I said all the words I knew,
wrapped them with crepe paper
in gold
and hand-delivered them to you
I gave my cat’s tiny tongue
A hundred postage stamps
to lick
Stuck them all over the box,
in the end
it was the words that wouldn’t stick
And still
I couldn’t make you love me.
She sat on the balcony every night
for the next three days,
smoking and drinking
black coffee
until the darkness gave way to the
uncertain
light of morning
Her thin hands
trembled,
held the mug,
cradled as a precious fragment
of intimacy
amid her fitful isolation
The sky flickered across
in alien hues,
she chewed her lips worriedly
the cigarettes were stained red
a metallic taste thickened
against her tongue
The low rumble of the subway
begins as early as five a.m.
beneath the streets
a great and terrible beast
is stirred from slumber
The people spill into the streets,
and the beast sighs and goes back to sleep.
It was a long time before I looked up from my roommates’ shoes. They had removed the laces; how would I explain any of this? Beginning with the borrowed shoes.
Maria was curled on the bench like an injured kitten; she had twisted her ankle in the chase. We both looked like hell, and how she could sleep was beyond me. Half a dozen women leaned on the wall, or sat on the floor in the shared cell, popularly termed: the drunk tank. The women were lost in their own shattered worlds. Their eyes shone, but blankly, like the backs of old spoons.
A short-haired girl with sunken cheeks and blue eyes chewed her lips in the corner. She smacked them together, wetly, murmuring and looking off into space.
“Kit kat…, caramilk…, twix…,” grumbled the girl. Her mouth moved faster and slower at the same time. Horrified, I trained my eyes on my roommate’s shoes. I dreamed myself small. I shrank down in a puff of smoke and turned into a rat- had to dig my way out of the mountain of my clothing.
“Hey”, launched the girl, without warning. I froze. The sheer concentration of her gaze was scorching a hole in the side of my skull. “Hey you”, she teased again. And I looked up. Oh god, I looked up. Into blue eyes, clouded with delusions and probably ghosts; the site from which something precious and blameless had long been wrenched.
“Better close your mouth, Hun,” said the girl. “Someone might come along and stick a ___ in it.”
My mouth went dry as the room began to spin. I wanted to disappear.
The taste of chocolate thickened against my tongue.
a white slice of leg
peeks
from indigo sheets
sunspots dance on
pastel eyelids
and
salmon lips
you’re wet.
What have you inherited?
A Greek unibrow; a speedboat named DIANA
Thick dark curls
Eyes blue and deep as the Mediterranean
A house like the top half of a robin’s egg
Nestled in the side of a cliff
Three perfect rooms
His roots, poured through you
like the green olive tree
Sweet-smelling and strong,
Now part of the earth
On your name day
A tall, crisp bottle of Ouzo
Salt in the glass,
Your father cried out on the water
His grief sprays out the back of your boat.
long live the martyr 