these things are yours:
the leather sofas, paintings and mantlepiece chachkas
marked with pink post-it notes
that defined this houseload of secrets to outsiders

as I wrote glories for you in forced smiles garnishing
black and white stories for a world you craved
our home groaned beneath the weight

pink notes

they feel like garottes, the
crafty complaints to strangers
duly noted in a ledger somewhere...

I never noticed 'till now
that even our children have been plastered with them,
sorry little heads bobbing under their wires,
stiff armed puppets, like me
facing ruined toys or threatened death of a pet,
love served contingent like dessert after dinner

my powder blue lips were ever too meager to say anything

I suppose the sofa your cat peed
on is mine to sleep in,
though bleach wasn't enough to get her stink out
no chairs around my foldout dinner table

I never had a stack of blue paper to paste on furniture or people

my meager parts were abandoned by curbside at night:
clothing, computer, tools;
broken finger, blood-crusty nose,
bruised psyche;
memories of a mother and father;
old desk, contents drenched in murky wash water
treasures to be gathered in an Easter egg hunt
before morning

I'm *****, broken on the street
to live in the van again and *** in a cup

yet I elate in this paucity of things; it makes me lighter
I embrace its freedom
like when I used to sleep in park trees
to avoid river vermin, hungry
(yes, pate´ in Paris was divine - I ate the serving you’d have wasted )

or on train station benches with foul-smelling vagrants
you wouldn't understand that interaction …
this devil knows names, shared their bottles and pains
(the view of Prague’s rooftops from the castle veranda -
marvelous over glasses of wine and slivers of brie)

I learned hope is thin, frail skin, aetherial
my scars are hard, heavy, battle-earned wings that will never fly

as to things I do own:
love of self left after your half-portion spent;
poems scorned because
you never understood how they could be born without you

soon enough
we'll both be ashes or dust;
I’ll go in puffs
of swirling cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon
you under soil, I think
while words and our children
will both outlive the good sofa you sit on

I want them to be happy

restless, the echoes have flown
beneath a poem's mortal remains;
like desperate ecstasy dancing loose,
their words feast on familiar nightmares

passing tongues painting ecstasy
on the mirrors I fear,
forging storms of **** mermaids and pearls,
or short-haired girls who charged the sky
for a time blossoming orange or lime,
shunning rhymes but still...
sang syllables as heartbeats,
swaying like ripe summer wheat
in time with a young life's breezes

none of which could have been real
a singular eye peering back
from a black and white, whiskey blind
... not mine...
his, the mind of a stranger who stole a name
and tomorrow more the same,
soon forgotten, but by then sober

It was cold last night.  Grandma’s homemade crocheted afghan wasn't long enough to cover foot to nose. It had too many holes where hugs should have been woven. Numb toes woke first in hollow shoes, dancing and eager for morning to come. I ignored them.  But a filled bladder proved too much to pass, so I rose to *** in the paper soda cup I’d saved for the purpose. Now, hours later, the sun is shining, burning our condensed breathes from the windshield. It’s warm again.

We’re both hungry again, too. The yorkie yaps his need in time with mine:

“Let’s eat.”

“Hush! Wait, “ I say;

“Gotta check our balance.”

As if He were listening... no reason to draw attention of passersby to out position inside.

There’s not much left in my pocket; bank’s closed ‘till tomorrow.

Yesterday’s highlight was our dollar store lunch for which we gave thanks:

cold, fat-pocked, vacuum-packed salami between pale, tasteless crackers. The biscuits came in a shiny mylar bag which I found more fascinating than than its contents, even on an empty stomach.

All that for two dollars. No tax. A deal.

The disks of sustenance were ringed in pink plastic which pulled away easily from the soft, greasy “meat”. Dog ate meat, accepting crackers, seemingly, as a reluctant favor when the flesh was finished. I didn't mind sharing salami. The texture of crunchy crackers was better, no matter how wanting for flavor they were.

I thought of the animals from which the label claimed the slices were made: chickens, pigs and cows; lives awaiting harvest to an unknown and grander purpose. We’re not so different. Dog, me, living only in cages of different sizes. From enough distance, who would know?

Just before - they cried with horror. I might, if I were looking. I don't.  It’s nice that weeds and wheat don’t weep. It makes it easier to eat them. God prefers blood but I could never understand why. I used to stare, silent, at stars for the answer, printed words found lacking. But, for certain, we like ******, we just give it different names so it tastes better. Like hamburger.

It is Sunday.

Better dressed,  I could be in church reading words, pretending to sing hymns, eating His flesh. That has always had the form of torn shreds of bread because He’s been dead forever, and now fat free. The blood of wonder, still sweet and fruity in tiny plastic glasses, is not the thick congealing kind like mine or dog’s.  There's a reason to look forward.

(I'm too slow to block blows and can't see up-close without glasses anymore. So she always goes for my eyes first. It doesn't hurt. Machines wear out - they don't feel pain. But I still bleed -it stains the torn shirt.)

Jesus doesn’t allow dogs, so we sit outside and imagine grace behind the colored glass. At least I do. Dog can't read and prefers to scratch the grass. Besides, he might ***. They say He cried, too ... just before harvest. Jesus should have had a dog.

There will be a call later, as always. We’ll go back of habit, pretend mind storms are over. We’ll get warm again. Eat real food again. Get another broken finger or whacked on back of the head by a random household implement. I won’t flinch; just wait like another chicken or man. We’re cursed in knowing our ends. Dog licks my hand. Jesus might understand.

in that junction between summer green
and autumnal auburn skins
peaches dropped
their soft, burnt chins melting into ground
bearing teeth within like
quick-basted skulls reopened
or pages unread

the sugar’s been wasted,
a sin unexpected in spring
when first blossoms burst ...

then
like giddy children,
we would have us gathered ‘round early,
setting ladders, laughing to pluck ecstasy
and gods we might have been
or butterflies

not knelt so, the weight from this diet
of nameless hard words we’ve breathed,
boundaries woven into our clothes
worn to spite ourselves,
graceless beggars defeated

but restless, this:
echoes, now, of childhood and lovers,
friends who came and went as rain
another cold winter soon again,
the peaches we never picked

Lounge on Willow bough,
golden savannah below,
and savannah in her hair,
feet swinging in air.
fractioned light from above,
sky seeps 'tween leafy green,
as the eyes of my love,
no 'squito can be seen,
from dragon fly hard at flap,
beautiful wings,
as long lashes of her bat,

I rest on rough bark,
and she rests on my heart,
in the mansion they dine,
but  no where else I want to be,
then on a lover's recline in the Willow Tree.

he took my last quarter and dime,
pocket lint, the missing *****
of something I’d meant to reassemble
if I’d remembered or had time

then wandered off
rubbing shoulders with the sidewalk preacher
searching for signs of end times in rainstorms
or faint rumbles of passing traffic,
holding high his Good News
in a half-folded forecast for tomorrow;

this exodus -
across a patch of crabgrass
following a diagonal path of earth foot-worn
into a thin gray line defining the shortest distance
from his concrete corner to the door of the liquor store
justified a sacrifice of hours, the cold lies told:

lost wallet,
old mother,
car just out of gas

practiced to passersby or filling station patrons,
their rumpled tithes
reborn into an afternoon sermon
wrapped tight in brown paper
still warm with silent echoes of amen