mary jane and i

catalog the things i swore
i’d never do

smoke a cig drink a beer
kiss a boy come
to church
high fall in love
listen to classic
rock try meth sleep
with a friend’s husband
tell my parents
the truth cheat
on a test or a boyfriend
go back to you

search my pockets
for a light

listen to the chimes

wonder
how that distant white-washed plank of wood
can help
but waver like heat-mirage
or smoke-filtered light

15

You can’t drive yet
and no one invited you to the beach
so you’ll watch Parker Lewis reruns in the mornings,
go to Pizza Hut with your parents,
roller blade to your sister’s empty school and swing.
Your dad will rent Cool Hand Luke,
but you’ll only watch the first half.
Your mom won’t say anything
when you fill two ice trays with Sunny D and forget about them.

You will read Bleak House
because it’s the thickest book you can find
and tape the same Lisa Loeb song
every time it comes on 94.1
which is a lot
but you won’t mind because you like the way she rambles
through an unfurnished apartment in the video
and her glasses
and anyway it sort of fits,
but you’ll click it off
during that one with the fat girl in a bee costume.

You’ll shower until the water turns cold,
slide into pajama bottoms and long sleeves and socks
and wonder what it’s like to be a Muslim woman,
if covering that much flesh makes her feel safe.
You’ll sit Indian-style under the kitchen window,
brickface rough against your back,
watch the bug light,
decide you hate yellow more than any other color.

For you Yankee boys who don't know

We say your names:
you hear
back porch wind chimes,
bonfires and beer,
river mud between the toes
and honeysuckle gone mad.

We wrap our lips
around those long
vowels
and drowsy consonants
like caressing a peach
or confessing

all our sins, Amen.
We’ve got church between our legs,
full of the sprinkler Saturdays
and Holy Spirit bloodrush
we grew up on,
and you can hear it all.

But don’t forget, these Amazing Grace lips
can slice,
jab you
in tender, unexpected places
like rusted barbwire
when forgotten and overgrown.

Shades of Purple

She bruises with so little cause
And I bleed just as easily,
But the blackberries are ripe and
My jaw hinges sting with promise

Of cobbler, hot and gooey, brown
Crunch over juice-burst rush of sweet
Grit. We must work quickly, fill this
White plastic bucket at least half-

Way before the clouds issuing
Their bass warnings above us can
Pelt our shoulders and bare heads with
Angry, hard drops of summer sky.

They think we are stealing this fruit
Even though the brambles are ours,
Or at least as much as any
Living thing can belong to a

Family. Still, thorned branches shake
Outraged fingers at us, scratch lines
Of reprimand across her palms,
My wrist. Their scarlet message is

Clear to both of us. Yet her hands
Move with the quick, implacable
Twists I try to imitate, and
She never grimaces, even

As we run toward the house, the
Bucket held before us like an
Offering, an appeasement meant
For the accusatory wind.

Fucking Karma!

I couldn’t be surrounded by photogenic friends,
their heads thrown back at my wit as I hold court
on a party-lit skyscraper rooftop
or some twilight beach terrace
and Vivaldi drifts through the French doors,
wind rippling my Versace button-down just enough
for a photo shoot,
one arm gesturing with a flashing martini glass,
the other tucked around the broad shoulders
of a full-lipped blond who can’t seem to take his
hand out of the back pocket of my linen slacks
in my favorite shade of gray.

Hell no. Not even close.

Instead, I haven’t showered or shaved
in well over 24 hours and I’m wearing these goddamned glasses
that make me look like I have about 6 cats
and an unhealthy enthusiasm for Star Trek.
I’m sporting a thrift store T-shirt
and carpenter jeans and oh my sweet fucking jesus Birkenstocks,
fucking Birkenstocks like I think it’s 1995,
and pushing a cart full of powdered donuts
and toilet paper and Dean Koontz and Hilary Duff,
and his shirt is ironed and very much not from Second Chances
and so he knows I miss him and therefore
he wins.