Once we have

once we’ve shaken each other loose

before pretending we are

strangers. there’s a short-lived, brief-heavenly

moment. respite. goosebumps.

when i touch and feel your teeth

without my tongue

having to leave my mouth for what

historically tends to be the last time.

were we our names

were we our families

are we our hair

are we our bodies

January

The geese are still here
Circling this man-made lake,
One stays behind, standing lightly on the
Slowly thawing ice,
Goading on her airborne friends
Til she can't hear them anymore.
Seagulls are settling on lampposts inland
The rhythms are thrown 
My foot rocks the stroller back 
And forth and back and forth 
And somewhere underneath all those layers 
His chests rises and falls

How Was It?

How was it,

which is a centrifuging question,

a heavy, heavy question,

a question you must answer

in order to peel oneself from the wall.

Words deposed actions,

an action is not free,

it exacts some kind of cost,

so when your body finally packs it in

you must exact gratitude,

no-one wants you left there

clacking, and, marble molared 

lower jaw down and out.

Boys Go to Jupiter to Get More Stupider

16 year old girls who still call me miss
want to chat over hot cocoa
tell me
"boys are so stupid!"
and i say
"oh, are they?"
and they say
"You don't know??!"
they tell stories
of buying panties
and younger brothers making jokes
and feminist ideas about utopia
but missing the vocabulary to really talk about that
but I suggest training boys to be the way we want
and they screech
"YESSS!"
and then they go back to class

XSTIAN ROCK

Equate everything, and praise

negate everything, til glory be

calcimine ladder like a

Hobby Lobby prop

(to hang the gypsy ribbons from)

glitter garland abandoned

in the parking lot

cruise the aisles

til adrenaline subsides

you’re on the run, decked out

Christ in me 
– feathers, daisies

true saviors ignore the alarm

on their way out the door