Corduroy Jacket

still, the corduroy jacket gripped in my fingers,

ear pressed to your thumping heart --

slow breathing --

lingering, holding off…

numb and disbelieving

and grasping on to minutes, seconds as they

whisper past us

your guitar case rests against the wall;

a line of passengers filed

it’s almost 1 p.m.

almost time for you to go,

almost time --

but i am clutching the corduroy still.

your heart faintly beating into my

ears full of blood pulsing --

still among the rolling wheels of luggage bags

and automatic doors…

releasing,

i meet your almond eyes with mine

small pools contorting your face

and without words, a kiss

the second-to-last time i will ever feel the softness

you press your whiskered cheek

to one side, then the other

in that french way of yours

but this time, i feel the ache of adieu

in the pressure of your lips

you extract from your pocket

a single sheet pressed into sixteenths

and say to me with gentle transfer,

“read this when you get home”

and stepping back,

the space is tangible

you make a joke as you gather your things;

a single desperate burst of a laugh

and it is not enough.

suddenly,

it is not enough.

closing the space, i reach;

my fingers delved into your frizzy black curls,

a single stroke of tongue and pillowed closure --

the very last time.

the promise of contact,

the “call me when you arrive home” --

no goodbye.

we do not speak goodbyes,

and still

i cannot speak them.

i see the radiating, permeating pulse of reality --

it does not register.

i turn before i comprehend

before i cannot leave at all

and with the song playing over in my head,

promising things unpractical --

“i will see you again,”

walk through the people

with my face beginning its contortions,

briskly and without looking back, there is no other way,

through the automatic doors

and into cold kansas city again...

empty and abruptly without you --

So, Easily the World Rotates On Axis

So, easily the world rotates on axis --

still -- as it had before,

and makes its slow revolutions

as dictated by the sun.

      Our frail little existence --

          paltry.

While millions of stars are held in place

and glow from light-years away,

we lie

we laugh

we tire

we die.

And the marrow of life

has yet to be extracted --

      Our bones brittle

      behind counters,

             cubicles and desks.

The man signs another check.

The woman wipes the table

     with a rag soaked in grimy water

so shallow in the bucket,

                   you can see to the bed.

And returning it, she wonders

how full and dark it is

in bodies

    outside her little tributary.

Connections

I saved your cup with the coffee stains and all

and it sat on my bookshelf.



I return to it time and again

        Press my lips to where yours had been



I never miss you quite as much

      as when I realize whatever touch

                   I'll ever have from you again




                   is what is stuck to this stark white lid.

Invasion

Firm is the sandpaper stone beneath me,

unlike

the earth.

Structure

surrounds me

in rigid lines made

of black, hard metals

and shiny, frozen

panes of glass,

reflecting

the twigs of the trees

that dot the sidewalk.

They are

so different

from the winding timber types

that reach up to grasp a sky

unpolluted.

Structure

surrounds me,

admitting

no winding creeks,

no crawling moss,

 no scattered rocks.

The buildings plummet up,

jutting

into that carbon sky.

The crowd and the bustle

and the shine of it all

invade me

and disturb me.

While a hundred miles away,

the songbirds sing

       their freedom canticles

and fluttering, fluttering,

       perch on a twig stretched for heaven –

so gentle, not one leaf

                              is dislodged from the bark.

The Atlantic

The calix I hold fills at the shore

of a tragedy unknown before;

this weathered ornament that once bore

the happiness and youth of yore.

I relish in the touch of skin,

of stubble and the rush of sin.

I unleash burning tides within,

crippled now as time runs thin.

With hands, a seed was planted deep.

We architects no more will reap.

Subdued, with all that's failed I keep.

The distance far, we cannot leap.

For leagues a thousand separate now,

Dilated petals and stems that bow.

Drowning, withering, stalks under plow

These things this calix will always endow.

One Month, Eight Days

My jacket constricts

my arms the way

that song wraps around

my gut and

      squeezes

the way

I hear it and

close my eyes and

my pillow is all

wet.

It's cold and my

jacket constricts the way

my Happiness

kills me a little inside

every

time

I see those beautiful

almond eyes.

October 21, 2012

Seven years ago today you died and i imagine they found you in a heap on the kitchen floor but who were "they" and they told me you had a brain aneurysm but i wondered if they lied to me because i was fifteen just fifteen years old and i lost you someone you shouldn't lose until you're forty and have a life of your own settled but you're never ready to lose your mother or that gardenia lotion she wears or the constant softness of her skin or the sound of her voice when she calls you maria because that was her name for you and no one else or her laugh that laugh you hear sounding from your own voice box sometimes and you still don't know all of what you share with her what mysteries lie in your own body inside your own head the psychology of someone mentally ambiguous you have inherited a million traits and you miss every single one you shared with her even the bad ones you miss because if you still had to deal with them there would still be a chance to fix her but now there is nothing and she is ashes in an urn under the ground and a memory just a memory and whatever you carry on of her whatever i carry on of her whatever i carry on of you.

Eyes open for any sign of you you left me a sign at your birthday the kid's shirt with your tombstone verse on the back i thought i picked the right one because it felt right and i almost cried right there in the store when i saw it the sign i knew it had come from you on your day and today is your day too today and tomorrow and the next day will all be your days because they didn't know what day to pick for your official day of death they thought it was the 21st they found you later they found you on the 23rd so they thought you died two days before that two whole days you were there waiting to be discovered and picked up and taken care of but there was nobody not until two days later and that haunts me mom that haunts me because i am your flesh and i wasn't there and you were gone you passed without notice the world kept turning just like it did after i found out and that was unfair everyone's lives went on and that was unfair and some people were really happy and that was so unfair and i still had everyday thoughts along with the surreal thoughts i had those thoughts that are weightless and the ones about you that weighed me down and wouldn't allow me to move like glaciers that i tried to cry out they were like big cold glaciers inside me that pushed all my organs down and made me 100 pounds heavier and i cried cried cried cried tried to cry it out nothing went away it's just a weight you carry the rest of your life it's just like chains connected from you to me there are chains connecting you and me but it's hard because i'm here and you're there that big there that i have no concept of and i don't know where you are but the chains keep me close.