all I want
give me a poem
     I can cram
          down my throat 
               like a raw meat platter
                          a poem
               I can flay
        until it sings
of crumpled chests
     and paper hearts
          give me a poem
                that will rip my bruises
                      serve me up in fingernail tomes
                            I want a poem
that will drown me inside out.

give me a poem I can recognize
        by the blood blue stain
        it leaves on my tongue,
                       a poem with
            the metallic taste of
                    pain done right.



wandering
somewhere
between the margins of your smile,
where oceans caress sky, and there are fires with more flare than
the first time I kissed you,
between gospel and scripture, atoms and thunder,
hidden
in the wavering forest of
this whispering heart,
I write to you.

somewhere,
in the places
only you would bother to look,
I copy down the things
I'm too ashamed to say.




preemptive eulogy for the girl with tidal wave eyes and choppy blue hair
long gone
are the days
I could press a bandage to your wrists
lips to your forehead
and call you fixed,
                                  but know this;

when the beetles have eaten your body
and the tearstains on your coffin
have melted into the ground,
I'll go back to the backyard, the swing, the hilltop,
and dig up your smile myself.
I'll wrap it up in bone and blossom,
leave your fractures and crooks the way they are.
I'll bring it to the post office;
find some way to send it through the mail.

you have always been tsunami.
let me return it to the people
who did not know how to save you.



The Will

Give my dresses to my daughter.
Let her know she was never made to wear my shadow,
but these dances are hers to keep
if she wants them.
Send my skinned knees back to the tree
where I first learned how to climb,
my tongue to the snowflakes that could never land quite right.
My feet go to the beach where I first fell in love.
Please keep all calluses as they are.
As for my spine, tell them to build a staircase; any staircase,
it’s carried me for so long
I want someone else to have a try.

When you untie the love that once kept me one,
remember not to cry. An unraveling is not an ending.
Direct my atoms to the trees, wave as they go. 
The time will come 
when you bump into them again

(and the day you start to laugh like before,
return my keys to the corner behind the sofa;
they always liked sitting there)