growing from a buzz

cut to perfection like eccentric grass.

Corn-rowed, faux-hawked, bleach blond,

curly locks,

double rattails and

red skunk stripes.

Galaxies of mullet,

with dread locks

that sprout

in surprising clumps,

sharp sideburns,

sweeping bangs that

kiss the eyes.

I want to pull you,

caress each strand with

my fingertips,

close my eyes,

and walk through you like a 

field of straw.

I want to tangle my fingers

between your braids,

pretend each color is

my own sunset,

possess you.

Yet, mi amorcito,

I must confess that

you rape my senses with

a reckless desire…

I dream of 

forcing you underwater,

and smothering you with soap.

She shrugged

thinking I was just changing subjects.

Or airplanes?

I don’t know, she says

thinking I was trying to prove

I wasn’t just changing subjects.

She sits with me while I wait,

stroking my hair in silence.

These are days girlfriends are for.

Sometimes I can’t remember why

the world goes round.

Other days I just don’t care.

This day was one of those.

I know they will be coming soon

to take me back and put me out

so while I have the chance…

If hers were ever anything but benign

would she still have written about marriage?

I ask

willing to compromise.

are you, ships in a graveyard.

No heaven for you, who slaved and

battled away your lives

fighting the monster of the ocean

protecting those you loved.

No peaceful last voyage on your horizon.

Poor ships, forever floundering in a sea of grass and dirt

slowly eaten by the elements.

Carman, you of all make me saddest

you stare at me through hollow eyes

that cry saltwater tears when it rains.

Somewhere along the line, you have

been broken in half,

worn down or struck down with one blow.

I do not know.

As you sink, your top half reaches skyward

pleading mute for one last chance to fly.

All the ships, with their woman’s names,

are lying crumpled in this field

old, gray and forgotten - disintegrating into nothingness.

During the stormy nights, the wind gives you voices

you scream to me in the darkness

and your bodies groan and wail

as they are torn to pieces.

I cry for you, my sisters

who gave so much and fought your lives away

only to be repaid 

by being left, stranded in this field

stripped and raped of your use,

left, with only a name and your rotting parts

that still shriek defiance at every storm.

Through the halls of foreign mountains,

the train rushes out to floods of light.

Here we share a language.

Why not 

‘See that cathedral? 

And how it crumbles? 

Does its worth rise or fall?’

And why not ‘The river, 

see the river?

Proof of nothing save its source. 

Can rivers lie?’

At the fin de siècle where

cafés are too loud for 

talking, men and women always

talking. Cafés always open. 

Narrowing their eyes, we are angled

toward the exit.

On a humid night,

a tale spun from the threads of

a nation’s wooden heart.

He slaps his knee.

He wipes what dribbles down his chin.

A dress squeezes arms, plunges, shifts and teases

out all the flesh and all the din and 

we ought to go.

Stones make a stand;

move sacred dust across her thighs. 

Beneath this noise I can only take your hand.

Down comes the mountain.

Rivers lie.

When I first met you I could hear the autumn.

Sadly I knew I would rather talk through the night than sleep.