Straight from the Horse's Mouth.

standard dissolution

your head lay in my lap, we

were draped across the couch

a coupl’a hand-me-down throw blankets,

in the background your comforter

spun in the ticking dryer.

in us, handmade quilts

disguise our walls,

the ancient oriental rugs of

    our thick hurt

the mounting aches, mounted

    too long to let go

these museums of

our “Everyday Use”, yes

all those who everyday used us.

im sitting here stroking

your frayed hair

and thinking, yes

I could stay here for a little while.

but, Ah—the buzz of the dryer.

How disposed Christmas trees remind me of my brother

barely stepping off the porch

the neighbor shifts the massive pine

into the air

it lands—

neck nestled in the curb

the branches collapse in a wave

except one, bare and bent

and different

thrusting its bone into the cold

of the morning.

A poem for yous.

This is for the first time

in a hot tub.

For the top bunk when

my room was still green

Naive at 21, flicking

the turn signal at Frederick boulevard

that sort of happened, didn’t it?

For hats coming off, by accident.

For knuckles brushing, by accident.

For two minutes, by accident.

For please stops not working.

For rusted over eyelids.

For a heart clutched in the palm of some woman on a train in Europe.

For waving bye to tall, dark and handsome.

For being lost in translation

floating in some rich lady’s pool on 64th.

For the first broken heart, bobbing by your board

while you block the Puerta Rican sun

with your right hand.

This is for all the yous that followed

bunched together;

a collapsed accordian of boxcars carrying

nothing.

This is for running downhill in Ischia

hotel keys dangling in a trembling hand.

This is for a television sitting on your couch.

This is for lost souls.

This is for found moments.

This is for early departures.

This is for leaving, by choice.

For my brother

I’m back home

where the world is lined

and patterned in crisp ceramic squares,

where neon lights drape “America”

in familiar logos,

and the neighbors hustle quickly

down the sidewalk

with their bags

and bags

and bags.

It’s Christmas Josh

and the limbs of my artificial tree

remain unbent.

I find myself thinking about peace—

peace, peace;

the falling echo into an empty well.

Acceptance Speech

There are certain things to thank like:

the plastic laminate on my first library card

for lasting, Grandma’s hips which

gave unto my waterbed as

the Little Golden books spilled from her lips,

my tiny ears which jarred them like preserves.

I have to thank the lack of earplugs

while crickets and toads gossiped

at night, the view of the moon

on a rusted rooftop resting between

the bulky shoulders of two

magnolia trees, and the bite

of rotten pecans that pinch

behind the tongue,

before you know they’re bad.

Thanks, 1989 computer that

taught me the difference

between Asian and African

elephants, before I knew it was a test—

and thank the urge to taste

the milk of their tusks,

to mull their murky eyes.

Thank you to the grader of that test

who labeled me special so

I could learn about compost,

And latin roots and Poe—

Poe for proving poetry can be ripped

apart, like reconsidered puzzle pieces

disappearing yearly between the floorboards

of life—Dickinson, for finding those pieces and

making new puzzles, proving

poetry can put things together.

Thanks Dad, for crouching

in the hallway after ten hours of work,

to read to us, pressed between

the bedroom doors we’d all too soon close.

Thanks Nancy Drew

for always solving the case and

to the bitch who wrote about her,

knowing it was never that easy.

Thanks to Keats and Coleridge for

penning sonnets I would never

understand, so that one day I would

grow up to write things

in black and white.

Thank you red lights for letting me

tuck myself into a cloud.

And to the green lights, too,

for making me wonder what

I miss.

Thank you love, for being

overrated, and wisdom

for being a tiny door;

thanks to poems like these, that

when drank, shrink us to just the right size

to walk right in.

Sidewalk

The basket of suburban living:

Catcher of 2:15 in the morning,

the vomit and Fucks of the bar fodder,

littered by the emptied stomachs

of youth; the smudged chalk portraits and

freely abandoned trikes, feces

and flies, the venue for garbage buffets.

Sanctuary of sneakers,

Of scraped knees, a home

for orphaned oak leaves,

the open casket for summer’s

suicide, the greens of gutted weeds

and trimmed grass, the hairs

of what is yet to be swept.

Cradle for first kisses,

Observer of last stands,

who bears the screech of rubber

tires kicking final farewells.

And yet, warmth

like a mother’s touch

when a five year old cries

and sees only the imprint

of concrete against the palm.

Laughter,

      The loudest whisper ever—

       mouth agape with

                                                        stairwell teeth,

                                      it rumbles from the throat,

                              boulders down the steps, the

                                                       slip n’ slide:

                                                    a thousand suicidal lemmings.

Wisdom

Long, it spins in the gulf

sucking clouds,

stirring up the sky, it gathers—

a braiding of hawks

over your continent.

Past Conversation

Sing to me, oh memory

of the small things:

the obnoxious cruch of gravel as I

pulled into your drive,

the hiss of the grocer’s freezer

as we perused Ben & Jerry’s,

the whimper of your dog

while he dreamt and shook

between our wrestling hearts,

or talk about the familiar flap of

his tail against the walls

in the hallway when I showed up late

to find  your body

swallowing the whole bed,

your heavy breathing a soft growl

that pulled me under the covers.

Tell me of the sigh of a snowboard

on slick ice

or the thump of my ass

as I kept falling.