On your Birthday

I’d like to write you

a poem. I would tell you how much

chocolate I would give

away to save you from the threat

of a dessertless meal. I might measure

my love in heartbeats; the ones

I can hear with my ear against

your chest, the ones

you gave me, and the many

yet to come. This hypothetical

poem would probably be brief, in part

because my attention span

is short (did I get that from you?) and

also because I’d like to finish

by 3:00. But before I write the final line,

I should remind you

how deeply

you are loved and how

privileged I have been

to know you

all my life.

8:10

There was a moment

this morning-

before the weight of the day

had fully descended, settling

snug and warm around my shoulders-

there was a moment when I thought

I’d lost you.

Not in the mortal sense, or

in the way I lose my keys when I am

rushing

to catch the 8:10 train, but more like

when I lose my train

of thought; I thought you’d been

derailed, diverted, directed towards

a different destination, one that would leave me

waiting

at this station

by the ugly statue, my arms

crossed against the cold, still

wondering.

Withdrawal

Her laugh
was what she left me when
she died. That night, windshields shone
like widened eyes. Lights flicked
on and doors opened all
down the street. A half moon paused 
in a sky of aquamarine. 

When a spider crawls across
My ceiling, I scream. But when I saw
her cheeks, 
rubber under rouge, made up like
a baby doll, I only 
stared. These were not the cheeks
I had brushed my lips against
at night before I climbed the
14 steps to my silent bed and she went back
to cigarette smoke and Wheel of Fortune
on the TV.
 
She also left a note. Withdrawal
written carefully- an apology
in blue ink, but I know my father
killed her long
before her car
collided with that tree.

Against the Sky

There’s the tight

hum, the high-pitched, incessant

ringing

from the TV, even on mute. It follows

me through

the apartment like a headache

even after I have turned

it off, turned away and

strode, purposefully, into

the kitchen. I turn it off to turn my

self back on, to acknowledge

my hands, to hear my

uninterrupted

thoughts and notice the sun just

winking out of sight beyond

the fire escape, escaping these

final hours of the day. It’s

when I turn the lights off, too,

that my eyes

can finally find

the moon and trace

the tree tops,

that simple latticework of leaf, dark

against the sky, quiet

above the rooftops,

moving steadily with the wind.

Slightly neurotic, easy going

This is another found text poem along the same theme as the previous post, this time using only the first lines of women’s online dating profiles. Again, the line breaks are mine, otherwise the sentences are copied and pasted from the profiles.

 

Slightly neurotic, easy going.

 

Well, where to begin. Born

and raised in the center

of the universe. Interested,

I suppose. Slightly neurotic, easy going

girl..err, woman, with

too much charm

for the average person to handle. Rabbit

rescuer. By day, I’m a

mild-mannered

accountant. Once I was a pig

farmer in Italy. I am a transplant. I have all

my limbs. I have

a weakness

for tattoos and dimples, but neither

are necessary. When I was young

I wanted

to be a trapeze artist or

a taxi driver. Basically,

I spend 90% of my life feeling like I’ve got this adulthood thing

down

and the other 10%

eating nachos for dinner

three nights in a row. What is anyone

doing

with their lives?

Adult Male

Monument to the “Father of our Country”

I’m a complex person, but
here goes
nothing.
I promise
I’m not a serial killer.
I’m an introspective social
chameleon. I love
the good life. The screeching roar
of jet engines makes me
indescribably
giddy. I’m happier
than I’ve ever been. I’m ravenous
for life and have razor-sharp teeth
pointed
at the plate. I am an open
book with sticky pages
and a good
read. I’m 99 pounds
of pure
dynamite. Adult
male.

This is a found text poem using the first lines from men’s online dating profiles. The line breaks are mine, the text is copied directly from the profiles.