​Like a captured breath,
A word holding such promise,
A parade of one.
​

​It was forgetting to grab a pound of butter 
that caused the downpour that Sunday morning, 
the twenty-second of May.
 
She was alone, after twenty-two years, she was
driving their vehicle, the silver one,
the one that held the shape of their sinking  
 
dreams. She had been thinking of leaving
since the first night he called her wife
and she cried herself to sleep. 
 
He fed her bread but she craved meat, 
the bite and rip, the slow wrestle, 
the thick of it in her throat. And now,
 
she is alone. She is driving 
and the windows are open and the trees 
are awake. She is alone and she wonders
who decides what gets to be told. 

​Sunlight streams unabashed through security bars and pocked panes
pooling on time-tinted lino, worn threadbare
by slippered feet.
 
Piano, upright if not grand, yields to bony fingers
coaxing a many-hued melody
from black and white.
 
Notes undulate in chalk dappled swells, flooding salty pores
skating through veins, my cells
ripple in recognition.
 
Bass tones sing to serpentine spine, unfurling limbs, my hand dips
cupping air wherein the dust of days
swim like fireflies.
 
Violas, imperceptible at first, crescendo, muscle fibers
join the chorus carry my arm skyward
an oceanic tentacle.
 
Gravity tenderly tips my palm, fireflies cascade
drifting down, washing over my upturned face
 
I
am 
anointed.

Ocho Prosposiciones
(Puerto Vallarta - Febrero 2017)
 
clap politely … no matter what
 
#1 – Valentines For Sale
 
dead                                         read
her metaphors shrivel          with feeling they do not
our skin                                   deserve
 

​Inappropriate laughter spills from my mouth
Making tabu topics taste sweet on my tongue.
Tears of mirth flood my eyes
Washing away the sting of sorrows.
 
Like giggling schoolgirls, we banter away our pain.
Stripping it of its power,
We lay waste to it,
Striking at it with absurd guffaws and irreverent merriment.
 
Ours is a cackling camaraderie that roars at the farce of life
And satiates my soul.
 
For Ev
Sunday, February 6, 2022

​Once a month ‘neath the milky moon, full
A creature is summoned to answer blood’s pull
 
Snarling snout, silhouette lupine
Rippling and liquid, inhuman design
 
Thick hairy hide in black-glistening night
Merging with shadows like lovers meld light
 
Clamorous hunger and hill-hewing claw
When moon glows in glory–beware, beware all!
 
Fangs murderously tipp’d behind drool-dripping lips
Dare not a cut, not even a nip
 
Night orb ignites the cursed call within
Air-cleaving howl signals hunt to begin
 
Werewolf pursues now in pulse-pounding haste
Flee its fell fate, or next you lead the chase!

​I cannot see you through another man’s eyes
The image of you that is flipped
On his retina is as
Unknown to me as sunset is to sunrise.
 
I cannot know what attracts other men's aim
Makes them appear
As frequently as vowels on a printed page
And want to know your name.
 
Does the image that is flipped on their retina
See that your upper lip is asymmetrical
Or that your toe is purple and swollen, making you limp
Right now, because in the middle of the night
You mashed it against the leg of our coffee table.
If only you had turned on a light.
 
I know that their image of you
Does not include the time you threw
A $200 cheque down the garbage chute along
With the rest of our kitchen waste
And that you stood next to the garbage bin in the basement,
Apologizing, complaining of the smell,
As I stood inside combing through refuse and
Dodging other tenants’ garbage as it fell
From the chute like enemy mortars.
 
They want to know your name
Like that's all they need
To make a claim.
Yet
We name rivers even though
The water always changes
And erodes the path it courses over
And,
Even though we don't notice,
Nothing about them from day to day
Is ever the same.
 

Tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning/
different than today?

Always wondered why transformations never happen at night.

Change!

An instant of reckoning/
built on future promises
that rest on quick sand.

Tomorrow morning
the dirt will be cleared.
Smooth sailing from here
or not -

Tomorrow - mourning
How quickly we forget
the pain
that made us/
beg
for penance
the night before?

In the whispers
hides the seductress
whose call/ a siren’s call
beckons to that place
that makes you pray
for tomorrow morning.

Basking in the safety
of vices - well worn companions
on the path to survival
to here
negotiating the end
in order to begin again ....

Tomorrow fucking morning.