I'm so sorry to clog up your airwaves with half-baked words plucked from the air.
I'm trying to get back on track
But quality can be a casualty
To an unyielding idea of
Powering through

Sweet sweet round and round
The big bush in the driveway
Circled in bikes with training wheels
A McDonald's take-out window
Dream big
A thicket dense and opaque
A pretend hamburger patty
tasted like nothing
And a plate of spaghetti was something to hide from
Under the kitchen table

Let's fold our legs up and press backs into sofas and chairs
To re-hash our stories
The snapping turtle in the crib
Stuck in the snow-mud on a spring day
In freshly cut jean shorts
Which one of dad's failed business ventures?
We'll protect each other (ourselves) from pricklier washed out memories
I know mine are:
A feeling of forgotten-ness
A vague dread of being in trouble spread wide around
And something too about not being enough

I've heard glimmers of yours,
But don't know them by touch
In the dark of night
And soon you might be too far away to ask.
But I never seem to rest my head on your shoulder
even  when you're near.

Your cashmere elbow
Your fine bowlcut

My witch skirt
My bowl full of mush

I am waiting for the dance revival to come around again
That high from shaking cells up
Throwing limbs through the air
The pendulum swings back
Motion inertia motion
Limber hips
Muscles longer and stronger
And the feeling of making something
Come true
From thin air

This year
I forgot to write a poem about my brother on his birthday.
It's slipping in this direction
Like a pair of tights
The crotch always sagging away from warmth
Towards the ground.
The corners of my lips turn down
When I'm not thinking
And when I am thinking
Of how those laces are loosening
Tied together in some hardship
To help keep us all afloat.
How do we shake off the sinking feeling
And not the thread that binds us?

In a room full of sleeping children
Sweet twitching feet
Rubbed against each other
And resettled.
This time
It's peace
Next time
It's time
To put your shoes back on

Dad partied too hard at the Disco last night
Straining in calico perched on the toilet
We'll keep at it, and see what comes
The dawn
And another one

Almost

I almost couldn't make my arms swing or lift my knees. The left kneecap creaked each time I brought it up and put it back down.
But in my ears, the sound of a five year old asked why Earth is called Earth.
And in the field, a cat jumped across a trickling, just unfrozen stream, coming up a slight incline.
Distractions like these
detracted
the minutes
until it was enough.
Enough plugging, enough hopping over ice and mud.
When I turned around, the cat was hidden–just his head showed. And I was on the way back home.

A Taste

THey said they liked the taste of lobster–
the exotic salt of sea and sand under the shell.
And we were on vacation at the beach, after
all. Playing daily in the waves–coming back to the smell

of boiling, curdling, briny water
whistling in the pot,
with the tops of claws swiveling and reaching out once it got hotter,
like the noontime asphalt in the lane on our bare feet. Too hot.

"Can't have shellfish at all," said Paul
in Greenpoint, this Christmas holiday break.
"No lobster? That's a shame," Dad replied, then remembered the way they'd crawl
on the wooden floorboards before he plucked them up to make

dinner for his extended family. Playing executioner
because we said we liked the taste of lobster.

gadget gadget
good school gadget
move on out to the suburbs
gadget on the ferry
gadget on the subway
husband tracker
check the fridge on the gadget
so you can put in your fresh direct order
that 120k a year isn't going to spend itself

There's something poignant about windows and doors
The last m&m stashed in an old coat pocket
The man who runs the hardware store spotted on his walk to work.
And a young boy running in his charter school uniform to catch a city bus.
The cringe of a feeling when a homeless man asks for 50 cents
‎as I ‎speak this poem into my cell phone microphone.

broken teeth

my teeth are broken for years now
when I was 15 years old I told my mom
take them all out and give me dentures
but she turned her back
probably facing back towards cooking the pork chop
(I only remember eating pork chops)

she got me braces
the orthodontist said I was highly evolved
she yelled at me when I didn't wear my retainer
and my broken broken teeth
rearranged themselves crooked
the day after Halloween sophmore year
my front tooth throbbed
I tried to swallow a tylenol at the spirit rally
sitting on the bleachers
but instead spat it out into the hair
of the girl in front of me
she didn't seem to notice

yes they've gotten yellower over the years
I don't remember when that started
but the dentist said there's no enamel left
and they soak up color
and the molar that never grew in
and the molar below it that leans towards my tongue
because there's nothing to keep it standing up straight

when smile big now
that's a reclaiming
a resistance against that same old pressure
lean into that

what's that alchemy,
that desperate thirst
and a dewyness on your sweater?
Drink in that sight
of every little object
and the combinations of them