Poems

to say that everyone has a poem in them
is a misunderstanding
of poems and people

some tears are poems
and so are some sweaty underarms
and the slow red trickle of a papercut
can recite as violently as a cumshot

some tears are poems
and so are some streams of piss
and hard won movements of the bowel
dug out with slick fingers and dry resignation

some tears are poems
but some are just
salt and hot water
licking a wound of cheek

but
to say that everyone has a poem in them
is a misunderstanding
of poems and people

it is to say
every child is born
loaded with a single round of laughter

You fall into my arms
a victim of inertia
a corner taken too quickly
crazy bus driver

My skin startling against your skin
my eyes watering
with shock and longing
recognition and sadness

Because I’m already caught
already creating a fairy tale
with another princess
whose eyes were once
as your eyes are now

So let me help you stand up
smile politely
laugh at the awkward moment
witnessed by strangers
holding on for
dear life

Let’s pretend we have not,
in this tiny atom of time,
created and destroyed
a universe of love

The scar on my arm
didn’t go away
from the time that you
tossed your cat onto the bed
and me.

Playful
best of intentions
and I like your cat
and he even likes me
sometimes.

Airborne
lives flashing before his slivered eyes
the unrequited feline
claws out
determined
to cling to this
or make sure
that nobody
comes out
unscathed.

I know this man
who is studying to be a
chiropractor
but is, despite his best efforts
a sculptor

and even student loans are cheaper
in the long run
than that reality
so

he studies this bony art of adjustment
and one day he will have a practice
as his profession

but in my dream
as that first patient lays out on the table
and this fresh doctor
races his beetle fingers
across the pebbles of her spine
he pauses–

removes the wet plaster
from under the desk,
a milky statue’s tongue
lapping heavily against her skin
as he tilts the bucket:

“In a minute this will harden,”
he says,
“and then we will begin.”

You don’t eat your pizza crusts either
And I recognize the excitement in your eyes when you say

gyoza

so I wonder if
this is how love starts?

finding things in common
like loose change in the sofa
unremarkable in small amounts but
intoxicating if it begins to add up

until one horrible day we’ll find
that last dime
that last nickel
that last penny,

I mean, we’ll have to–

there is only so much money in the world
and only so much sofa–

so I’ll wonder if
this is how love ends?

putting up a fence on the boundary of mutual desire
running your tongue along the edges of sameness
knowing all the ways we are together
and all the ways we are not

it seems ludicrous now
to think it could happen to us–

but I once was certain the government
reimbursed people who had been mugged
if only they would fill out a form–

because when I smell you on my skin
and see you inside my shuttered eyes

I have this feeling–

sweet flesh
thick soul–

that you and I,
we could make change.

You were always so damned real.
While the rest of us

floated

in a world we created,
full of nonsense, bullshit,
Ego.

You were always real.

You said things like
    I don’t understand.
    I’m proud.
    I’m sorry.

We talked on a level
above
your
head

but maybe all that time
you were just
lying down.

Remember
when I write:
“her arm is a handle,
her waist, a place to rest my chin
before the bow licks the strings,”
remember, it is for you.

When I write:
“she keeps the pieces of my life
I have tried to throw away,
returns them to me when they are unexpected,
and suddenly precious,”
it is for you.

When I write:
“this knot of my life
tied and tightened by years
is loosed and unravelled in her,”
it is for you.

Woman in my life,
remember
and do not be sad,
that when I write
it is always for you
even if it is not always
about you.