the ceaseless why (this much i know is true).

being.
this much i know is true,
the crumblings, the bit-ends of life,
the frothings in the sink.
the lather at the end of the day,
between the sheets.
i am consumed with these, infected.
dirt on the doorways.

love.
this much i know is true:
a dark love.
the tension in our bodies, your memory.
you imagine
(did i keep you in a cage, hold you in my palm?)
the sea waking you, unlike i ever could,
whispering sonnets in your ears, i never did.
i plucked your eyelashes and kept them,
blowing them away one by one, something to lose of you,
everyday.

pain.
this much i know is true
when time wraps me,
another skin flayed slowly,
another blanket on a stifling, gardenia-laden night.
searching for the horizon, time.
how i desire dark mornings and obedience.
the agony of free will.

apocalypse.
this much i know is true.
a red sun, a dark sky, an orange moon;
who told me this was the first day of the end of the world?
i tried to name all the everythings,
all the words i held softly, carefully.
did i protect them from fire,
these crumblings, from the harsh light of catastrophe?

pdx, 11/11/08, 7:24 pm.

i sleep in a t-shirt and no underwear,
rainwater tea, hardcore dreams.

green hair, the internet, chapped lips, cat hair on my sweater.

the still-you scent of my room in the mornings,
till i open the window and grow goosebumps on my legs.

puddles and wet slip-on leaves,
cars that make that whirr sound as they slide on raindrops,
late buses and getting the wind in my face.

not enough pillows;
when i sleep i can never find the right way
and one cheek gets red from lying on it,
and sometimes i don’t know how to not scream when i wake up.

stretched-out bras and falling apart shoes –
i pick at the holes in my jeans but line my books up carefully,
like so many soldiers in a row, formation in the morning.

things get dusty here,
with inlaid fingerprints
and notes from my piano that linger in the air,
sheet music, books that are too old to be overdue.

white and bare,
though i try my best to cover them with
photographs and words i paste up on the walls,
to watch over me during the night.

faces, horses, green words,
the eyes of my cat reflecting carlights from the windowsill.

drawers that are full of things i’ve never seen before,
and my roommate’s image, passing, in a mirror.

hair clips, bobby pins, dimes, bottle caps,
mugs of coffee and the dregs of spilled wine found behind the couch,
and dust balls and cat toys.

plugs, posters, and curtain-ties.

venetian blinds along which i like to run my fingers,
leaving them clean and gleaming to rattle by the open door when i’m asleep.

communications from the past: grandfather

my grandfather
tottering
wrote me a poem in capitals

wicker baskets and theodore roethke
(love like he’s experienced it
like so many years)

my grandfather wrote me portraits of a long life
(whiskey and hot coffee he says)

and the drum beat falters
old-fashioned handwriting and no-longer-memories in photographs

he can’t sleep he tells me
can’t sleep
(too soon to go into that good night)

choking on what he’s said and now just waiting
my grandfather wrote me the scent of his cologne and pressed shirts

(i can’t escape my family no matter how hard i try
he follows me
the scent of someone passing)
letters on fragile paper
frail love

arithmetic.

she has thirty-two bullet shells on her belt,
twenty-nine notches.

twenty-one patterns of scars on her legs and
the four slashes of a knife.

she makes sixteen different phone calls and
searches five clubs - glaring music –
three drinks at each: she’s too drunk to tell pavement from sky.

there are seventy-six smiles on sixty-three days
(counting late morning sunlit eyes)
one hundred and three bedroom glances.

she has four limbs and no purpose.

thirteen steps up the stairs and
one knock on the door –
two-six-two.

one swig from a metal flask with
seven dents. three thousand five hundred fifty-four hesitations.

one shot, eight hundred and forty-two drops of blood on the wall.

two days and three more bullets.