In Gulf

As you toddle like a buoy,
greedy girls scoop shells by the bucketful
and I lie on the sand, blending in.
The cicadas scream in the moss-dripping trees
as Winter clatters in her pool.
Tomorrow the black will ink everything out.

Gift for David

It may weigh less than a pound
and remain in a locked chest,
but put your ear to it,
it is there
repeating,
repeating.
Do with it what you will
for it is yours.

The Letter

Her voice slid into my ear;
she wished that I would write her
to give her news from home.
I sat, armed with pad and pen.
The stark sheet glared,
a beacon waiting to be lit.

The events of the year bobbed through my head,
fat balloons with neat strings
waiting to be released.
Yet I, always brimming with words,
could not bear to set down
even the most insignificant happenings.

She had no right to them.
She should have been here,
writing to friends afar,
sending love from home.
She should not wander away
and then wonder what's become of me.

Folding the naked sheet,
I slid it into the envelope
and sent it first class to the new world.
A world without me.

Silence Lives Here

It's louder than anything.
Dishes fall and shatter noiselessly,
the vacuum's muffled,
the spark of a match is unheard,
the television drones on, muted.
Silence booms.
It wormed it's way
over cleaning rags
and grocery lists,
straight to my heart
and ate it.

A Revelation

I choke on the air
thick with the stench
of surmise.
Biting into that bastard apple
made my teeth ring cloyingly.
A simple optic scan reveals nothing.
You must peel me.
Pared of my skin,
is my viscera a revelation?
Does the tinny taste of my heart
bring you relief?

Contagium

If I held you here in the atrium
for twenty-thousand years
would you understand me,
word for soot-black word?

Sometimes, lying flat,
I rise out of my skin to float.
An apparition, I can see
my marrow is also yours.

If only lunacy were contagious,
you would see me
residing in your skin, your bones.

Instead, I hold you to me
and bury thoughts
between covers of leather-
shelves and shelves of ugly mirrors.

First Date

Small talk over coffee
undoubtedly leads to talking
about our passions.
I can see in your eyes
that the mere mention of my art
throws up red flags for you.

You imagine me
an eccentric woman
in a thrift-store cardigan
sipping darjeeling
and quoting poets
long dead before Lincoln.

I'll ravage you nightly
before ranting in riddles
about cocoons and radishes,
things you won't understand.

After birthing our children by moonlight
I'll bury the placenta
under the daffodils
and insist on homeschool
before I crack.

You'll come home to find me
leaping from the 13th floor
with both wrists slit
hanging from the rafters
with my head in the oven.

Heckled by the neighbors,
you're the talk of the town-
the question looming
until your last days
'Did he drive her to it?'

Back in coffee shop reality,
you smile and say "That's nice."
But I know better
than to expect a return call.