To Disagree

We continued to have
the same fight
of who knew first.
I still think I win.
Because I consider
the damp night
at Egan’s
when I gave you
the eye and saw you
receive it.
Or when I happened upon
your office door,
the blinds cutting at
your collarbone,
and I entered—you with your
cooling soup and
nonchalance.
Without flinching,
you let me finger
the scar down the back
of your neck.
The Cuban café,
sweetened condensed milk,
our knees pointing to
each other’s joints
from scooted bar stools.
I knew before all that.
And the art show,
with her in hand,
her plum eyeshadow,
your goosebumped
arms’ slack grip.
And after.

And then.
When I followed your scribbled
directions, led me
behind the bakery,
your black t-shirt approaching
in hasty step.
We sat on
the futon, pretending
to be engaged in the box
of photographs, so attentive
to one another’s
chests, rising and falling
and catching.

That’s when you said it.
And to speak it was not
nearly as smooth as the
feeling it. But I was still
first, you know.
I came to believe you that night
at the reading.
That elongated room
of unfamiliar people,
all staring at your
hand on my leg,
at us, unfazed
by such tradition.
That was the best reading
of your life, you said,
and it felt like
a film reel,
proverbial,
revived.
Recall the days
of blustery walks
past the taco stand where
Nate greeted us by name.
Remember October
when you wore the wallflower
costume I painted,
the plastic rose poking
your skin through the cardboard.
What about my birthday song,
the vacuum cleaner you doodled
on the copy, initials smeared
at the bottom.
It was of these things I began
to erase.
The trips I made
less frequent.
The bakery light dimmed.
The photographs shifting into
another frame of what was.
And I was first.
And you were
there,
left in the afterward.

BREAK TIME

I work in the basement
underneath the sandwiched layers of
the bustle and the buck,
the corrupt, chug, chug, get to the
top
from bulky men in polished striped
suits that pucker, stuff
their breaths.

I wander
out back, slender women break
for cigarette snack, chatter cracking
broken walls and laughter sways,
c’mon, don’t play
they scold one another,
hands on hips, lips that have
long since let that go.

DREAMCATCHER

Cusp my highest hope
in the roped sinews of your
weaving, my dreaming
and its meaning in a ring.
You knew it before I
made it a thought, dressed
up in taut, sequined fancy.
You allowed the vapors
to enter your web and
collect at the plumed ends-
a developed composition
of all of the beauty
I have ever known.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

An indiscernible hourglass overturns
As two players stake their places
Intentions clean and
Defenses hanging
BOOM.
They’re off.

A harbored sadness slenders
When couple does way with heed
Belly laughs
And anxiousness
BANG.
The dust…

An expected inquiry arises
As one shifts in picnic seat
Flags wave as
Fingers recoil
BAM.
It’s gone.

Before that time at Weaver Street
Until that night on patterned sheet
Upon that day you stroked my face
With a wetted yellow cloth

Before that time in my gravel drive
Until that storm that made me cry
Upon the day after the 4th
When we asked the hardest ones

And we answered it was done.

\1ləv\:

Even the slightest abrasion
leaves a mighty crimson pool
The most discreet of secrecies
impossibly subdued
Every paradigm accepted –
rejected without cost
Even those on the right track
become miserably lost
The bitter, the sweet,
the tangy and tired,
the strong, the weak, the willing
It’s the insatiable satisfaction felt
and the emptiness of filling

THE SWIM

He calls on a whim. But there’s more
lurking round the bend for them. He cuts
his ties and dives in head first- making a
monster of a splash.

He squeezes her shoulder while walking by with a grin,
looks her in the eye when they speak.

They listen to music. She tells him what
she’s thinking, and he’s always glad to hear.
Sometimes they touch on the pains of the
past. The sting of such isn’t what it used
to be-

They watch movies. A brief shower to a long
stretch of time on their backs—the most
comfortable mattress. Another late night talking deep into dark…

Another quiet prayer for protection from the shark.