Not Poem #1

This could be the twenty millionth
poem written in the key of A minor
sung to the tune of a far-off guitar
held by hands that shake but play
music she always knew existed
but never heard until her body
rose up from its position of sitting back
stood a bit unsteady but full of wonder
so she could hold her ear a little closer
to the window that yesterday had been
shuttered to any sound at all.

She spreads her fingers
against cool glass to remember
how good it was to feel.

Red Wine Haiku

such tender memories
she tips back
open red as the wine

Five

She wants to see a photograph
of him age 5 - she wonders
was he laughing?

She remembers that he told her
his parents were dirt poor -
and that he didn't realize.

She wonders what went wrong
the first few times because she can't
imagine anyone not

adoring, wanting, worrying
about him. She reaches down
to rub his tender calf

knows that somehow
she has found
her own way home.

Oh

Her heart beats like a small bird about to be
caught
a nest so surely hidden by the thinness of Spring.
The moon is once again setting fiercely into a sky
its face truly made of cheese, winks once.

He sneers at her from across the room
and she wishes to be somewhere else

Maybe the moon, with all her tidal pulls
will release a life so difficult?
Outside, she hears the first geese
returning in vees their cries tell her
that everything should be green.

She remember when she used to care
and turns her back
frozen to forgotten seasons.

I Think I'm Going To

Sleep with you. No, I mean really
sleep. Somewhere, there's this perfect
feather bed with perfect feather pillows
and I think we might find it and we're
scared.

There is so much to talk about but
we're tired, so tired. Tired of taking out
all that garbage, tired of shopping for food
that is just going to rot eventually, even if
we end up eating - so much waste.

So - if you want to know what I want;
I want to sleep with you curled into a ball
hidden away in the crook of your arm
floating somewhere between dusk and dawn
remembering only how good you smell.

Words Sonnet

Today, distracted by two kiting birds,
I thought of you, I thought of you in words.
I thought of spending afternoons with you,
undressed, sunk into pleasure. At the coo
of "pleasure" in my secret inner ear
(my back convecting, sure that you were here),
my mouth came open at my body's arc,
an evening primrose, flushing, sensing dark,
and all at once my exhaled breath became
that incantation of my days: your name.
That incantation follows me to sleep:
tonight, distracted by my fingers' sweep
among my body's secret slubs and burls,
I thought of you, I thought of you in worlds.

HANNAH LOUISE POSTON

Where in the World

Are you now? So many ships between us
sinking, floating, wailing, sails furling to find
some precarious breeze, hull shuddering
in search of a forgotten beach where her hair
once blew in like a squall, whipping against
his cheeks and her eyes, her eyes so full of blue
were not lost but lost in his until the depths
became fathoms locked treasure to treasure
sinking, cast over desperately, clinging nets
full to the brim with last nights catch she sang
sang the song of the sea into him through the spiral
of her shell so pink so hollow, home to all his lost
all his sadness all his froth and fury into the sands
they knelt becoming into beds into nothing
but collective moans of anchors released–
Suddenly.

Jeff Buckley

Shinedown

Anyway

What I really meant was
yes or no just before I said
yeah maybe

What I really thought was
I should take some steak out of
the freezer

What I really felt was
why don't you just throw me on
the floor?

What I really wished was
that some star would grant some kid
a wish

What I really said was
Just say you really loved me
once anyway

Pipe Dreams

It's inevitable -
all men leave sometime
to fight some kind of war

And, So

She wandered a desert for seven
days with only dervish of sun devils
to tempt her tender skin
to darker hues.

Whorling sands could not quell
her restless pace through dusty weeds.
Red toenails had never suited
her pale footsteps.

They say a desert sets cold;
winter broken into tragic heart-scapes
the fierce sun blinked bloodshot
closed over and was gone.

O how I have missed -
tender nib scrawl across
this page's white belly

Swallowing Swords

My lover does not swallow swords
he swallows the everyday
blunt spoons, forks, knives
that accompany a mundane breakfast
or a not-so-spontaneous lunch
but yet he swallows it all including

everything he doesn't want
Our mothers always said
Clean your plates

And so we do. Knowing
that every bite
takes us closer
to becoming unreal.

Poonix

up against a wall
a green gecko darts away -
she thinks of his kiss

Expectations

when the fridge door opens
at midnight
there will still be a light inside