings from preschool.
A shopping list. Coupons. A reminder from
the dentist. Birthday cards from a recent party.
On mine: a calendar too small to write on.
A schedule of gym classes
I have no intention of attending.

7.
My mother eats an apple every morning.
“I want to be an apple,” she says,
and at first I'm confused because
the only words I can think of are “round,”
“ruddy,” easily bruised.”
But then she elaborates.
It has something to do with the tree.

substitutes

2009-10-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

When I want to remember I am not alone,
apple cobbler.
When I want to act like a teenager, or a kindergartner,
throw fists against a pillow,
four double-chocolate Milanos.
When I want to know that God is listening,
Earl Grey with honey and cream.
When I want to forget the argument,
cucumber, sliced on the diagonal.
When I am ready to face the fear,
lemons.
When I want your teeth in my neck,
a ribeye steak.
When I am ready to say goodbye,
cast one last glance before the daisies fall,
Montefalco at the kitchen window.
When I want to swim the wide channel,
stay parallel to shore,
a fistful of grapes, a thick wedge of Manchego.
When I want silence,
a glass of Armagnac.
When I want noise,
two raspberry-peach Cosmopolitans.
When I am tired,
cold milk, cornflakes in the orange bowl.
When I am impatient,
tangerines.
When I want to make everything disappear,
climb back into the womb,
a trip to Mitchell’s for mint chip.
When I want the moon a little closer,
carrot-ginger soup, a dollop of sour cream,
an intimate pinch of chives.
When the light is too much to bear,
scrambled eggs, wheat toast, apricot preserves.
When I’ve had enough of the rollercoaster,
the ache of the climb, the precipitous pitch into the abyss,
ice water, grapefruit, multivitamins.
When I want to start over,
white rice and butter.
When I couldn’t be happier,
wild salmon, fresh ginger, radishes.
When I miss my mother,
broth, maple yoghurt, sautéed cauliflower, unsalted almonds.
When I miss my father,
Rainier cherries, roast potatoes, fried chicken,
a single square of dark chocolate.
When I miss myself,
tomatoes, mozzarella, basil,
drop after drop of olive oil.

first love

2009-10-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

In her mind’s eye, she is perennially 12, eyeing the basketball court, white sneakers on parquet, shorts hugging her thighs, just before the shot clock begins, all that electric possibility. She is a dreamer yes, but there is a fierceness to this particular dream, a kind of clinging. Her body, fluid but precise, her legs purposeful, trustworthy. She was not a dancer, but underneath these fluorescent lights, before an accordion of bleachers, she could dance. She remembers the strides she took down-court, how it felt like slow-motion even though it wasn’t. She remembers an animal certainty about where she needed to go for the shot. She remembers the ball like home, her body squaring to meet it.

You could say this was her first love, her first contact with something both outside and inside of herself. It was that kind of symmetry. It was that kind of longing. On Saturday mornings, when the games were held, she would arrive at the gym with a small tremble in her gut. The gym was large and loud. There were islands of chaos everywhere, but she steered through them. Game buzzers and referee whistles cut rudely through air, but she didn’t hear them. She maneuvered through these minefields as if nothing in the world could touch her, and found a spot on the sidelines to tighten her laces until she could feel the tongue of the sneakers groove into the tops of her feet. She remembers the smell of the waxed gym floor. She remembers the waistband of her shorts against her stomach. She remembers the prices burnt sienna of the basketball, its thin black stripes cutting into eighths. She remembers her hands like sticky tentacles. She remembers the freckles on her calves, the beginnings of hair on her shins and knees. She remembers the three blue stripes on the top of her socks. She remembers how hungry she was.

Twenty-five years later, she takes to the court like a cautious mother. There are others there, younger, sprightlier, braver than she. It is hard not to worry that she will get hurt. It is hard not to worry that she will get tired. It is hard not to notice the dim wash of pain in her hips, the hiccup of her legs. The sneakers are cement, trapping her ankles. Her shorts swallow her thighs. She is tall and exposed a willow tree. Now she notices everything – the hollow echoes of the gym, the harsh spotlight of the overheads, the heft of her opponent – and she has become the unwitting distraction, the perilous island she must navigate around, her body in a kind of raw anarchy, the parquet too slippery, a scene of possible disaster, but despite this, or perhaps because of it, her love stubborn and exquisite as ever.

strand

2009-09-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Last night, a single strand of her hair
surfaced on my pillow. All day, on the boat,
as I tried righting myself on waterskis, and failing,
I had begun to convince myself
that whatever momentum that had carried us all year
was beginning to sputter and topple.
I gripped the rope as if my life
depended on it, and still, it flew out of my hands.
On deck she was as beautiful as ever. It was not hard
to keep falling in love. When she took to the wakeboard,
her skin gleaming in the Delta sun,
it was almost heartbreaking how easy it looked.
She was floating. She was an angel.
I wanted to dive in after her like a dolphin, follow her trail.
I couldn't.
After all of my attempts to rise above the surface,
I was shivering wildly, my grip
reddened and sore. I climbed into my towel and stayed there,
head down, legs goose-pimpled. She rubbed my back
as if I were a child.
I was.
I told myself it would always be like this,
me trying to hold on to such an unwieldy ride, and she
already aloft and steady, eyes pinching the horizon.
When I came home, I thought,
Maybe this is the beginning of the end, and I began
the terrible act of curling back inside myself,
reeling my heart back in, stowing my memories in the dark.

But no.
I pulled back the cover of my bed, and there it was.
A strand of her, a slim remainder,
a micron of her body resting squarely
where her head had been just last week,
as I lay against her on a Tuesday afternoon.
And I knew
that something of her was still with me,
singing me to sleep.

the larger conversation

2009-09-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

It was not the man on 24th and Mission asking for change.
It was not the baby, sleeping angelic in her stroller.
It was not the trees, the sunshine, the cloudless perfect sky.
It was the coffee menu at Philz.

For the 20th time or the 1000th,
you might have ordered the small decaf French,
just like you always did,
medium cream, light sweet.
It had become a small habit, like taking your shoes off at the door,
flicking the day's mail on the kitchen counter,
shutting the drapes before bed.

You grow accustomed to things so easily,
turn them into a kind of lifeline to order and security and sanity.

You didn't even know what else was on the menu,
would call out to the barista in a voice not unlike
a robot, flat and meaningless.
You thought you sounded determined, certain, confident, hip,
but really, you were unimaginative, plain, paper-thin.
Someone or something could topple you any second,
you knew that, so you clung to your small decaf French
because you were in the market for anything you could rely on,
that wouldn't destroy the slim grip you were keeping on everything.

And yet, today, without thinking
you uttered the words "Ethiopian," and the woman behind the counter
reached back into a different jar to gather up the beans.

It was a small thing, really, but you saw it
for its metaphor, for the larger conversation
you were beginning to have with yourself.
"Look up," is what you were saying.
"What else is there to see?"

close enough

2009-09-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

Because the lighting had struck so suddenly.
Because you came back to the hotel exhausted from the wedding.
Because of the heat.
Because of the strip malls and airfields and the Burger King just off 179.
Because your lover was in another state, waiting for your call.
Because you had had half a glass of wine too many.
Because of the dress you wore, its plunging V.
Because your mother had told you you looked beautiful.
Because of the outline of ponderosa just past your headlights.
Because it was Sunday evening.
Because it was the middle of July.
Because you were 37.
Because you were exactly where you needed to be.

Whatever it was, you looked up, and the stars
looked close enough to touch.

tangerine

2009-08-26T00:22:00.000-07:00

the world, whole and waiting.
a surface entered with a mere fingertip.
hunger and what follows it.
one piece, then another.

and yet, I keep trying to be
the rocket scientist, the chemist, the mathematician,
wanting to make better sense
of what is already so obvious:
circle. skin. orange. sweetness.

Sometimes, what matters
is to eat, and be fed.

life lessons from the street musicians

2009-08-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

The man playing drums outside the Ferry Building
was not asking for change. Instead, a with a set of earphones
spilling music only he could hear, he kept time
on a makeshift snare, a collection of empty buckets
turned on their heads, little tin pans alongside, and bells
strapped to his feet. A handwritten sign out front spoke of his defiance.
“In these tough times,” it said, “I refuse to accept defeat."
And thus the man carved beats out of the early Saturday morning.
The music did not criticize the economy, or his bad luck
on the job market, or the string of misfortunes getting in the way
of health and fiscal happiness. Instead, it shouted its joy into the air,
punctuating the footsteps of everyone within earshot—
the bright-eyed tourists, sweaty joggers, the wild-haired women
selling cheap jewelry, the homeless, the waitress on her way
to the lunch shift, the meter maid, the fortune teller with her
worn tarot deck, the cab driver punching in his first cup of coffee,
the parents juggling twins in a double-wide stroller, the boy
biting into his first summer peach—the music landed on everything
it touch. And it was impossible not to get swept up, too, to start to believe
I had an equal power to ward off the dissonant assaults of the day.
The man did not see me reach in my pockets, nor did he see
the coins I slid his way, but I understood. This kind of music
requires full attention, and he had to keep playing.
So the song stayed where it was, inside the drummer man,
but the echo his hands made couldn’t contain itself,
its sweet rebellion following me home.

falls from grace

2009-07-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

because of the noise she makes in the morning
because of her insistence on closed shutters
because of the way she hesitates before a map
because of the indelicate way she drives
because of her need to be held and touched
long after the argument is over
because of her breezy handling of conflict
because of her conservative approach to a dinner menu
because of her wild swings between hunger and overindulgence
because of the faultlines of her boundaries
because of her unwillingness to bend toward weakness
because of her unawareness of her own body,
her clumsy negotiation of a sidewalk, a bedroom, a door
because of her easy criticisms, her punishing eye,
her self-diminishment
because together they could not always line up the story
they'd begun with, a cozy scene of sexy familiarity
and a smooth stretch of time when there was nothing to do
but lap up their beauty, their stunning possibility
because together they were not as they had once thought,
a pair of puzzle pieces locking swiftly into place
because they were fragile and imperfect and foolish creatures
destined for certain doom and disaster
they were now, and would forever be, taking these falls from grace,
tumbling from the heavens each time they managed to climb back up,
into a clammy, crumbly earth below where, unbeknownst to them,
something was stubbornly, and beyond reason,
taking root.

a light capable of change

2009-07-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's just the slant of sun the morning, or a reunion with an old friend. Sometimes it's just good coffee, or a compliment a stranger offers ooking your way. Whatever it is, you realize you've had enough. The fine focus you keep giving your little frustrations. The casual fuming you fan out about your bank account, your job hunt, the condition of your body. All of this adds up, or rather, subtracts into, a flimsy existence, a half-life, an embattled, embittered center of disequilibrium. How can the world not suffer under your dark cloud? How can the bathroom mirror rid itself of all those grey smudges? How can the lemon tree on your back deck not plummet from neglect? Arrows in your foot, at your back, in your heart. Something loveless and uncertain clinging to your neck, dragging you down into the mud. Enough. The light is changing. You are a light capable of change. There is a glow in you hungry for air. There is air in you fiery and free. The street you have been walking leads to nowhere in particular, to a dense dark wood that is better left unknown. Do not mistake that darkness and density for opportunity, for eventual renewal and your ultimate heroism. Turn around. Look up. A sky awaits, an impossible, possible blue.

with the wineglass almost empty

2009-07-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

I am looking at the moon's slow rise
above this city, this windswept hill,
this winding block, this square house,
this little body breathing, unselfconsciously,
into the final stretch of evening. I want
to pray correctly to such a gift, fold hands
together with discrete reverence, bend slight as a breeze
to the window and send a soft song through the glass.
I want to remember how fragile and perfect time is,
how the world's furious moments can fall into a lake-calm,
how clouds like flour can dust even the dirtiest passage,
how the heart can curve into a conch shell,
echo wetly and warmly the ocean it came from.
Love, your fingertips have been here, your lips
a stain of easy welcome, something of my body
imprinted with yours, our various surfaces colliding.
The way we cup around each other like circles.
The duvet of cheek against cheek. The giggle of eyelashes.
How I have begun to taste you even in sleep,
a single bud-drop expanding on my tongue,
sweeter than anything that came before it.

in the last (possibly) last summerfor Margaret Atwood

2009-06-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

1.
I want to love as if I were dying.
Even if you don't know, touch my shoulder
indiscriminately, like an accident
or a small error of space.
I want my heart clawing the air,
gouging into your neck, your
soft eyes, your anything,
devouring what it can.

2.
Broken into, dissected, flayed on a white platter
with blue flowers, the tomato is not greater or less than
the cucumber, the carrot, the yellow pepper.
At the first mile, I had to remind myself
I was not alone. By the last,
I had forgotten aloneness.

3.
A spider in the bed, a spider in the shower,
a fly preening itself on the bedside lamp.
A beetle doing a slow shuffle near the pillow.
They don't know from my morning rituals,
my nighttime reading, the mattress
where my body will slide into sleep. Still,
I want to get a Kleenex, initiate
disposal. But they can't help themselves,
and I know that if I wait a little,
they will move on, perhaps find a way
outside. In the meantime, the house alive
with legs, moving and resting and moving together.

managing the return

2009-06-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

Of course, everything has become a little less lovely, the bananas
ripening too quickly on the kitchen counter,
the pile of mail precipitous and wasteful,
the deck paint cracked and peeling.

Climbing the stairs, it is evident
a molting has taken place here, too, but it isn’t the same
at all. Instead, a fault line, a recession, the body of the house
gone soft. The air needing windows and more light.

The first morning is a rude awakening, an insult
of disproportion. Someone is demanding a refund,
upset with their breakfast order, screaming
from their car.

It continues. Urine trickling from planters,
Trashcans pregnant but neglected. An arrogant blaze of neon.
The city is graceless, unforgiving, full of ways
to go completely wrong and pay for it.

Love, too, has headed a little south,
kindness, forgiveness, awareness, thanks –
it turns out these were rafts to hold onto in the flood,
but here the dirt is parched and wanting.

So here’s what’s left: the moon,
her bittersweet face gazing from above,
something in her eyes saying,
Yes, I know.

freedom

2009-05-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

The courts here said no to certain marriage, but maybe
love is always a matter of time and this isn't the season just yet.
I'm imagining a day when pronouns won't matter except for "we"
and "us," and the protest lines will disappear or better still, unite.
Until then, bibles trotted out, pronouncements made, sides defended,
and a flurry of reasons why matrimony shouldn’t be bestowed on those
who can commit to it in earnest. But when the dust settles, and this battle ended,
love will be an outstretched hand, a proffering of peace that has no foes.
And we will understand the state of this more perfect union:
Each new morning, a fact of freedom. All that sunlight tumbling in.

dayenu

2009-05-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

if only for this plank of deck.
if only for this arrow of sun.
if only for this cup of flour, this couch cushion, this arch in the foot.
if only for eight in the evening.
if only for a measure of drumbeats.
if only for a dab of cold water on the face.
if only for yesterday.
if only for never.
if only for “how are you” and “come here” and “please”
if only for an hour’s nap, a scattering of birdseed, a full rotation of gears.
if only to remember the letters of my first alphabet.
if only for the deepening lines in my forehead.
if only for scars, for errors in judgment, for leaps of faith, for intuition,

for fresh footfalls on an old path.
if only for a river of insects, electrified by early summer.
if only for the outline of mountain, the sketch of a word,

the thinnest suggestion of moon.
if only for pound cake, for a flat of strawberries,

a stiff wedge of cheese, a glass of pink lemonade.
if only for thirst.
if only for sleep.
if only for death.
if only for a climb to the waterfall, a clutch of fur in a pine tree,

a story, a fable, a dream.
if only for the pit of one mango.
if only for a splinter.
if only for a soft hand on a sore shoulder.
if only for a purple shawl over an old bureau, a box of yellow tablets,

a haircut, a hiccup, a headache.
if only for a dim but precise memory.
if only for lost and tragic language.
if only for an unsent letter, or too many letters.
if only for a late-night dance.
if only for a lie.
if only for the long and lonely walk home.
if only for a clatter of seabirds, the first bubble of coffee,
if only for drowsy, for hungry, for can’t get enough.
if only for love.
if only for stones skipping across a pond.
if only for a narrow light in the hallway at midnight.
if only for a single, slippery yes.

I must offer myself.
whole, shattered, fleshy, full of disaster and ache and fury and spectacular neglect.

here is a thing of beauty. I must take it.
here is a thing of sorrow. I must take it.
here is a body in all its innocence and failure. I must take it.
here is a raw heart, breaking but alive.

I must stay close. somewhere a piece of music is buried in the rubble,
a steam of fresh bread is rising from the oven,
a sliver of dust is flying toward the stars.

instructions upon waking

2009-04-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Ignore the balls of dust on the rug, the laundry pile metastasizing, the reams of mail spilling from the kitchen counter. The blanket on the couch does not have to be folded into four perfect corners. The dishes from yesterday can stand another soak. A shower is unnecessary. Overlook the uneven, mismatched topography of the living room, the coats you have cast off on your writing chair, the knapsack of dirty gym clothes, the books you haven't read, the wrinkled inserts of magazines littering the coffee table.

Turn the heat on. Make coffee. Look out the window. Consider the contours of your body. Put socks on. Know that someone else is thinking of you, as they dress and gird themselves for the day. They are thinking, perhaps, of your lips, or your hands. They are thinking of your warmth, your long limbs, your smile, the way you know exactly how to touch them. They are not scanning the house for crumbs, urging you to vacuum. Imagine this a day of no fault-finding, no derision, no pulverizing ache to do a better job. Make breakfast. Eat until you are full.

and when we are through

2009-04-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

and when we are through there will be singing and silence,
the book we were reading open to the particular page we loved,
the mug we drank from daily stained with our lips,
the bed embedded with our soft imprint.
there will be a great lifting of hands and wine glasses,
stories resurrected and sifted and catalogued,
the flag with the family crest flown and saluted.

and when we are through there will be what we cannot
take with us: children dipping toes into the first pool of summer,
the garlic fields down 101 and the air heavy with their perfume,
an urge to take a midnight walk, the curtains billowing with spring,
the sound of the guitar after months of neglect.

and when we are through there will be too much and not enough,
the coffee pot will be emptied and refilled, desserts surrendered
to the long table brought in from the garage, a new geography of photographs
in the living room, prayers rendered into song, hands on the backs
of the chairs of strangers, an entire room contained by memory.
there will be dancing even, spontaneous twirls in the kitchen,
or under moonlight, or in the shower, getting ready to greet the guests.
there will be private moments of anguish and the small disasters of grief.
a strawberry will fall from the pyramid and threaten a stain on the carpet.
cracks will appear on the ceiling, in the tub, on the steps leading to the front door.

and when we are through there will be an echoing house, piles of paper
to sift through, phone calls to return and notes to write, a diminishing stack
of dishes. there will be objects found behind a desk, small tokens of fresh value,
a song that will begin to take on meaning, a favorite chair left permanently empty.

when we are through the weeds will flourish, and algae will threaten the pool,
but someone will enter the house as if it were a church, an altar, a rite of passage,
and feel the walls visibly pulsate, as if they were still breathing.

right in front of me

2009-04-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

The note says, "Come," and I don't hesitate. I put on my orange jacket and go outside, where a carpet of daisies winds around to somewhere unseen. It is a path but also not a path. Order and also disorder. The grass below is a pulse of green. No one is around but I hear something. Or maybe it's the wind. Or just me, moving my way through the field. I look down again and the note says, "Let it out." Let what out, I wonder, and then I realize I am holding my breath. I let it out. I look down. The note says, "Now what?" and I want turn it over to get the answer but there is none. I want someone to show up like magic and give me a shopping list. I want a loudspeaker to come on, directions from Mapquest, an instruction booklet with finely rendered drawings showing me the hardware I need, my father's voice, the outlines my high school English teacher made us draft before starting our book reports. I'm looking all around, almost frantically now, for where to go and what to look for and how to move and what to say, thinking that I am behind, lost, out of touch, all wrong. And when I look down again, the paper has gone blank, and then it starts to disintegrate right in my hands, and then it's a shred of thing before it disappears entirely. Then it's just my hands, and now all I see are the lines there, arched and curved, railroad-tracked, hieroglyphs of unknown origin, and at first I think, I can't possibly read this, or understand it, but then I do, and I do.

how to get everything you’ve ever wanted

2009-03-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

First, you must believe yourself worthy.
This is not the same as deserving.
This is not a promotion, a raise, a graduation.
This is not the prize you win after countless attempts at winning.
This is you standing naked in an empty house at midnight,
the street below dark and silent, the fruit bowl in your kitchen
brimming with oblong shapes that eventually you recognize
as bananas. This is you aligning yourself with the stationary and the shifting:
the broken light bulb, the foghorn, the water tower, the power cord,
the orange chair you write in, the carpet stain that won’t disappear,
the sound of morning cars on Guerrero, the swaying palm tree, the laces
on your basketball shoes, a stack of paper, a water bottle snapped to your bike,
a piece of lint your lover removes from your cheek, that cheek, that lover,
the new blossoms on the lemon tree, the toilet that needs to be flushed twice,
the grooves on the coffee table, a calculator that needs only sunlight
to turn it on, the man who cut your hair, his pierced lip, his quick scissors,
the letters your grandfather sends, the gas pump, neon, frozen waffles,
a stack of martini glasses, doorways, picture frames, kitchen remodels,
long white envelopes bulging with receipts, a backpack filled with dirty gym clothes,
an apple tree in hibernation, empty check boxes, the steps outside City Hall,
a balloon escaping the clutch of a 3-year-old, tears barreling down her cheeks,
an anchor, a crossing guard, a detour, a yield sign poised on the lip of the highway.

Forget the pulverizing mirror, that blistering microscope of discrepancy.
You are not less than but equal to.
Throw away the movie reel casting you as the villain, the buffoon, the mistake.
You are not less than but equal to.
Turn from the narrow dead-end road book-ended by barbed wire.
You are not less than but equal to.
When he tells you you’re beautiful, say thank you.
When she holds your hand driving across the bridge, say yes.
When the morning opens, say hello.
When the light flickers out, say sleep.