Poetry

I got to know what was soft and where the hard parts were in that upholstered bedroom. Every headlight was a worry. I kept my clothes on as much as I could. It didn’t bother you. Even that time getting caught didn’t. You liked it. You said you loved me, but it was what I…

When you wash them do it gently with a mild soap and lightly swish. Silken, seamed, off-black, mist, dotted, patterned in some way, support, light support, sheer, nude, coal, reinforced toe, taupe, suntan, ivory, smoke, they’re in there now all crossed over through the small accumulation of bubbles which gather at the edges of your…

Do it instinctively, like washing your hands or fumbling for your glasses on the night table in the morning, even though, for a small ritual, it is complicated, a minefield of subtleties, an act of aspiration, self-hatred, theatrics. Stand before the full-length mirror on your closet door. You are dressed already, though your hair is…

My bathroom mirror is a window with a sash I could throw open if it were not painted shut. Above it hangs a transparent pane high enough to frame the sky. Usually I forget this, as in the evening while putting on my makeup I am surprised by a streak of orange or zigzag of…

The captain said over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Los Angeles. There is no hope.” Each step a search for balance with my friend, here for the first time, beside me in his loose pants and splayfooted saunter, gliding over the sidewalk slabs uprooted by trees or earthquakes on which I’ve stumbled all…

I am not— opened or closed— what you expected, o heart. Or would you without me have thought to throw open the flooding and roar, to step through the lion’s gold pelt? have thought that the passionate glass is the body? and this life, the one life you wanted? Wanted, meaning neither lacked, nor desired,…

“She propped her false leg up in the corner . . .” my spiritual advisor says when a strong man comes into the room you flutter your eyelashes & hike up your skirts when a strong man commands your heart flutters skips a beat and you do as you wish ghandi and dr king called…

As if the porous bag had been dipped once, twice, once more in the summer’s water, then set aside. Halfway between sleep and waking, I took it between my lips. And though the earth is everywhere terrible and cruel, the heart diamond flashed out once, twice, and once again the semaphore-reply it cannot help but…

an ordinary woman leaves her body here when she’s done with it a litterbug she leaves a burden and a warning to us but the dancer’s body is completely gone aah! a jitterbug her soul remains here with us an encouragement what are we supposed to do with it