THE CHILDREN SWING IN ALL DIRECTIONS (COME OUT AND PLAY)

Take any square inch and narrow in to where there are monsters, to where there are reductions, to where there are cartoon reckonings of your love in a house coat, and a self-portrait hovering high up in the canvas corner, making shadows with wingspan. Telescope to a colorful time where dad fell asleep in the sand and all the screaming sounded safe in sunshine. 

Remember this love

You have been told about it.
All consuming
oppressive
suffocating
under the bricks it's laid on your chest.

Remember it.

Like being submerged in water
each breath valuable,
memorable.

It is like this:

Thick in the air.
Dark, alluring.

Sweeping you up in waves
tidal feelings crashing.
You can't think or feel beyond it.

You are cocooned in it.
Like a warm blanket as you sleep.

Remember it.

What it tasted like,
what skin, hair, eyes, everything smelled like.

Your memory is love's life,
the blood vessels to you
to him
or her.

For My Smallest Friend

A little dark dog howls
as six cars blasting Cumbia drive by,
and the back of my knees are already
sticky.

Even though it is only 7am.

In the kitchen they grab wrists and
check pulses. She should have two
One for the past 30 years and one for
the next 70. Or so.

I keep waking up with some hazy thoughts
about missing
your birth
and feeling like I have never done anything right in my entire life.
I hear them in the grey hall lights. Saying
"She'll be okay...
spread her wings"

If I can give you one piece of advice, it is that these wings cause
blistered growing pains.
But I will be here,
for you to turn to. I will never tut-tut
in dusty tones
late at night
for people to be lying awake

straining to hear their names in the dark.

Symphony Inside

My organs leap in your honor.
Heart does not beat
but tap dances in my chest to the
bouncing sound of your voice.

My insides drill
a drum roll
Of love
Of hope
In patience.

You incite it to chaotic noise.

There is no pause.
No moment of
Relief.

Just the
pounding
leaping
circus inside me.

El Yunque Meditation Triolet

I walk alone, along the teardrops of my ancestors

Tears eternal / roar down the mountain towards the turquoise sea

I walk a path where my abuelita, born in Fajardo, never dared to go

I walk alone, along the teardrops of my ancestors

In El Yunque, where my abuela warned my mother to never go

Where her childhood stories told of people who disappeared, never to be found

I walk alone, along the teardrops of my ancestors

Tears eternal / roar down the mountain towards the turquoise sea.

Pennant

Winning, I once said, felt like losing.
My attitude toward th...  it's very important!
You are yawning, so I've lost.
I'm quite honestly drowning in the packing beans,
I'm not being unpacked by myself,
I can't get my fingers to the lip of the box.
I've been packed by nervous relative,
A wretched day at the depot,
Hectoring tape dispensers;
Mouth chewed in,
Unknowable chaos out on the seas.

13 Year Old IceSkater

The bodies of the young reveal so little
starfish shaped
gumby spines
eager chins and willing necks

But over time the flesh gives in
Bears the braids of our mistakes
Bulges in forgotten corners
and seizes like hemp ropes
where it is overworked

The muscles pull on the bones
until they change their shape
Hump, lump, a downturned face

The skin wearily blankets it all
Voicing soft protests in
puckers, stretch marks
or shuts it all out
and goes leather hard

When I was young I could not imagine
that the old had ever been anything but

And now I survey the burdens of my body
and I see how I have
haunted myself
With my indiscretions, laziness, and
misplaced efforts

How I seek now to iron myself out
To become sleek,
like a seal breaking the waters' skin.

There's a rugged sort of nosiness going on in the kitchen.

I look out from under the table at a boy's grown brow on edge. The chin's underside is slender, like a heavy lilly. Practical indicators (like the sun) will make sure nothing's the same for long.

Crazy little thoughts will keep us down. Be tender with ideas not yet worn. O, spectacular plain eyelet. Shine, thank you, and now please allow us to rest.

SOMETHING ELSE

We here who are on this page agree

no couples court, no dual digits

no bar stools of pairs, 

crowding the perfectly good 

tables 

We firebirds, we peacocks

we pigeons crashing into windows

We feel bad + good + graceful

our voices change

from gold to gravel 

sultry or infected, 

depending on

the light 

taking the temperature, putting grass against the wind

sifting for it: something else

The whispering land

I have been to raucous parties, 

you know that. I know you have too, 

and yet we haven’t been to them together. 

But will we? 

Will we throw those little balls that explode on the street together? 

Will we throw up together? 

Roll over fields screaming like little children in ecstasy? 

i went to the doctor
the doctor told me it's a cold
weirdest cold i've ever had

so don't poke yourself there

what you need is a good doctor

but doctor, i am pagliacci

POEMS I'VE BEEN MEANING TO WRITE

Ode to Myself

Ladies Drink Free

Road Conditions

How to Run a Restaurant

The Opium Den

The Swim Test

The Night Obama was Reelected

Spirits Synergizing Spirits

Ode to the Royal Room

Party as a Verb

Park as a Verb

We Could Be Sisters

The Dock

Self-Timer

In Zone 3

locked out of heaven

i look up and they shake their heads

give me time

This morning I sat in bed eating a blueberry knish
I thought of you
The first time we met in the rain
We wanted to go to an Italian restaurant
We each had a favorite we tried to take the other to
But they had both closed
You ordered fettuccini Alfredo and I eggplant parmigiana
Like we always do

Our second date lasted 9 hours
Brunch and long walks through the park and a movie
Holding hands and stopping ever so often for a kiss or two
Ending in a Halloween store where we tried on all the costumes and laughed at ourselves
Before buying out all the candy in the store

Our third date was BBQ and I later dreamed of the candied bacon we shared

During the hurricane you made the 2 hour trek out to cuddle with me

Three months later it was my birthday
and you showed up and I heard you sing for the first time
You were embarrassed but your voice was beautiful

Four months later and I wonder where this is going
and why it's so hard to find time to spend together
how someone's phone could die so often
I think maybe I love you at times
but then I think I'm crazy to think that
and wonder if maybe you love me
if it matters anyway
whether or not it makes sense for us to keep seeing each other

chronically behind or convinced

being emotional vs. knowing what you feel

comfort that produces less of a need to be comfortable

ATTEMPT AT JUST JOTTING IT DOWN BEFORE IT FLEES (GET IT TOGETHER )

you are wearing a nice dress 

and as we've discussed 

aprons help make dresses 

even more nice 

now there is math to do

so wait - endure the jokes, 

have a drink, two drinks, and then

let's go

what is free and what is freedom, 

sometimes when everything comes free 

it's hard to locate 

liberation

the first and second drinks are free

but on the stools there is 

no freedom, 

when your mouth leaves the straw 

the rules are hard to know

happiness is 

the formative algae phase

of a motley cru

invading a sedan

until someone says something wrong

chances are we're all

so guilty