prescience of dawn

where was the tiny restaurant i first tried chirashi
the lights were blue and the waitress apologized
so many times i felt sorry and left the biggest tip.
they didn't check i.d. so we had japanese beers.

i keep thinking how ungrateful i have been because
i have lived such a beautiful life without any success
that i could claim for myself.  at the time i never saw
how gentle i would end up becoming, truly.
how could you, who saw it all along, have missed
the broken pieces hiding in my manufactured chaos.
you should have known i couldn't give it up, nope.
in my elegant clothes i can only be confident in the
irony.

nope

wrapped in a towel
naked and dripping
onto the hardwood,
sitting in the room
that used to be mine
in my parents' house.

my sister gretchen
is having a girl.
the shower's today,
and i'm wondering
why nobody likes
confessional pomes.

not even i like them.

untitled

in morning before alarms

before the sunrise.

that solid sense of darkness -

God's hands pressing down

on the filmy barrier

between our tiny

universe or whatever

and His complete one -

that's the feeling that i get

looking at you now.

the tight and velvet embrace

erupting from a

distant relative's flapping

fat arms. and kisses

from her avon lipstick lips.

her powder perfume

flooding each nasal corner.

finally her eyes

just like all the other eyes

incalculable.

fearfully and wonderfully

made from spare parts.

wings and atmosphere

we crawled inside those songs
like they were prototype spacecraft
we were going to see the universe or burst into flames.
i think we made contact,
the tapes show nothing but static.
and the memories i kept
keep on exploding.

the seed

somehow my heart is still smiling.
each little link breaking remembers
we are connected without regard for
propriety. without knowing how or why
the infant cries, collapses, carries on crawling.
until one day she stands and walks.

surely, i say, there is something good and whole
and pure that must be buried beneath this pain.
i set my spade to it, like a schoolchild
barefoot with it squishing between my toes.
the seed has already been planted here.
with a little warmth, i say, it will grow.

to give the lie to

my little fractures
i'll learn to break a rabbit's neck in one swift motion
and accept the over-sized plastic accordion straw
extending
sound.
i'll sell that old engagement ring
with the sapphire.
my smile will jump off my lips and you-
you'll feel it.