A La Plage

Impending Doom

A pathetic excuse for the night sky
like faded black construction paper
closer to violet or navy blue
than the void of the universe.
The closer it gets to the cityscape
the lighter it becomes,
and in some places
just beyond the horizon,
is pure white light.
I've been told its just
a baseball stadium across the bay.

But I prefer to believe
it is impending doom.
A bomb has been released
and the following blast
is slowly creeping over
the curve of the earth.

The sky is too hazy and the shoreline too lit
to see a single glitter star
in the construction paper sky tonight.
So Iwait fot the end of the world
under a sometimes violet, sometimes navy sky
in the pretend silence, a faked reverence
for the final moments of exchanging
oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Did I treasure all my chances to walk?
I cry for the beauty of lifetimes gone past.
I cry for a baseball stadium lighting up the sky.


He Will Disappoint You

You are who mothers
should warn their daughters
(girls who are charmed by
starry romance and blue eyes) about.
Forget those dark haired boys
sizzling with danger
and smoldering with sex.
No self-respecting girl
with expectations and ideals
will fall in love with him
for the first time.
Leave him to older women
with better taste and the ability
to identify their needs.
No, mothers, tell your daughters
about the nice boys
with honest smiles and easy laughs.
They will make your girls glow,
assured in their uniqueness and beauty.
With their collared shirts and fathers' cars
they are too kind to tell them no.
They will teach your daughters
how to fend for themselves
when they realize even perfection
can fall to lacking.


I see my worst

I see my worst in other people-
the flaws I've tried so hard to hide,
I recognize them in action
while I kept them always in my mind.
The quick and easy lie,
a slight desperation for compan,
for love, loneliness,
an unwillingness to forgive,
attempts to mask my ignorance.
The only difference between
those I find pathetic, and myself
(whom I sometimes find pathetic as well)
is my ability to capture my impulses.
I flatter myself, that I have this skill.
But if I didn't, wouldn't I recieve
knowing looks, when others
mirrored my shameful traits?


Sisters of Suffering

We are swans, languid
stretched out on the shore,
pale breasts exposed
waiting to be ravished
by Apollo, not Zeus,
like the corruption of a creation myth.

We stubbornly deny the heat
sweat dripping onto the sand.
We bask in over indulgence,
for soon our skin will bear the prize.
Beautiful in our suffering.

We are fallen birds, easily seduced
unable to escape a different siren's call.

We are our own sirens.
Glorious, glorious on the shore.

We lie supine in grace
not moving, only rotating.

We are basted, turned, and baked.


A Formal Complaint

I would like to lodge a complaint
against hand towels in all forms and positions.
I deem them pointless, useless, ugly luxuries.
In every bathroom, poweder room, half-bath
hang those terry cloth atrocities
embroidered with flowers or sometimes ducks.
I blame hand towels for crimes against humanities.


Families at Low Tide

I watch families at low tide.
One day I will be married
I will have children.
At least, I am told, that is what's done.

I watch families at low tide.
Mothers in semi-flattering bathing suits,
saggy bottomed and thick legged,
and potbellied husbands with hairy backs.
When does this hairy-back sydrome take place?
Does the receding hair line replace itself on the back?

I watch families at low tides.
Beautiful little children tanned beyond belief
with shoulder blades I have always coveted.
They race the tide and roll in the sand
while they are guarded
like treasure, worth their weight in gold
by those saggy mothers and hairy fathers.
I realize I won't mind if that is my lot in life.

I Hear This Isn't Living

The Future

For the first time in the history of love
I worried about a broken heart.
I saw the future and I was shaken.
I was missing you terribly, desperately,
the curtains blocking sunlight like shrouds.
I saw the future and in it, I had finally
forgotten to be rational
forgotten to measure out each decision
instead I ran full-force into your arms,
only to be dropped rudely-
all the king's men could not put me together
with all the glue in the world.
I saw the future- for once I was not considerately
informing a man it was his time to move on.
Instead you left abruptly and quickly
but not painlessly.
I know you are the one I would let break my heart.
This future was not as I pictured.


A Solid Defense

I wear a mask, stainless steel. It covers my entire body.
Some might call it armor
but I call it as I see it- my protection of lies.
So disregard:what I say,
the posture of my spine,
how I kiss you-
none of it is real in comparison to
the words battling in my mind.
I tell you nothing of what I think:
I even betray with my eyes
schooled glassy like marbles,
the same reflective depth.
I shield so you can't disappoint.
You ask
Will I see you?
I say
No.
But I think
I would see you forever.
But I deflect, defend
and walk away.

Epiphanies and Defense Mechanisms

You unzip your skin but all I see are bones

You unzip your skin but all I see are bones-
nothing special, nothing to brag about,
nothing worth the way
you'd been holding me in suspense.
I'd seen you laid bare before,
when you hadn't chosen to reveal yourself:
when fate and failure intervened
and split you open at the seams.
So the utmost private innermost you
is not so surprising: my apologies.
Your carefully composed unveiling
is laughable in the dark.
***

Maryland Weather

The world might have drowned
but at least it cracked the heat
hovering over us, a suspended dome
of heavy glazed pottery,
dripped in honeyed brown.
We were trapped beneath
with no air to breathe
only moisture in our throats
weighing us down against car seats.
Like a tumble and plunge to a hard floor
rain burst through the thickened air.
Relief to a dark skied day.
Floods on the roadways.
***

Blue Sweater

Will you hate me
if I stiffen when
you promise to be the last?
I edge away; I doubt
those dreams of forever.
No one can swear eternity.
No one is so omniscient.
No one is so true.
I am skeptical of everlasting love,
even from the divine.
So how can you:
mortal, flawed, with a penchant
for blue sweaters,
offer me something
I think is impossible
to exist?

What the Body Remembers and the Mind Forgets

What the Body Remembers

I washed my hands
but, puzzled, I still felt
the need to wash again, this time
with the water blistering hot.
I scrubbed my face
until I glowed pink-
new, just born,
and smelling of apricots-
but still puzzled.
I considered rubbing away
with handfuls of sand.
The need to scrape,
to flay my skin:
overwhelming, consuming.

In desperation
I tried to solve
the mystery of my skin.
What is it creeping on the surface
or beneath, unseen?

The mind does not try to remember
but it seems the body
cannot forget.