hung out to dry
on a long clothesline. Blowing
in the ***** wind and pinned
to a memory. I was

just a tight rose bud before
the rain turned this to mud. I
was white as a beluga. And he
even smoother. The only

ties were the ribbons around
my chestnut tresses, long before the lies
he dresses up in pearls. The years faded
this baby girl. And I cannot say I miss them

any more than I miss the leaves
that hastily blown off the backyard
maple trees. All shall bloom, as flowers do,
when spring sees this winter through.

like the frozen ground
in winter. And it shows in
the branches, bare and
splintered. Scattered into

shards all over my back
yard. I only weep now in
icicles. They circle
under my eyes like bicycle

wheels, leaving their tracks on
my face. But I don't feel. My skin's
a suit of armor. I wear it like a farmer
wears his overalls, tightly up against

his *****. And this head is so
heavy. It sits on my neck like a Colorado
Chevy. Some days it drives right off,
like rainwater on the trough.

in me today. My get up
and go has run away. My mind's
spinning circles like a spinning
wheel. I cannot jot down

what it is I feel. My fingers lie
flatly on the keys. My eyes looking
out the window at the bare naked
trees. The branches scratch

my windowpane that's coated
in this morning's rain. And the blankness
on my lab top screen is snow white. So, today
is a day I don’t think that I’ll write!

like sap from the maple
tree. You tapped into the core
of me. I poured myself out
to you under skies of cornflower

blue.  Runny as a stuffy nose,
the kind you like to blow. Pushed
out like a sneeze. You always were
a tease. Runny as dripping ice

cream from a sugar cone, sticking
to your hand, in your lap I land. Melting
as the April snow. Runny as shampoo
in the shower, down your face

across your chest, your back
and legs, a foamy dress. As I swirl
my way down the drain I'm less
and less.

like a pack of howling wolves,
with their heads pointing to the
moon. But you lied back flat like
a porcelain plate against a midnight sky

of spate. Your prickly shadow hung
down on me. I called to you my twin,
moaning like the wind wrapped around
the evergreens. You slipped through

like a breeze. And expelled
me in a sneeze. I called you in
a Midwest phone booth. It was like
pulling a tooth loose to get you to

answer. You spread contempt
just like a cancer. I speak to you now,
without paragon or violence, without
face or guidance, in silence.

like autumn trees
blowing off the crimson
golden leaves,
till the limbs hang tumescent
and bare/burnt them
in the smoky air.

I shook him
like the ***** mat outside
my door that won't
lie flat.
Flakes of pebbles and dust
swirling around me
in every gust. 

I shook him
like a bottle of champagne.
Popped his cork
like a bullet to the brain.
Spilled him out
all over my floor.
Relinquished my pain
on every pour.

I shook him
like clothes in the dryer
sizzling hot
like coated veggies
in the fryer
All the cornflower blues
mixing with the green
and purple hues.

with chestnut doe eyes
warm as my apple pie. Just a set
strawberry cheeks
sitting next to a nose high

as meringue peaks. He’s just
a mouth of cherry lips that slip open
to rows of pearl onion teeth with
a rounded peachy chin fitting him

underneath. Two ears sticking out
like turkey wings. But those ears don’t
hear a thing I say. They’re just two
organs on display, below the thinning

wisps of grey. I stared at his face
with my own when we're alone. I stared
on screens and papers, during long silences
and many capers.  I’ve seen the shiny melon

head every night in my dreams
as I lie in bed. He’s just face
that’s stuck like a cork in the bottle
of Cold Duck.

The lawn's grown high over
the thick padded soil that covers
the hole like the skin over a boil.
The space on the grey stone is

carved under his
mother's. The last year
on his father's have not filled
in. But he's alive and thrives

in my suffering. I've seen it
in photos, not in person.
His clothes that he wore
don't fit him. His mountainous

biceps flopped. The taut stomach
dropped. And I wonder if
he lost that wide-tooth grin. Now he
can rest/hands crossed under

his bearded chin/over his breast
without all the stress that placed him
there. Gone his worries. He's in
no hurry. At last, he's home.

He will stay put. He will not roam.
Death, the only thing tied
him down. Death itself wings,
to higher ground.

I thought you were
my tourniquet. I was bleeding
a slow death.  I looked to you
to hold the dam, not lose myself

to what I am. You wrapped
around me firm and tight. Then
took off like a flock of geese
in flight. Like a bomb blew up

I lost my limbs in colored
glass painted crimson. You cut
the cord without a clamp. Pulled
the plug from the table lamp.   I stand

a tree without branches. You blew
all your last chances. But I can bend
in the wind and regrow my limbs
again.

chipping off the painted
color. Twisted as a cruller,
hollow and hard. Life’s duller
after the accident. It’s an unlit

cigarette, a junkyard red corvette
folded like an accordion, scraps of old
pieces of tin. Memories mixed with lime and
gin don't wash out this suffering. Dings

and dents of cellulite. Dimpled skin
that once held tight now hangs low
just like the blues and mistletoe. The soft
December snow clings to the frosted window.

for turning my skin crimson
then vanishing behind a cloud
burning my eyes and limbs in
a hole through the sky that is bowed

drooling in deep purple haze
asleep before the end of the day
bubbling me over in rays
turning my grass into hay

palling around in a shadow
watching the moon disrobe
to it what do I explicitly owe
an inflated star of a fiery globe?

is warm before it licks
my body like a dog, peeling back
my flesh like banana skin. In
the hands of the devil

I'm suffering. I looked
deep into crimson, orange flames
with lover's eyes. Like a snow
globe that held a village inside. Turned

upside down it's snowing crystal
till it shatters with a six-inch
pistol. This world bedazzles behind
the glass. I see my reflection in

golden colored brass. I wanted so
to open the gate. I wanted what I
wanted, letting it all inflate. And so,
it did right in my face!

pukes his leaves
in crimson, orange and gold
but he doesn't leave
he doesn't age or grow old

I can swing from him on a tire
build my house upon his limbs
And of him I'll never tire

He's rooted in my soil
green as spring
like the robin he sings
whose image you cannot soil

are for birds
scraps
for a dog
the milk

turned
to curds
the air
into smog

this house
splintered
the yard
gone to seed

this bond
overwintered
and now
it is freed

drip of the lip
of the faucet. He's sagacious
to not cross it. Dewy drops of
pearls plink forming beads

of sweat in the kitchen
sink. It looks like morning
dew. Smells of ocean
mist.  But won't fill up my

coffee cup of grist.  Straining
to release it plops down next to
last night's dinner grease. And swirling
like a van Gogh. Water and oil

looking like a doily mama
used to sew. If I set this on canvas
I'd hang it on the wall or wrap it all
around me like nana's crocheted shawl.

in me before you were weak
at the knee. They were hairline
to begin before you were up to your
chin. The pieces separated

and broke off. Before I held water
like that of a trough. And now I am gushing
like a dam that collapsed. And even so,
after all this time lapsed!

ball. He'd bounce me up
and down and off the wall. Up to
a cornflower sky, so high I saw
my arms as wings that flap and

fly. But I took a nosedive
as I crashed down, hitting
the ground with such force like
a train wreck off course. He,

the magician juggling
my broken pieces up in starburst
air. This rubber ball had edges now
more like a square. I took my pieces

and left his garage. Boarded a plane
for a Caribbean plage. I'll not bounce
again. No up and down for some class
clown. I'll sing as willow wren.

and he cinder,
ashes to my pyre. A match
that not catch fire. A grey
cold lump of coal

was he, a roll around
crunchy'crimson fallen
leaves. Billowing smoke stung
the air. Bleeding lips kiss

to bare.  Pressing breast
bone. Dead eyes don't
blink. They stare into a cornflower
sky. Body limp as noodles

in my Pad Thai. The burn to
ignite to ashes holed up in a urn
was my oversight!  Next time
I'll learn not to be smite.

the pieces splitting
become parts of their own,
each with a tongue
and a backbone. The jagged

edges are my sharps
that I pluck as the steel strings
of a harp. This music I dance
over the page. All the pieces

pulchritudinously engage! Crystal
snowflakes embound. A brilliant
diamond in the round. Like a mosiac
of colored tiles I wear it as

my father's grey and red
argyles. I fine tune this craft
out of broken splinters
and built me a raft!

from the sky. But I’m no longer
third eye blind. Buzzing
down as hornets from their paper
tree nests. Flocking toward me

like the gulls at sea,
tenebrous grey unrest. This
red pin cushioned porcupine
cannot roll with sharp, long

spines. I jab the sidewalk. Dab
in side talk. Once the sky snowed
luminous butterflies. Pirouetting like
ballerinas. But now I'm handing men

subpoenas! Maybe this cornflower
prison that I’ve been living will pour me
some buttered *** from the flask
of the golden sun.

swallowing her whole
the quicksand
holing her up
shots fired
into a paper cup
she's leaking out the sides
the shell of a woman
with nowhere to hide
she cannot be stitched
with needle and thread
a woman unhitch
he's gone to her head
Swiss cheese
honeycombs
hollow cells for stinging bees
a place she can call home

has canine teeth
sharper than a stiletto
slashing you underneath
and doesn't let go

This Pain
has Teflon claws
that'll rip you apart
in seconds without pause

This Pain
an explosive karate kick
breaking you apart
like a stack of boards
with martial arts

This Pain
has thick dark ink
with quill in hand
you'll slide and sink

as a chocolate bunny
wrapped in golden foil
don't spend your money
you can poke a hole

through him
slide your finger in
and he'd break a part
pieces dry and thin
not a work of art

biting into emptiness
he looked like more
but had much less
not even a core

he won't fill you up
he's like piping hot coffee
in a small disposable paper cup
a sip is all you get
the paper's mush when wet

him like an onion
layer upon layer.  Women weep
the more in deep. They'll see
he's just a player. I'm gonna

fry him, coat him in the oil,
in rings like Saturn. Cut him up
in tiny pieces, in the soup
to boil. I'm gonna sauté' him

with a cherry hot red
pepper. He'll burn their tongues,
pretty and young, till they see he's
just a *****. Smother him in

the cassoulet. Make him sweat
another day. Mix him with sour cream
and chives, calling him a dip. He sits
as a lump on potato chips.

unleashed to roam without
a chain have a home, to shelter them
from the rain. This amour was
growing from a pup into a great

Dane. He pulled tight on my black leather
collar. I was spent like a dollar squashed
inside his billfold. He didn't hold me
for long in his quivering hand. Passed me

up for a cup of dark coffee at the
newsstand. I just wanted a soft
warm lap, a spot to curl up
and take a nap. A smiling

face to greet me at the end of
his day. A ray of golden sunshine
when the sky is black as coal,
and the clouds are grey with snow.

till my stuffing leaked
out. There was less of me
inside of my clothes than
in billowing clouds outside

exposed. Then he pulled
my silk threads with his teeth till they
broke. I looked like a scarecrow,
part of his joke. But he too

unraveled. I thought he was
rock. His shoes and socks
gravel, the size of a pea worn down
by years that he traveled. The sort

that gets wedged in-
between painted crimson
toes. A proxy, is he wearing
emperor clothes.

for me
one for her
hers was glass filled with liquor
she mixed a powder
like Caribbean sand
out of cylinder tub
with the flick of her hand
into a plastic bottle for me
she mixed tequila with lime
it looked the color of ***
with the flick of her hand
and rubbed salt over the rim
we both guzzled the liquid down
the sky outside grew dim

like eggs benedict, a poached
egg wobbly as it sits. Covered in hollandaise
sauce, spooling on his plate. Spilling
over the sides as he ate! Runny as
his nose the snowy winter he ran

a fever and had a cold. There was a big tear
in her, running like crimson sheer pantyhose,
from her crotch down to her toes. Runny
as the Colorado river. Against the pines

and mountains she's a sliver. Runny as
her hazel eyes. As the tear ducts fill
she cries. It drips like dew drops pearling
on her lips. Runny as drains collecting

all the rain beating down from the sky. Like
the juices in mom's baked apple pie. After all,
she was his honey. But amber sweetness
heated under the fire is hot and runny.

in darkness,
the blackness and I.
My shadow a vest,
these fingers my Sai.

Billowing clouds
clapped their thunder.
There I stood
a soleless sunder.

Brains of spaghetti,
blood the sauce.
And bent I roll
in the dregs and the dross.

Cuffed in chains
I march forward in toil.
Hanging as a mosquito net,
a diaphanous voile.

inside mother's womb
when my eyes were closed
to life's perils and doom? Can I
go back to the time before

time when I was just a thought
before one more line appeared on the
EPT. Can I go back before I was
me? Can I go back before the *****

swam up the tube? Can I block off
the entrance or poison the ****? Can I go
back before they met, when she was inside
her mother's womb? Can I go back to the time

her eyes were closed to life's
perils and doom?  Back to the time
before she was a thought! Before the
pregnancy test was even bought!

circling her face
like bicycle wheels. Splintering
ice-chips clinging to her rose
lips. She’s wearing a frozen

smile, cold as the subway tile. Frost is
a glaze on the bathroom mirror. Her breath
billowing clouds. They're grey as
mother's hair under the chestnut wig that

she wears. The tears were once
a ****, colored as a Rubik cube from
globs of shimmering eye shadow. It's stained
glass, like the church windows from

father's funeral mass. In this prism touched
with autism everything done is rote. Everything
wrote is done. The hail’s blowing around like
juggling ***** of a circus clown.

to you. Couldn't swim in cornflower
lakes of blooming mistakes. Drowned
as the ice cracked this body. Built
me a soddy that sank in the banks

of the Pio. You lost your brio
and sleeve. Cleaved to the past
when this woman could skate a diamond
lake. Spin and circle figure

eights. Pirouettes on tattered
crimson tutus. Stood on battered tiptoes
for you. Now the only lines that rhyme
is tequila mixed with lime.  And salt

the shot glass. The bloat turns out
as gas. Passing on cornflower
lakes. The fallen leaves bid to be raked
and bagged. Conversations nipped/not dragged.

in the gut
with a fist full of apples
from the trunks of his eyes,
cutting me in pieces

like ma's hot pies. Burnt as the
flambe', sliding off him, like whipped
cream. All part of a sick girl's
dream. Like Swiss cheese,
you can stick your finger through

the holes in me. The floating
noodle in the soup. Lying flat
and soggy, a clucking chicken
in the coop. Sitting on the

eggs. Thought I'd crack,
or less be scrambled. I shouldn't
have gambled on the man. Should
have seen the cleaver and ran!

you passed. But where
did you go? Did you melt
in the sun like the April
snow? Were you passed

around a cherry wood table
like brown giblet gravy? Were you able
to travel for miles like
the Navy? Were you passed

like a football to all the team
players? Were you wrapped
like a mummy in layers upon
layers? Did you pass as the wind

beneath eagle wings? Do you
laugh at the things that
you worried about? Are you no longer
hurried/like a candle blown out?

of flypaper
hanging on the walls

floating in the air
trapped in bathroom stalls.

And every fly
that whizzes by

is intoxicated with
my sweet perfume.

But little do they know
they're flying to their doom!

on wafer-thin ice.
He slipt and fell,
not once, but twice.
And the sun shone on

that pine forest pond.
The sun wore spandex
and was strawberry blonde.
And as he held her, a stick of butter,

the ice cracked
as his legs did flutter.
His arms flail
like the sail on a schooner.

And no sooner
had I said so,
he froze full frantic.
And sunk just like the great Titanic.

inside my head. He's a child I cannot
put to bed. He'll not sleep. He's up
all night, asking for a glass of water,
starting a fight. He wakes me up at

three o'clock. He knocks on
my bedroom door. He stomps his feet
on my floorboards. I rise to the sound
of him. He's blended in my morning

coffee. Sticks to me like butter
toffee. Even the crimson leaves let
go before the December snow. Why do I
still remember? It's been years since that

September. January floats my breath in
billowing clouds that don't lose their steam.
A paper princess cannot scream. He's just
an imitation of my imagination.

are sneakers
that run
faster than a bullet
shot from a gun

My eyes
are icicle fountains
an avalanche
sliding down a mountain

My eyes
are rivers
that rapidly flow
into a sea
of covered snow

My lashes
windshield wipers
that grow heavy
like baby diapers

My pupils
a dark abyss
since I fallen
dilate and hiss

like a Rat Tail comb running through
my hair, with his bone. Back and forth
with rows of teeth. Encircling my head
like the red and golden ***** in a Christmas

wreath. Hovering like a hummingbird,
******* my nectar with his whetted
needle. Singing a song from Taylor to
wheedle. Like a child pulling a prank. Bending

my torso over his lap to spank. I grew
blue in color, like a fish tangled in
the net of a trawler. And as bantering
boys on the school playground

he was quick with a sally. Every fling
that he flung he knew I kept tally. But I too,
batted my lashes. And we kicked up dust
as we burned down in ashes.

like trapped dirt and hair in
the floorboards of a musty attack,
crackling like a phone full of static. Eyes
slot machines in dollar signs

bright green. I couldn't get over;
he was mixed like a box of Russell
Stover. As a turtle I was ready
to snap. Running like sap out of

the maple tree I fell and bruised
my knee and ticker. As the years drew on
I grew sicker. But I hung in there with
my scabs without keeping tabs.

on my arm stand
like soldiers in ten rows,
like wheat fields
as the wind whips through

and blows.
He made the hair
on my head curl
like a plate of green fiddleheads,

like the colored spools  
of grandma's threads.
He made the hair
on the edge of my eyelids flutter

like butterflies in a garden,
like an actress that starred in
a musical play.
But his feet were made of clay.

a flying magnolia aircraft that didn't
think I'd crash into his window,
hitting it with a thud. Face squashed
against the pane. I'm stunned. The life

in me drained. Quashed by a
reflection. Cast by the abjection.
Breaking my neck, gasping for my last
breath. Bleeding inside myself. Wings

folded like an accordion as I headed for
the white and green Victorian. I saw crimson,
orange leaves, watercolors on the trees. Scene
wafting like apple pie, a tie-dye of smells

and colors. Cherry wine in giant
mullers. Thought I'd pass as the wind
through my feathers. I weathered hits
before. But not with a centaur!

chair, molding around the contours
my body. I sink into him as
the beans swim like a school
of fish sticking together. Making

an impression of my derriere
as I melt like butter into the four foot
cloud of cornflower suede. All set out
and laid like a quilt. Cozy and snug

like a warm glass of milk. And rain
can pitter patter on my window. It doesn’t
matter the darkness of the sky, when I’m
safe inside and dry. As the hands on

the clock fly my eyes grow
heavy. Nothing can keep the sleepers out,
not even a levee! The smell of Christmas
pine stands next to my glass of wine.

memory in his handkerchief
tucked in his left breast pocket. In childbirth,
wiping sweat from her brow. Yellowed by her
cigarette. It's balled in wrinkles now. Dabbing

her tears with paisley cotton.  Once white
as the roses she carried the day
they married. She'd blot her crimson
lipstick lips before she planted

him a kiss. Her spilled perfume on
the dresser. The years had not made
his pain lesser. He'd waved the handkerchief
like a kite in the air, as she waltzed

down the stair. Now the square piece of
cloth has holes from the moths. But he
cannot wash it. He wore it along side
his lapel as they rang the wedding bells.

of musical chairs. Walking in circles
to the beat of the phonograph
as you paint on a smile and roll
out the laugh. But the music

stops. And you haven’t found
a sweet spot. So, the next time
the needle drops into the groove
you are removed, like an object

in photoshop. He crops you
out of the picture. You hang back
and see all these girls chasing
a seat. You used to be one of

them. He used to call you his gem. But now
he has more than he can hold. Now that
it's late and he's growing old. His circle
is smaller. Now the girls he's keeping

wear tight collars. He conducts pitch
and sound. Raising them to the sky
like Moses. Plucking them like roses,
till their toes curl. Who'll be the last girl?

shaking the ground, pitching
his sound just like a tenor. He's making
me wheeze. My lungs are whistling
like a kettle. And of yet, they have

not settled. He's a disease. My liver,
foie gras, black as char, a smoking
cigar. A blocked artery. A growing
malignant tumor spreading around like

a high school rumor. An all-over body rash
with mountainous boils, popping
and making a splash. He’s head lice,
clawing my long golden hair. *******

the blood up there. Here's a fourth
degree burn peeling my skin back
at every turn. He's an anaphylactic shock -
like the hands of a broken clock. I stop.

were we of champagne
and brie, golden sunflowers
and rain showers Painting
rainbows over a cornflower

sky. Both flying high as
a condor, not fonder of another.
We only had each other. Blooming
a woodland garden. Didn't see

you harden under a diamond
stitched quilt of December
snow. Remember, carrying the guilt
like a bucket to and fro. Autumn

leaves must fall. In the crimson
with limbs in and hair tangled
in the fire. Both heading for the
funeral pyre.

in raindrops on tin rooftops
pitter-patter/kerplunk
Running down his windowpane
The glass is weeping;

not he. He is sleeping snug
in his four-poster mahogany bed. Not once
does she cross his head. Her silence
drives down from the sky in hail. Dents

the rails on his fence. Leaving him
a little tense. He swings a baseball bat
at them sending them flying high
into the air. Breaking them

apart. Till the pieces
ricochet off his hard veneer. The sky
fleeced in shaggy clouds. He punches
a hole in it, screaming out loud.

licking off his marrow
cheeping
and chattering
sweeping wings
above his window
building a nest
soft as a pillow
underneath the eaves
filling it with feathers, twigs
and fallen dead leaves
squabbling over crumbs
and seeds
with little round heads
and stout beaks
buff tan and brown
with layered black streaks
holding the world
inside of her cheeks

brush it aside,
like a strand of golden hair,
hanging as pleaded panel
curtains covering her

eyes. She'll face it head on,
square. She’ll not allow it
to sit, like dust coating the
furniture. She'll give it

a swift kick, let it fall
like a ton of bricks. She'll not
let it blow, like smoke from frying
steak in the pan in her kitchen,

out the window, in a black
colored band. She’ll not lock it
in the closet with all her
skeletons. She’ll mix it

up with the gelatin. Blood
orange and mint. Plate it
for dessert. Wash it down with
gin and tonic, all this hurt.