Sestina on Childhood

Sestina on Childhood

She used to wander her small world for hours,
searching for the Holy Grail in her backyard
or the shadows of Roman warriors, once revered.
We tumbled down hills, head over feet,
laughing about detoxification and Catholic guilt,
discussing love we’d never share.

On Halloween, we combined our candy and took our share,
rolling on the floor, sugar high, throughout the hours,
even under our mother’s gazes, rays of guilt.
When it rained, we stayed out in the backyard,
getting soaked to the skin, dirt caking our feet,
dancing like the pop stars we revered.

They seem foolish now, half those things I revered.
You, bringing cookies shaped like dinosaurs to share,
I, crying, when mine broke in pieces at my feet.
We slaved our Easy Bake ovens for hours,
never producing anything worth eating, the backyard
distracted us too much, calling, the smoke masking our guilt.

In church, we learnt that Jesus died for us, the guilt
we felt at causing this made it seem less revered,
like we had to feel bad, or something. Backyard
shenanigans ceased for days, instead we sought to share
plastic rosaries, bent over them like miniature saints, hours
meant nothing. In our heads, we were washing Jesus’ feet.

On her birthday, we captured a lizard. His feet
were foreign stars, poking out from between our fingers, our guilt
at breaking off his tail subsided when we learned, hours
later, that it would grow back. We revered
our new pet, building him houses out of twigs. He’d share
them with the other lizards, we decided. A reptile’s backyard.

We snuck around the wooden fence that bisected my backyard,
forced to tramp through the lake’s edge, our feet
squelching in the mud. We slipped along the bank, our share
of adventure waiting, the only thing on our minds, not guilt
or worry over whether our parents would approve, revered
temples forefront in our thoughts, ancient wonders to fill the hours.

We shared a backyard when we were young, when guilt
Meant little more than apologizing for un-wiped feet, revered
Carpet received its share of dirt, and we grew through the hours.

Geometrics

Geometrics

I draw triangles. They
decorate the margins
of my paper. Inside
their complicated structure
lies treasures. The trick is,
connect with them.
Build them like pyramids.
Bury dead children inside them.
Color in the empty ones.
Shed tears. Cry for lost dreams.
Cry for the innocent.
Bury cats in them. Bury dogs.
Imagine butterflies
winging high above them.
I create social structures.
Whole caste systems exists,
unaided, within these triangles.
Imagine thousands of
notepaper pyramids, emerging
from the sound of minds
coloring landscapes,
changing worlds.

How to Break a Heart

How to Break a Heart

Misuse it. Abuse it.
Insult it. Revolt it.
Kick it when its down.
Make fun of its taste
in novels, music, and technology.
Call it too old fashioned.
Split your time between it
and another. Lie to it.
Ignore it, or, better yet,
smother it. Talk about it,
behind its back,
to anyone who will listen,
or when it is right beside you.
Make jokes at its expense.
Call it names. Screen its calls.
Steal its innocence, or charm.
Disagree with its worldly view.
Make it cry. Rape it. Cut it.
Pillage. Sweet talk it and then
leave it wanting. Tell it how much you care,
then don’t return its calls,
pretend it doesn’t exist,
make plans with other hearts,
and leave it behind to bleed.

Pastel Skeletons

Pastel Skeletons

Define us by what we aren’t.
Let it roll off your tongue,
it’ll roll off our backs
just as easily.
We become ancient shadows,
stalking at the edges
of your melodramatic self-conscious.
Just because the past
holds the top billing
on your weekly shopping list,
you’ll look down your noses at us,
as if we’re some disease.
You cannot cure us.
We’re not some disaster area,
please don’t try to excavate us
into nothing.

Invertebrate Psychology

Invertebrate Psychology

To analyze earthworm brainwaves,
first attach a lie detector –
one electrode to each segment.
Be careful, these are
slippery creatures, lying
all through their dirt buffets,
slithering out of conversations
where awkward situations arise.
Next, grill the subject,
but not literally!
Oh.

Love Means Chihuahuas

Love Means Chihuahuas

I long to press close to you,
until breath melts into friction,
straining the laces
that keep my aching body
from being one with yours.
We will learn to talk through mirrors,
interchange our hearts for crimson,
satin, formal wear.
When we are nothing but
exhausted skeletons,
echoes of lovers that once were,
our fingerprints will stay
carved into your bed frame,
like Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Moving

Moving

The writers are moving,
ebbing and flowing like the ocean
washing shells and twigs
up onto the beach.
Her eyelids flutter shut
for the last time, last time
they reopened to gaze into his.
Not today. This time
is moving like the writers,
across a sea of well wishers,
across a sea of bliss.

Best Friends

Best Friends

Take down the Christmas tree,
it’s already March. No, wait, I’d rather
bask in its insipid, dead, tinsel glory.
See, the monorail runs twice daily
on the plastic track that circles
the evergreen’s base and Epcot globe,
the one you broke apart
to combat me with
when I chased you with a knife,
around the spacious living room.
Remember back in October
when we danced to Thriller
on this very same carpet?
Now I play Superman
on the island in the kitchen
while you heat up hamburgers
for out late night snack.
Your mother must think we’re insane.

Growing Up

Growing Up

“I hate celery”, you’ve been known to declare.
“No, not hate. Hate is too strong a word.”
I taught you that, you know,
not to hate, not to hit or bite or pull hair.
My words shaped your semi-conscious
just like our hands now shape birds,
horses, fruit, out of modeling clay.
How I long for those days you played dress up,
carting dolls around like your own children
or cleaning house with brooms and dustpans.
Now you answer the phone when I call,
telling me in almost-perfect English
about the Tonka truck you want for Christmas.

Rhyming with Lust

Rhyming with Lust

I’m not one for rhymes.
I haven’t got the time, you see.
My minutes are too valuable
to be spent comparing words
to tropical birds, my mind aches
just to think on it. Underwater,
I can abandon reason,
but it isn’t the right season
for swimming in crystal clear lakes.
It’s too cold where I’ve been,
wind keeps you from feeling
anything but the chill,
it will, and everything freezes,
including the breezes.
Fast forward to us holding hands,
bangs in my eyes,
your hands on me under the table
making me unable to move,
unwilling to go, anywhere
but here.

Writing For You

Writing For You

I will try to write you a poem,
plain-spoken, containing
no questions. My lips
will gush like a fountain
until you’re nothing more
than a goldfish in the sea.
You’ll need a morphine drip
to relieve the weight
of all my heaviest emotions.
I believe in happy endings
but we’ve never discussed our own,
not to the point where
happily ever after
comes into play,
an ace in the hole.
I’ll give you a grave,
we’ll fill it with our doubts
and dance until midnight is through.