Making Faces

A young husband and wife
In a New York apartment
Welcomed me in one October night
Let me sit on their graying blue couch
And swap stories.

I could not help but watch them all evening
Their cat was named Murt
And he was grouchy, but much-loved
His tail swatted the young husband's face
Who in turn scrunched up his nose and eyes and
Smiled and

I heard then the gentle laughter of his pregnant wife
Hands resting sweetly on her swollen belly
The look of love on her face
At his smile, his face;
The same face he makes when
They're playing in bed.

The same face he will make at their daughter someday
To make her laugh, too
As she coos in her crib
At her daddy, her world.

Relationship Series #5

I told him, had begged him, to stay away.

He had given me once a candy cane,
Forced me to take it because I asserted once
That I liked placing peppermint sticks
In my coffee.
The candy cane broke in my purse
And I felt oddly distressed;
Seeing shards of peppermint at the
Bottom of my bag
The sweet cane snapped in halves
And then fourths
And then a million other little pieces
Like so much broken glass.
Nothing it seemed could be preserved under my care.

Medicated

Taking a Klonopin in class
Slipping the small green pill
Stealthily between my lips
Like a mint, a piece of gum
Except-
This mint will bring me to happier places
Don't look too hard
Don't try to analyze me
I may not come home
This summer.

Back When I Liked You

You breathe
Awfully heavy.
Funny how I never noticed that
Back when I was treading water
In your eyes.

The Soft Killer

It has hardened, crystallized after so much time
Just sitting here-
Turned lumpy
And mold-able, shape-able
With my fingers, my boot.
I can make my own hand-print.
The fact that it lays here, decaying somehow
Makes everything seem
Colder, more
Bitter
The wind more
Biting.
It stings to the touch, it crushes into clear crystals
In the spotted pink-white palm of my hand
It is painful after time
Jaded like a person
Not fresh; Old; Dirty.
A place for dogs to pee
And for dead things to poke out
From beneath it and through it.
So ugly.
The sounds of gulls resound overhead
Crying for a new spring
To melt this all alway;
The snow- a killer-
Has stripped all life from this place,
The leaves from the trees,
And left everything it around it hard
And concrete
And made of ice.
Like this book, these buildings, this frozen land...
A boy sits on a bench with frozen eyes.

Tucked In

This sleeping bag- not mine, mind you-
Has a safety pin stuc in it
Which, ironically, seems very unsafe.
I am tucked in, in a lodge
in a bed, under a blanket
that feels like stuffed-animal hydes.
Tucked in, in the woods with a lake
and a book of epic poetry
and a patchwork quilt on the wall.
I love patchwork quilts- I must
ask my mother to teach me to
make one this summer.
I drank black tea from London
So black that it left stains
All up and down the inside of my
Seaside-themed ceramic cup.
That boy is not here.
Tucked in in the woods,
Romance is nowhere to be found.
But He, so long missing,
He, long-haired and sandal-footed,
I think He might be.

The Library

I found two crispy leaves
between the creamy pages
of a library book
of poems by Wendell Berry
[which certainly seemed fitting
if you've read him].
I took them, saved them
To hold onto fall for a spell.
I saw a jolly girl
Squatting cross-legged on the rug
Between the shelves
Entangled in skirts and a novel
And I thought what a picture of peace
Could I have, I would have
Broken off a piece of her
As well.

Note Passing

I don't want to be known for writing
Thick, dusty volumes:
The kind of books that instill
You with an undeserved sense
Of power
Just by laying hands to them.

I would rather be known
By the name of one poem
[My own title- author,
Forgotten and hushed]
Be it that that poem:
Short, simple, raw
Speak truth to a single soul.

Perhaps it will never be published
But simply passed around-
My loopy handwriting on a scrap of
Lined paper
Like a secret note passed in class.

I think I should rather
Like that.