weight

It was less suicide than a willed
accident, see. It was raining.
Corn hued leaves clumped on the cement in slicks
like fallen paperdoll fingers and my wipers
weren’t fast enough. You can’t blame the guy;
it was raining. That intersection is dangerous.

I was even wearing my seatbelt, so see,
this was the time. A quick glass pane
collapsed on the stem of my high speed head,
and finally my ribs relieved themselves
of the duty to protect lungs, ribs that always guessed
their fate was fireworks. There is only one moment,

God posing the question and time measured
in our number of refusals. But I’d been saying yes,
see, and he finally took me back. I always knew
one day he would take me back. I am water now.
Cars and limbs and lovers
no faithful anchors for the soul.

not if but when

If I ever see a garden snake I hope
I’ve got a blade handy, that I can step
on its head and shred open the narrow catheter
of its body, watch blood drain into the grass
like forgiveness. And when I have girls,
I’ll teach them how to cut, which arteries,
so they never flinch

when they have to kill something.

instructions for giving

I wrapped the gifts in one man’s
living room and stacked them
into my Maxima to drive to another’s.
One was impressed with the care given
to each precise crease, the attention
to hiding lines of tape, the symmetry
of identical snow flakes falling over
the box’s edges, the single blade
of sewing scissors scraping along
the ridged underside of the wisps
of silver ribbon, its wild helix erupting
from my sharp knots. The other was silent

and angry when I left his bed Christmas morning
to pull on jeans without sex. One man would later slap

my cheek as I perched in my panties on the edge
of his tub sobbing with scissors poised on the ribbon
of my veins, tired of being an unopened present

for the other man. Distinctions are peripheral.
First, you place the gift on the blank swath
of paper, intuit equidistance and cut, let the blade
glide like a tear from one edge to the other, like a lover
crossing the city in a Maxima doomed to crash, fold both
sides to the center crisply, obscuring adhesive
as though the wrap will stick by magic. The sides
are tricky, a labyrinth of triangles. Precision is paramount.

Once the gift is secure in its sheath of shimmer and hope
for some glimmer of gratitude, then comes the joy
of ribbons, royal purple and crimson crisscrossed
and absolute, with no indication of where each thread

begins. They culminate in a celebration of ringlets
cascading. This is the type of giving. The bliss

of a lover ripping through knots to receive me, and me
expecting nothing in return.

Free from the albatross of this incorrigible body,
its persistent hairs sprouting on tops of feet, its
propensity for scars, its vascular hands, my spirit

would be light enough to sleep with you, and not
disturb your dreams.

sorry if this is a cop out…so many papers to grade…soooo sleepy

crashing maximas
::: the poet earns tuition

The tips of my toes were always numb.
I threaded twitching thighs through
frayed Old Navy stretch denim, swiped
underarms with baby wipes, and hurried
to my Maxima to scroll through texts
I’d missed while on stage. Everything was mine.

I was already far south enough on 57 to consider
your proposition, and the highway curved to your
apartment. Your voice was earnest in a way
I hadn’t expected, though I’d vowed to be done
with the drama of the unrequited. No matter. I came anyway.
Nothing was mine, and I didn’t know

the left lane was for passing, so I glided slow,
high beams blazing, and put you on speaker
when the trooper revved behind me. He thanked me

for my caution, and suggested I stay right.
To start a 119 mile drive at 2:30am with numb
toes and sore hips, to escape with a warning, to dissolve

into the fervor of your sheets, to cough into my arm,
to pretend I didn’t already feel you were leaving me,

to refuse begging, to punish, to earn all the epithets
the cipher would later offer you as my name, to ask

you to say my name. To believe you could.