The Epilogue

We found ourselves under that bridge,

crammed in the corner with our knees bent,

keeping cold.

Graffiti crawled all around us.

I watched you walk the tracks

until you were out of my sight.

I saw a branch with some yellow leaves and sat still.

I'm so sorry.

I had to kiss you when the train went by.

Afterwards,

your cigarette took a stylistic fall from grace-

our firework.

You believed in magic, momentarily.

It was like a light was going off in my head;

A slow red flash.

I write poetry for my poetry writing class.

Cleaning My Room 

I pick my way through 

layers of debris ,

find magnetic poetry pieces.

Pound. Chrysalis. Extract.

Here is that note from my mother

half crumpled next to the underwear

still upturned in my jeans.

the broken earring 

next to the receipt from the book  store

It seems I wore purple last Wednesday.

Pausing, I see that

my carpet is, in fact, beige

and capable of being

startlingly bare.

Windows

I gaze at each glass face

of the cherubim seraphim, 

their childish eyes

two shards of bright blue

catching light in adoration.

The sharp angle of their

eternally outstretched arms

is rigid.

Their small wings

flutter pointlessly-

opaque white tips, 

so far from feathers,

better for birds than fat babies

Their mortar mouths are all loving, 

and not knowing. 

But I want Michael, 

swinging his flaming sword

with a flourish and a roar,

playing poker with Gabe on Saturday nights, 

blowing smoke rings from his heavenly cigar;

forming clouds.

Strangers

Today I met a brain

in between the shelves

at the library.

We talked innocently

and liked each other instantly

I'll be fine.

Late Afternoon in Powder Valley

The paved trail breaks through this forest

like a pencil line scribbled across 

a sheet of grainy paper.

A spider stands.

I inspect her perfect tangles

the sheer dotted net, detected only in 

the ray of sunlight

that is bending off my glasses.

Nearby, a tree has given itself over

to soft moss, and fungus 

that wraps around its trunk 

like a lace collar.

It reminds me of me.

I adorn myself, talk too much

pick words apart 

like sunflower seeds between my teeth

in this quiet place.

Coming Home Late

In the hour between night and morning

I arrive to my dark house

the front door swings open, not inviting. 

The night is intermingling with my living room

the air is charged.

Locking the faulty bolt, 

I switch on each light

drag my hands against the walls

clutch my car keys.

With a sigh.

I pet the dog, 

and laugh without an audience.  

Still,

I think I'll lock my bedroom door tonight,

scoop up my small sister,

let her her sleep beneath my arm.

Riding Bikes with Justin

 

It's not like they say,

this isnt coming easy.

There is no flashbulb childhood memory

of my father pushing me down a grassy hill;

no thrill of rememberence.

 

Justin glides on my left,

effortlessly.

His shoes are clipped into the pedals.

 

I gently lift my grip away

from the handle bars.

 

An hour later, he is a distant flashing light.

I'm tired and should turn back.

But I've never felt so self-propelled,

and I would follow him anywhere.

 

 

 

This Road Trip was so Carefully Planned

 

An anthology of mixed CDs

rests on the dashboard.

A glare from the windshield angles itself

towards the cooler full of iced coffee.

 

I think back to that gas station,

the long walk to you took to find a place to smoke,

while I breathed in sweet gasoline

and bought a map we haven't dared to unfold.

 

We were good at not talking.

We spent all those nights

practicing sitting still

and watching the world go by--

on your couch.

 

I guess its just funny

how we have no idea

where we're going.

Because I was tired of lying in bed alone.

I want to lay in bed with Charlie and leave whale noises on Justin's answering machine and look at softer world comics and have him be above them.

I want to lay in bed with Maria with all these grand plans for talking, so we could end up sleeping. I want to lay little ice cubes and aloe all over her back when she gets sunburned and wake up in the morning and take our time tanning topless in the yard anyway.


I want to lay in bed with Becca and listen to her talk about her sims, webkinz, friends, play practice, show choir, how her hair never stays curled, how she wants Julie to come home and I just hold her and let her feel small and wish she was smaller and wish I was smaller and mutter "Me too, baby".

Jenn Dean II

I do not need you on rainy days.
The nights I feel lonely,
the mornings where tears come before breakfast.

It is the beautiful moments of my life,
the late night bike rides
air that smells like a season
friends smiling near piles of dead leaves

when I want to cut you carefully out
of your Ithaca postcard back drop,
with tiny sharp scissors
and paste you back into my life.

Losing your sun glasses. (for Eddie)

Distracted by the yellow leaves,
all soft and ginko on the ground at the park,
I got up to leave and left
your sun glasses behind.

I wasn't being careless, its just,
I never plan my exits.
I drift out of my scene when the wind takes me,
like a yellow leaf.

Now I think of you,
in the library,
flinging something precious into my hands
and how I protested
and how I told you so,
how the sun gets in my eyes.

Annie Dillard said that each day is a god.

The god of today is a child, looking out the window at November and rushing to be let out, to touch and crackle along sidewalks, examine fallen pumpkins, to twitter.

There is a fusion of life and death in this day's morning, as there is in all mornings when the god is young and the sun still trying to rise, and we praise him into our darker coffees, with our thicker sweaters we sing hosanna. We live among the dead leaves. We live and we breathe until our lungs hurt. We live and think this child god is forever, or ages as slowly as we do, we live like afternoon will never come. We love autumn in the freshest of ways.

But we breathe in and forget, we breathe out and the air isn't quite as fresh, already, we feel complacent, settled, bored, ready for the first snow to come this evening and melt greenly tomorrow morning.

We confuse god for Thomas Kincaid, and exchange that which is beautiful for that which is syrupy, picturesque, and gilded. I would rather eat a grainy apple than a golden one, all cold and metallic-- rock salt between my teeth. May November 2nd never come.