Poetry
Selected Works
Worn to Gold
Though once I saw bronze statues worn to gold
As trapped by mortal hands whose touch consumes
(I too spent years as long and still and cold
Rubbed wrong and made to shine in crowded rooms)
The air that moves our lungs itself corrodes
Our armor rusts us in our lonely place
Another's palm in ours does not erode--
It polishes a glow too soon erased
This world our own wears down nerves taut and thin
One fact can change your all if you'll allow:
Though we may grate against each others' skin
We keep each other gold as we know how
All statues, one by one, will serve the birds
But we were bright as copper, tin, and words
Vessels
I carry myself through the museum
I leave my backpack at the front desk
(It has my bottled water inside)
But I still keep my phone in my pocket
In case I need it for something
I can hardly contain myself
So much of us has survived
Bowls and jars and ceremonial urns
Greek amphorae and Moche stirrup spouts
I circle my way through each exhibit
And my branching path is lined with vessels
They are all Good Shapes
Variations on a theme of round
Some are even still sealed
Their substance long since settled
They have circled the world to be here
Carried as cargo on much larger vessels
By the currents of empire and the hands of scholars
Bartered and smuggled and broken to pieces
Many have gone through the fire twice
Now a silent collection under tempered glass sheets
I can feel the pulse in my forehead
And in my hands
As my blood carries its cargo
A constant circulation
I'm glad I am here to pay my respects
But I can hardly contain myself
To see them all here and made to rest
I feel something beginning to pour ot
A substance long since settled
Pounds against its seal
I learned the other day that
As we grew in the currents
It was blood before bone
We carry the ocean inside of us
The water in our veins is
The best way our bodies have found
To move what we need where we need it
When we needed to move
We packed up our lungs with blood vessels
And away we went to the coast
I carry bottled water wherever I go
I have made my own bowls on a turning wheel
Centering was the hardest part
But with practice, my hands made a perfect circle
And they joined together with all the hands
That have come before mine
So I know what I mean when I say
Vessels are not made to rest
But to fill and to pour and to fill again
A constant circulation
From hand to hand
And place to place
To move what we need where we need it
I buy a little vase to take with me
It is a Good Shape, almost perfectly round
When I pick up my backpack, I place it gently within
And as I walk toward the train that will carry me home
I think of where I will put it
And what I will carry inside
Organ Grinder
Worn down again another year
By this millstone heart
Each time it turns
It takes off one more
Layer of skin
A little bit faster
Than it can grow back
The whole arm aches
From going in circles
The sun rises and sets
In its own rotation
Solstice to solstice
The days are getting longer
But the pressure stays the same
Now the dust of me
Is fine enough
To sift through my fingers
Or the filter of a respirator
Breathe it in deep
Fill up my lungs
With hourglass sand
Worn down again another year
In these limestone ribs
Each tide they bear
Floods every nerve
Carving a canyon
A little bit deeper
Than they can repair
The whole space shakes
From saltwater cycles
The moon pushes and pulls
In its own old phases
Whole face to no face
The days are getting shorter
Til the ocean makes her claim
Now the cave of me
Is large enough
To capture an echo
Or the promise of a stable structure
Tear it apart
All that I built
While it still stands
The tides come in
The sun goes down
The millstone turns
The organ grinder's curse
Of which will hurt the most
To play one song forever
Or to play the final note
Horse Days Ahead
I went to grad school in the middle of nowhere
I drove an hour each way
West in the morning
East at night
The sun in my rear view mirror
Corn fields trailing behind me
A lone ship through a rippling green sea
I would come home too late to see them
But in the morning
If I was very lucky
I caught a glimpse of them as I sped past the farm
And I told myself it would be a good day
Another routine within another routine
I didn't mind the drive, not really
Not with my music
And a chance to see horses
That was already 10 years ago
And the weight of the miles in between
That great expanse where *then* leads to *now*
Finds me in a new land
Unrecognizable
Somehow still
Somehow settled
Somehow happy
We bought a house in the middle of nowhere
I drive an hour to work each morning
With the sun in my eyes
I pass three different horse farms
Which at first felt like cheating
As though any of us could deserve a horse
The weight of those miles in between
I was the one who drove them
With the wind in my hair
My hands on the wheel
And nothing to move toward
Except the chance that tomorrow
There would be horses
Starlings Startled
I.
I read once that there is a room
That is as quiet as we can make it
Until all that is left is the music of your body
The bright trill of electric nerves firing
The dull thud as your heart keeps time
A bacterial choir sings to its host
In your dark holy gut
And you can just make out the words
By the time they pull you out
Before their song is the last thing you ever hear
There is no such thing as silence
Cold comfort on my loudest days
When every noise is made directly at me
With malice aforethought
The call of a starling outside my window
Puts the "vulgar" in
sturnus vulgaris
A railway spike in my middle ear
Hammered briskly at irregular intervals
TAP TAP
II.
In winter it was the snow plows
Now that it's spring
The mowers are worse
An invading army of charioteers
I can tell exactly where each one is
With the certainty of Hannibal, of Alexander
Tracing their battalion's advance through this subdivision
I don't need to see the green carnage in their wake
To know their position down to the house number
"Should I turn on the fan?"
It is a very thoughtful question
I am trying to tell you "no"
My jaw clenches and shifts
When it's as bad as this
My birdcage throat keeps the sound caught tight
But I can't tell you anything
I'm too busy trying to press my whole body through the mattress
Through the basement and the sewer main and the Earth's crust
To somewhere even the HOA can't reach
There won't be grass, but by god
There won't be anyone there to mow it
III.
According to Cicero
The mind of an orator is a palace
Where every place holds a fact
Every fact in its place
Close your eyes as you walk through the vestibule
Past a small periodic table
Covered in atomic weights
And a map of the world
With capital cities circled in red
The method of loci is the best way to remember
Everything you might need to say
To a crowd of friends, of Romans, of countrymen
Everything you might need to say afterwards
To a licensed therapist
TAP TAP
I am not afraid to call myself an orator
Still, my mind is more of an open field
The grass grows tall, the roots dig deep
And every thought is a bright-eyed bird
Of course they are starlings
I didn't choose them
And they didn't choose here
Let loose for the love of Shakespeare
And then left to our own devices
After years I learned that they were too fast to trap
I would trip if I chased them
But if I sit very still
They come to me when they're ready
Eat the offerings I bring in my open hands
Sometimes they even approach patience
As I line them up by height, by weight
Before circling off in threes and fours
A full stanza in flight
The past isn't as heavy when it's a fact
I know my pain the same way I know
The Latin name for a European starling
When I weigh my heart against its feather
They feel exactly the same
Sometimes even I approach peace
TAP TAP
IV.
I wish there was such a thing as white noise
How novel it would be
To have two sounds cancel out into silence
Instead of creating a new, third sound
That I also have to listen to
V.
Now that it's spring
I'm on my last cochlear nerve
As the mowers descend once more
TAP TAP
I can't even finish this poem
Between barking dogs and car horns and
Your birds wouldn't sit still either
In the middle of a hailstorm
I can't even tell you the sound it makes
As they all take off at once
A scattered flurry of wings and beaks and claws and hail
TAP TAP TAP
The hammer in my ear and the--
TAP TAP
TAP TAP TAPTAPTAPTAP TAP
TAP TAP TAP
TAP
VI.
I read once that there is a room
That is as quiet as we can make it
There was no photo with the article
But when I think of that room
It is small
And square
And empty
And a blinding, impossible white
What My Heart Has Been
Half of an accordion
A clenched fist's worth of raw iron
One long yellow banner unfurling from a parapet
A theremin played by a swarm of cicadas
Two supernovas trying to out-collapse each other
An elevator in descent
Three gloved hands clasped tight around a pigeon
A white cereal bowl full of round river stones
Four feet of tight-knotted rope
Hung in the middle of an abandoned barn
Occasionally struck by dust-swirled sunlight from
A hole in the middle of the rotting roof
A hole in the middle of wet red clay
A hole in the middle of a burial shroud
Woven from piano wire
Bitter
Persistent
Mine
Knotistic: A Fool's Journey
0. Commedia dell'autism
Make-up gives me a headache
Along with an existential crisis
If life is a performance
Every decision reveals something about me
What does it mean to change my face
To be more like something that you want to see
I've practiced every day of my life
To adapt to this rotating stage
It's still hard to know when to come in
I run through my lines before each entrance
So when the words come out
They roll off my tongue
Like a trained bear on a ball
I'll play the role of the servant
Anything to have a script
If bigger eyes and brighter lips
Make my expressions easier to read
I'll do it for my audience
As long as they're laughing
I'm safe
I may look good in motley
I may have painted on this mouth
A mask remains a mask
But doctor, I am Pagliacci
That should be the name in my chart
If you could just give me my diagnosis
Before pronouncing me such a good clown

I. Four Rituals of Four
1.
If you want a chance at progress
Press your treadles down in the same order every time
1
2
3
4
You know by now what happens when you do
You'll have a scarf six months later
In the twill you like
So move your hands in the ancient pattern
And give humble thanks
To the household gods of herringbone
2.
If you want a chance at progress
Pull your needle through in the same order every stitch
1 3
4 2
You know by now what happens when you do
You'll finish five years later
And be empty when it's done
So count squares in the sacred geometry
Step into the liminal space
And devote your hours
To the grand spirit of tapestry
3.
If you want a chance at progress
Take your medication in the same order every night
1 2 3 4
You know by now what happens when you don't
You'll be a mess two days later
And it's your own damn fault
So align each bottle on your bedside table
Cleanse your throat with cold water
And take your own offering
To the patron saint of dopamine
4.
If you want a chance at progress
Repeat each stanza in the same order every line
1
2
3
4
You know by now what happens when you do
You'll have a poem ten minutes later
And it's your own dam fault again
So arrange your words to the compass rose
Set each one alight
And pray once more
To yourself

II. Resonate
For a very long time
I thought of my body as an unfortunate way
To move my brain from room to room
I used to go years without crying
And was convinced that was a good thing
When people talked about intuition
It sounded like a scam
What could this dumpy thing tell me
That I didn't already know
Every feeling in my body was bad
I thought I could think my way out of it
Well, guess where your brain in, dipshit
If the call is coming from inside the house
Then at the very least I can decorate
If I need to clean my room
Then I'll listen to Beethoven's Ninth
I was not very good
But when I played the violin
I learned which vibrations meant what
Playing flat sounds bad because it feels bad
My fingers shift up until the right tone reverberates
Through my arm, my skull, my chest
The best part of the Firebird Suite is the finale
You could skip ahead and save 15 minutes
But you can't skip to the end of an emotion
Without missing the whole damn point
Listening is a full-body experience
Now the right story beats
Hit me like a tuning fork
And I cry at the finale of every good show
That's how I know it was good

III. From the Heart to the Hands
I pull the wire through clay
Like a garrote the the neck of some French noble
In a tale of revanche worthy of Dumas
I smash it onto the table to force out the air
Until I slam it full strength in the center of The Wheel
And with hands dripping wet
I push in a controlled strangulation
Pinch and twist and carve and scar
Suck out its last breath of moisture
Drown the whole thing in a bucket of poison
And seal it inside a furnace hotter than hell
At last my dark deed is complete
It's a bowl I keep my dice in
Hydrogen bursts every chance it gets
Carbon bonds forge in battle
DNA rips itself in two
I never thought I had a violent impulse
But I sure do like to make things
Each story I devour
Each image I consume
Gets trapped in this life-to-art pipeline
After all
We are what we eat
Everything that is was once something else
And nothing's more destructive than alchemy
The question is whether the gold's worth the lead
Because there's always a little blood that gets lost
On its way from the heart to the hands

IV. Pectus Plangere
I took Latin in high school
Because of course I did
It's an armchair language
All of the things I like about words
Without having to ruin them
By talking to someone
Ecce Romani!
Togas to class on the Ides of March
Nutella on bread when we finished a quiz
Most of the grammar is gone for good
Hic haec hoc
But there are some pillars still standing
It can be fun to catch a glimpse of a ruin
In the middle of a sentence
Like catch and ruin and sentence, in fact
And fact, of course
And course, as well
It's less fun now that this empire is crumbling
What good is my rhetoric in a failed state
Where its only use is to sharpen the stick
A funeral procession for a beached whale
Bloated and bulging on its own decay
I beat my breast, I tear my clothes
While the Senate and People of Rome
Tell me there is nothing to mourn
As they tape laurel leaves above its small dull eye
As they shove this corpse down a parade route
As one by one they collapse in the street
If someday someone finds this text
Buried and safe by a newly dead sea
Will they line up my lines like the shards of a vessel
Will their word for ruin still be the same
And will they know too what it's like to be crumbling

V. Our Lady of Anticipation, or The Host
Start with an offering of drinks
From wine to water
Tap or bottled, room temp or iced, short glass or tall
Count the beads in your head before offering again
Too early is a venial sin
Too late is beyond redemption
When every glass nears its final third
And is full once more through an act of grace
The First Miracle
There is no thirst in my Mother's house
Proceed to the altar of your dining room table
Covered in cloth to match the season
In the name of a veggie and a fruit and a crunchy salt
Please be seated
Take of this charcuterie--
A piece be with you
And also with you
No matter how many guests arrive
There is more soup than bowls can contain
The Second Miracle
There is no hunger in my Mother's house
For she so loved her friends
That she stayed in the kitchen
The hymn of their laughter a Joyful Mystery
Take this bread and eat of it
I bought the good stuff from Whole Foods
This is my body
All I can give you
Forgive me, Mother
Let it be enough

VI. Tell Me What You Like and I Will Tell You What You Are
I read Ruskin a few years before I met you
One of my favorite facts is that
They call it taste because it's an immediate reaction
A split-second of self-discovery
And a textbook to understand why
I have exquisite taste
It is something that I have acquired
Through a deliberate dissection of my favorite things
If I swirl this glass at the right angle
The light refracts into a 12-page essay
The truth is
If I had to wait for at first sight
For our eyes to have met across a crowded room
I would never have loved you
If there's anything worse than eye contact
It's a crowd
Even one with you in it
What could possibly be less romantic than fate
To love someone as a compulsion
A hammer tap to the knee
If I had to love you, I wouldn't
To be star-crossed is to be cursed
"Tell me what you like and I will tell you what you are"
I read the same books over and over
I play every game the exact same way
I know what I like
And if given the choice
I will choose the same thing every time
So it's a good thing for both of us
That love is a choice
The best thesis defense is a thesis offense
I will keep you safe the only way I know how
With the same purple pen that got me through grad school
I could write so much more
A single-spaced lifetime
And if you give me the choice
I would diverge a hundred paths
In every yellow wood in New England
To be one traveler with you

VII. Caricature
I'm usually pretty good with words
But I could have sworn there was an h in there
Like character, right
Something to do with people
Or kinds of people
I'm trying to find it
In my etymology field guide
But I can't match the markings
Characture
Charichter
Chareactor
Until--
No h after all:
How embarrassing!
From Vulgar Latin
Overloading a cart
Becomes exaggeration
Becomes satire
Becomes grotesque
It's still me in here
The organist in my frontal lobe
Pressing down pedals
Pushing out air
Performing their function
But I am so deliberate
That I unbalance myself
When I am overloaded
I become an exaggeration
A satire of myself
My signal lamp smile flashes and twists
My laugh barks from a dog's mouth
I press down with my right leg and
My pulley system of nerves
Arranges my face into a pleasing countenance
From Less Vulgar Latin
To contain oneself
This conversation
Is too heavy a cart
But I'll drag it out of enemy fire
And apologize for the inconvenience
I'm usually pretty good with words
What kind of person
Tries so hard
And still fucks it up
How
Embarrassing

VIII. We Made Each Other
I guess the term had stuck by the mid-90s
Because I couldn't go a week in middle school
Without a well-meaning adult proselytizing about role models
An interrogation about who I looked up to
Who was it that inspired me
To Work Hard and be a Good Person
To Follow My Dreams and Succeed
I think they were disappointed when I answered them honestly
I have never had a role model
I suppose that sounds sad on the surface
Or maybe they hoped I would say it was them
It's an insult to my imagination
That I would require such explicit instructions
I have never looked up to anyone
I don't look at people that way
What a pressure to put someone under
Sentenced to live as an inspiration
Trapped on top of a pedestal
Where the only way to get down is to fall
I have never looked up to anyone
So I looked inside and found you
Is this what they meant
When they said it would Build Character
I wanted you to be a good person
So I made you care about people without trying
I didn't know how to do that yet
I didn't think that I could
It took so much effort to feign understanding
That I knew I could never be Good
I settled on your name by age 14
But I still don't know what to call you
It's not that you are a secret
It's just hard for me to explain
How we made each other better people
I've drawn your face in so many notebooks
It is slightly different each time
You are whatever I need in the moment
Part escape, part practice, part comfort
A warrior and the training ground
An actress and the script
I gave you the voice that I always wanted
The speeches I could never say
You bear my pain by giving it purpose
A narrative arc bending towards kindness
And in return I made you a dancer
I crafted my own moral compass
I forged my own sword by my side
I still have a hard time drawing hands
But for you, I will keep trying

IX. February in Oxford, Housesteads in May
Some days the only words I spoke
Were to a clerk at Sainsburys
During my daily pilgrimage towards the High Street
A few heavy coins in trade
For a baguette and some brie
If I pretend that I'm hungry
Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow
With the Radcliffe Camera peering through my window
It gets dark so early here
I take precisely one photo in 28 days
A self-portrait, already unusual
I hate people in my photos
It goes double for me
My stark face is over exposed
Navy blue shadows at 3 in the morning
And I was the only one there to see it
___
I wanted to walk along Hadrian's Wall
With no one to stop me, I did
A family offers me a seat in front
A testudo marches across a field of vert
Period-accurate archers set a longboat on fire
Whole train cars unite to give me directions
Traveling alone really isn't
My camera doesn't have time to turn off
The next day I walk down from the settlement
With no one to stop me, I could
I rest on a rock and eat the lunch I packed
Dried apricots and candied cashews
And bottled water still cold enough
Distant lambs chase the breeze back and forth
The slow creek a think sky on this hillside
And I was the only one there to see it

X. A Spoon Theory Song
Lining up calf deep as the waves roll in
At the edge of a dark manmade lake
All of us on the shore
Til the lake is no more
If man made, then man can unmake
For what did it start, and for when will it end
There is one thing we all know for sure
Each of us only manned
With a spoon in our hand
The one tool that we all could procure
We tend to our task and go fast as we can
Side by side by this vast frigid lake
Through bending and stooping
And throwing and scooping
We each give all that we have to take
Birds call in the trees
Night falls with the breeze
Rest while your rest can be found
Lining up half asleep as the steam rolls past
At the lip of a large iron pot
Filled with broth to the brim
Scent carried by the wind
For the lake folk to eat something hot
I suppose it makes sense to restore what was lost
With the spoon that each used through the day
Three spoonfuls to all
Fair as fair could be called
And they nod that it should be this way
All I ask for is sleep before each brand new day
But the air fills with dance and with song
As they laugh and complain
Expect of me the same
I know deep in my bones I am wrong
From spring through to fall
Til there's no sun at all
The world turns once more around
I labor as hard, I'm served just as much
But each day I fall further behind
I've only just spotted
That my spoon is slotted
To think I thought it was all in my mind

XI. Hope is Many Things
Hope is many things, including
Convenient
I think that's what makes it a Virtue
The kind of thing you can make a statue about
If you like carving placid women
And the folds in drapery
Stick her on a plinth between Chastity and Patience
Soft smiles and unfurrowed brows
A chorus line of allegory in front of a courthouse
I'm back in college, in gym shoes and a fencing jacket
I parry like a champ
And I lose every single match
Slowly pushed back out of bounds
I don't want to hurt anyone
I don't want to hurt
Anger in my body is the inside of the sun
Constant roiling combustion
A chain reaction of the unfair
Of course stars collapse when they're finished
It hurts
I go sit on the stairs
Until my chest is a black hole
When I speak, it's with a fencing foil
Precision in language is a Virtue
But curse this paladin heart
My hand aches for a war hammer
To crack this rotten world open like a cantaloupe
Scoop it hollow until my fingernails scrape the rind
If there's a seed worth saving
I'll find it
Anger steps down from her plinth
Strides towards the courthouse door
With burning eyes and hammer in hand
Some problems are, in fact, nails
I am angry
And I am radiant
As the sun

XII. Ghost on Fire
They say that I was always so bright
How long have I been burning up
Trying to speak through a mouthful of ash
Candlewick nerves lit from both ends
All that's left of me is the afterimage
How long have I been burning down
If every breath is fuel for this house fire
Warm your hands before it goes out
Every paper I touch goes up in flames
Every friend another branch for the pyre
I left my business unfinished for both of us
So now who is haunting who
How many rooms have I drifted through
How many people are left
With nothing from me
But a fading trail of smoke

XIII. Knotistic
If when you die your life unspools before you
I think I might be dying
Or maybe unraveling
I can't stop pulling at every experience I have ever had
Sitting cross legged and yanking with my whole arm
And I can feel the strands looping around me
Piles of them beginning to tangle
The secret to working with thread is to keep it safe under
tension
The tighter the better
Wound around and around and around
Let up for a second and it's game over, baby
I hope you like knots
Two whole summers spent cross legged winding yarn
I don't remember where all of it came from
But every inch of it went through my fingers twice
From dozens of skeins to one big ball
As big as my chest, filling my lap
And so much heavier than you'd think
From something that was just yarn all the way down
I think I was 8 or maybe 10
I brought it to school for show-and-tell
Maybe hoping that someone could tell me why I had done it
Was that the year I spent reading Maniac Magee?
The only book I would read that year
As soon as I finished, I would start it again
Around and around and around
Maniac Magee could untie any knot
What do you do with a giant ball of yarn except unravel it again
Back to those dozens of skeins
I put them away in my closet
Exactly as they were before
But every inch of it went through my fingers twice
I don't feel safe if I'm not under tension
Pressing myself into the closest surface
Sitting on my hands, bracing my leg
The harder the better
Let up for a second and it's game over, baby
Now my back is nothing but knots
I'm 18 and I haven't slept in four days
Tonight is the senior banquet for my high school speech team
Speaking in public scared me so much
That the solution was to train myself to do it
I'm knitting gifts for my coaches and teammates
I don't know if they're my friends
But I know that when something ends
Making a gift is the right thing to do
When I hand them out, I know it was the wrong thing to do
For the rest of the week, it feels like
I still have yarn wrapped around my hands
Around and around and around
The secret to working with thread is to keep it under the right
amount of tension
Keep it too loose and it loops around you
Pull it too tight and it breaks
Skein to ball to skein again
Maniac Magee can untie any knot
It's all one strand anyway
You just need to follow the thread

XIV. For Eris
It is 2:23 in the morning
When I wake up, and you're there
Watching quietly as I pour myself too much orange juice
And when I got to lie back down
You are already in my place on the bed
We shift until you are across the right side of my chest
Vibrating at the frequency of contentment
I can feel it through my ribcage
Through both of my hands
And I am living in a poem
In our old apartment
We sat on the couch as I told my mother
Hard words to say and hard words to hear
And when no words were enough
You lay between us
And lent us the soft weight of yourself
One day you will be gone
And I will be gone
And this will be gone
This time and this space that out of every moment
In every universe
We get to share
And no words
Are enough
All I can hope is that
As you are stretched across my heart
You can feel me vibrating at the frequency
Of gratitude

XV. ADHDog
If you throw me a compliment
My whole spinal cord wags
Lights up GOOD like a neon sign
I'll catch it and bring it right back to you
Sure, I'll roll over
Throw it again again again
I come with my own leash
And a shock collar wrapped around the inside of my throat
Flips the switch to BAD like a bolt of lightning
That'll teach me
To know my place
Sit
Stay
Whenever he hears a bell
Pavlov thinks about his dog
About how simple it was to train
To condition and control
You just need a bit of patience
Again again again
It doesn't even have to be a compliment
Just sound like one
A rock inside a snowball
If your arm moves the right way
I'll take off running until
I realize what was never there
What a fun game
What a dumb dog
Throw it again again again

XVI. I Was Already Awake
This poem woke me up
Long before my alarm
What else can I do
When my eyes won't close
Besides write about it
Anyway
I was already awake
It wasn't always like this
Except the parts that were
Sleep is a distant mountain
A treacherous climb
And all that waits for me at the summit
Is an exhausted slump
Flag in hand
I blink and I'm back in the foothills
With one day's fewer rations
The poems are new, though
Or new again
It's been over a decade
But here they come
A 4 AM avalanche
The snow just builds up, I guess
Until it folds under its own weight
An exhausted slump
Taking everything with it in its collapse
In its impatience
Come on, man
I just built that tower
Stone by stone by fist-sized stone
Forty-five minutes at a time
Foundations lined with citalopram
Corridors insecurely attached
A constellation of offices that I have cried inside
What else can I do
In this snow blind depression
Besides grab the two nearest chunks of rubble
And make them kiss
I just built that tower
And the one before that
And the one before that
And the one before that
It's just--
I thought
I was already awake

XVII. Narcissus
Why am I afraid to say
That I like these poems
The pieces of me that glint as they catch the light
Reflecting off the quiet water
Of this deep dark truthful mirror
The moon orbits the earth orbits the sun
Who are you to tell me that I am not all three
Maybe it's a good thing
To look down at your own reflection and know
It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen

XVIII. A Clouded Face
The moon can show up with whatever face it wants
Fully present or not at all
No one tells it to smile when it's waning
Even if they did
It's too far to hear and too big to care
Its beauty is in its indifference
It's there if you're looking or not
I am the mask and the wearer
The gem and each of its facets
Of course it's a phase
Show me what isn't
I can wait, but I probably won't
These waves sound like a You Problem
And as I stride past the heavens
You'll see the face that I want you to see
You're welcome

XIX. Pleasures Found Not Guilty
When in my life did I learn
That caring about things was stupid
The fastest way to get hurt
That things that made me happy were unworthy
That they were guilty and so was I
How much of my life was spent ashamed
Of my little self who cared so much
Who liked cats and musicals and the musical CATS
Who read every book she could find on Greek mythology
Earnest and embarrassed in dynamic equilibrium
She just wanted to know who she was
Or find something that would tell her
Now I am the one who can tell her
That she cares about people and gets paid for it
That she weaves like Penelope and shares her sketchbook
That she is cooler than she ever imagined
That I love her more than she ever thought
I will make her a crown out of colored pencils
I will fill her arms with sunflowers
We will be mermaids together
And rollerblade to the songs of cicadas
Until it's dark and time to go home

XX. Limitations Define What it Means to be Free
Limitations define what it means to be free
The safest I feel in a frail little shell
Still I remain my own worst enemy
Infinite choice allows me to be me
Or that's what they say who have something to sell
Limitations define what it means to be free
I cut myself off with a strike to the knee
An axe to a tree with intention to fell
Still I remain my own worst enemy
When I need to I'll write structured poetry
Weaving my words in an elaborate spell
Limitations define what it means to be free
Then the pen point turns inward self-critically
Strikes each line through at the sound of the bell
Still I remain my own worst enemy
A beautiful line where the sky meets the sea
The small space between is the story to tell
Limitations define what it means to be free
Still I remain my own worst enemy

XXI. A Small Life
I may never fly on a plane again
That thought was scary once
Every place I traveled
Every step towards the sea
"What if I am never here again"
Thousands of photographs
Taken with the hot breath of forever
Against the back of my neck
No wonder Dublin came out crooked
1,000 Places to See Before You Die
Only a human mind could turn an impossible cosmos
Into a checklist
Like the afterlife is a filing cabinet
I hope this world is big enough for my own expectations
I hope this sunset gets graded on a curve
Now even this bed is a little too large
When it's the two of us at the end of the day
You type and I draw
Our hands meet in the middle
My camera lies safe in a cardboard box
I may never see another ocean
But our pillowcases are the deepest blue
And this blanket covers me like the tide
