First Car

First Car

My boyfriend's

Toyota Corolla

Is an old rocking chair,

Formfitting from daily use;

Even mildewed felt a comforting scent.

My boyfriend's Toyota Corolla

Is a jury stand.

Fake leather pressed against a palm.

Anyone can put their hand on a bible

And cross fingers behind a back.

My ex boyfriend's Toyota Corolla

Is a sinking ship.

Salty water seizing up joints;

Stay afloat or say goodbye.

My ex

Boyfriend's Toyota Corolla

Is a forgotten toy on an airplane,

Quickly and simply replaced

By an updated product.

Windows

Windows

A shifting, single bow dances across;

The fading light is draped along the floor

Fairy pink shoes, thrust in the air, are locked

The scent of sweat leaks out from every pore.

The hardwood floor cries out from the footprints.

Bows wrapped around clear throats bow and flip with

Practice. They are not girls but ghostly glints,

The sort one hears in hushed stories and myths.

The flimsy tulle and silk flash like spider patterns,

Casting mystic shadows upon each web.

Their curls fall out from crafted spins and turns

But they don't pause to try to touch their head.

But what one cannot see is they can't move

The windows hold this image they can't lose.

Sugar Pills

Sugar Pills

We are sliced up along the patio,

Acrid smoke from green substance

Twisting tendrils in her hair.

She looks to me with candid eyes -

As if I don't know Mary Jane

But I kiss her forehead

Still tasting baby's breath of bewilderment.

She reaches for my hand and pulls me in.

I rise, actor in scene.

The sea of lawn, we spin in the surf,

Our feet damp as if we had waded in shallow

Shores. She torpedos us to the ground --

What is family for anyways?

To pull and push and fall down;

To hold and help one another;

But I cannot

Help her.

I am not the pills in her translucent throat

Or the happiness she is forced to feel

From the prescription sugar pills.

I am a mother's sister's daughter

Am I allowed to wonder whether with

All these substances

Has only now

She become substance free.

I study her doll body

Mixed in waves of emerald seas,

The drugs combined

She has resigned.

Not just now but all the time.

I pull her up and off the ground,

qShut the shades and lay her down.

My hand runs through her hair, unwound.

I float away and dim the light,

I hear a tremor of goodnight.

Patterns

Rocking Horse

Leather, cool and cracked.

It is not the first, but the last;

Time has escaped us once again.

Saddle resting upon her back,

44 inches of courage that I lack.

Fasten, tighten, pull.

Frosted plastic in my hand;

Her mouth – wrinkles like valleys span,

Crafted to a face, shaped around an eye.

Dust escapes before boots and hooves,

Foot in stirrup, in walk, in trot she moves -

One, two, one two, one two

In placid eyes tears roll back and forth

On my flawless rocking horse;

Canter – one two three one two three

To dismount is to give up, to fail;

Instead sweet sweat and dust with each inhale.

But we cannot be one forever

One two three four one two three four,

I dream of her steps six years before.

But now she moves away, not towards.

I have grown too big to even try

To mount once more to say goodbye

Silly that over this plastic that I cry?

Evergreen Forest

Evergreen Forest

The air is frozen

The frost has coated everything

The needled trees

Lose their tops in the sky

The moon plays upon an icy mirror

Listen to the owl call

You are not alone right now

Your breath floats among the bush

And the last leaf falls

But you must trust

That spring leaven will come again.

Just like Sisyphus

Strains against the common chore

We must fight for our right

To live in unconsequence

But you, you of little faith

Have left the altars for the others

And now upon a forest night

Stand between the skies.

But let us not lose our faith

In private past and future

In a world of dreams of

Bright and beautiful illusion

It has truly lost all happiness

And mercy for another kind

Now the forest absolves the sound

Of great men fighting blind.

Night Light

Night Light

When she was too old

She closed the door,

Took the light out

of the wall.

She put it in a box

Inside

her closet.

She proclaimed

I am too old

for light.

And so she lay

Beneath

the ceiling.

No monsters came

And she tried to be

too old.