Poetry

If I cut you off and mail you to a lover.
Promise to become a better listener.
Take notes and stay open.   If it happens today,
Remember, the last thing you heard was not me
Crying, saying things like, change is hard.
It would have been the welcome mat,
The one with a dumb slogan like, hello, beside
An image of Lional Richie’s sexy look. You spoke
The word aloud when you answered the first
Phone call. My lover oddly resembles Lional Richie
And might, after receiving my bloody ear, call it
a sexy look. I heard that a Jared Leto fan severed an ear
From their face, then mailed it to the American Psycho actor.
“I poked a hole in it, and wore it as a necklace,” Leto admits.
A meteorologist on a hotel bed remembers the quote,
And he tells us, laughing while leaning into his elbow.
Jay Leno wore a human’s ear around his neck?
I say in disbelief between bites of cheese pizza.
Leto, Jared Leto. My friend goes. The hot one
with a cult-like following, opposite to the late-night
host with a cameo in the Cars franchise.
I could have died in those giggles, but I stopped
To listen, with both of my ears still intact.

If I cut you off, dear left ear, and mail you to a lover,
The last thing you heard was the welcome mat
He dragged across the hardwood floor, Your friend
Decided to beat the dead insects and specks
Of dust out from the valleys of the coarse fabric.
Welcome back, welcome back your eyes scanned
The words over and over again, until they
Stung like a thousand honeybees.

You were getting good. You were getting really good.

a couple waits at the abandoned bus stop

the man stands with his hands in his pockets
looking towards the sunrise behind
the apartment building

the woman sits with her hands clasped
between her legs
watching the rare car and breeze pass by

the distance between them
is a curtain of the unsaid

his      too comfortable conversations
with the occasional coworker

her      with the young teacher
having been left to deal alone
with the children’s schooling

all the moments where “no”
kept them steady
gather dust in the cluttered rooms
of memory

the man’s left hand comes out of his pocket
opens to receive her right hand
and they walk true north

for all the dreams short lived
for all the sighs brief and deep
i will build a castle

cars have their streets
people their houses
we     moved to the wind

for all the nights i walked to nowhere
and ended at your side
for you, who waited     arms crossed
i will build a castle

to moments we sent
like arrows to autumn stars
i will dig a grave

the rooms are empty in october
in what we once called us

Timeless feelings, the Appalachian trail
and the love I hold for you like the sky.
A time zone countenance and research
that’s gone all wrong.

Have you noticed, how the trees like to talk
mostly on Tuesdays and Thursdays?
They whispered in my ear,
if you get it wrong, you’ll still be alright.

Lock jaw and tact as hard as rock,
you broke the ground and found something
none of us ever talked about.
You’ve been my hero for a while now.

I still read about that Golden Child
you say you saw,
still wonder what’s true and how to behave.
When I’m with you, I feel the freedom,
and the weight.

there is another person that figures
the sandwich will be tough to bite into and
the road will feel much shorter on the way back.
grief is a shoe, unlaced. all rocks look alike, but you are special.
this person knows that the long trench coat was made for you.
they adore the fit. they see it like a permanent blanket over the body.
the small scrapes in life will become part of the frayed quilt, still unfinished
apparently. the much larger problems will become the sunset, red and drippy.
this person knows the figure eight made with a pencil, encoding infinity
onto our schoolwork, for probable solutions and determination,
was not really to test knowledge, but to scaffold endurance.
this person would like to sleep inside warm thighs.
you have thighs. you have washed the green grapes.
they are ready to be plucked from their stem, rationed
like bad advice, then devoured in seconds.

there too, is a love out there. it is waiting for you, ripe and ready
to be plucked from its dry stem, and rationed, then devoured
only in seconds.