#4

fingers sink into rich earth

rip through moss

dripping water soaks into dry shiny hair

soak into middle parted ladies of before

galloping americana running water like realness

piney sky view

white vinyl fences

rip through

not neat pages of

terrifying knowledge

useful not wise big not good

either or thinking us both

quiet pink and green palms

dresses cheap skinny jeans

sunk for a minute

For Nighttime and Morning

I decided it was time to get back the morning,
so I set the alarm two nights ago and I got out of bed.
the cold will not deter you from loving being alive
the snow will not deter you from loving being alive.

There is no one at the end of the day who's going to tell you if you did it well
There is no one in the morning who's going to tell you what that day is for.

But these days those last moments before sleeping are the sweetest,  you can say:
those things may be true, Rachel, but this moment you know is for being right here.
 lying  in your body is also living, and you will love the world by doing this.
There is no one else to draw the line for you
about what it means to love.

1 through 7

1

the orange net means safety.  the orange cones mean rest.  the sky over the concrete wall suggests the ocean

2

coupled people using tinder for the first time

3

my aunt and flowers and my grandmother's legs

4

my grandmother's legs and shoes and a chair and newspaper

5

beatrice in the wooden rocker on the porch, wearing a checked dress and holding an egg

6

(part of) the bust of alexander skene

7

below, a white guy in a toyota stuck waiting to cross the road, caught digging in his nose for gold while he thinks no one is watching him

expected to be silvery white but soft

daydream#5

Ricky's in the corner
chewing toothpicks staring at soft mango belly
of someone else's girl and

I'm here at this desk
chewing on nails tasting bitter lemon rinds
after already sucking all the juice

I'll watch the wheel
I'll meet you somewhere else
I'll be forthcoming

trying not to renounce the world trying
self-cultivation.

SINK OR SWIM

I come home drunk and eat chicken.

It’s too late for dinner but I eat dinner,

and in the morning will be exhausted

by the circle formula

of another poem

born from regret. 

Boring.

Armando laughed from the

upside down bucket

at the pistol hand 

I pointed to my temple; 

the couple who ran the donut shop 

in Rainier Beach were beaten, 

and we raise money on the internet

for their big black eyes.

Universally, I want to drink drinks with you

and take you to the water

to grant you with 

a new years resolution

of facing all your fears.

On the leather couch everyone

mocks everything,

it’s how we defend each other,

loser gang of tiny insects

looking for

a honey lake.

WHAT I WON'T BRING

2 of the 3 jumbo red suitcases

all my summer dresses and sandals

the journals I’ve kept since childhood

the high thread count sheets from Goodwill

the knockoff Pendleton blanket with a stain

the bras I’ve shrunk from in the past year

anything that requires mending to be worn outside the house

the short sea foam bath robe

the bright orange baseball cap

the sequined top I just bought at the Florida thrift shop

a box of baby clothes and toys

a box of my mother’s clothes I will never wear

a box of National Geographics for collaging

a box of oil paints, a cup of brushes

boxes and boxes of photo prints and slides

notebooks from every class I’ve ever taken

my postcard collection

my old eyeglasses

those chipped bowls from Paris I’ve been using for cat food

that geologic map of where I was born that I stole from the college library

the hello kitty suitcase full of scarves

all the pets buried in the backyard

all the sorrow I’ve collected for everything I’ve lost

any sense that if I lived better I would lose less

Two become two

All things hinge. 
You hung a door and helped test its action. 
Another door peeled open on the other side of the building,
drew out all the air,
and sucked yours closed. 

10-day

Half a plaster body in white-out snow the edge of island destination such a pleasant thought.
Today it was too warm. What am I without weather when I'm writing, 7 pages through a
fantasy 1 year in and no weather yet, just a mother's elegy the mystic girlhood
set in Jersey City, maybe. When I saw this statue in the snow, the creek, construction, street, the
greatest use of looking at the snow i ever used or looked at, at which I looked, a year or two ago.
What even was the weather which i barely felt today, what was it, it was nothing what is
the weather when it's not a thing it's just the air which [as an office worker] I don't know
the science...of. Of which the science I don't know. My office, see, is windowless
a closet filled with gals of which I am a one. A half-a-plaster-body in the wet gray sun.

Family Portrait

1. Dance of the lepers: marshmallows drooping, arms looping. Best at a distant distance
2. Fur coat afloat in a ditch at the hairpin turn, it's always chop, chop//shift for yourself
3. Brownies in a blue robe, the unrelenting optimist behind the folding door at the diner
4. On and on and on and on, until we've forgotten we have voices
5. Nails down to the bone, reformed sneak seeking reason to be good
6. The stubborn one-armed hug
7. Disc-eyed, make it from post to post, feet bent round the fence rungs.
8. A furnace, lips pursed for camera.

the hims

these days you never leave the house before dark
and it gets dark at 4:30
soon you will have to leave the house before light
it doesn't get light until 7:20
and you're not ready for that
you're angry at him
for never being able to talk about it
you just want to stop blaming yourself
and you try to blame him
but it never works
there's a new him
and maybe he's better than the old him
or maybe he's just the same him
his kindness disguises
the bad parts
and you don't know what he thinks this is
or what he wants
but he told the bodega guy
when he thought
no one was listening

Crab Feed

Narrow hips let me slip
through tight aisles, tongs aloft
crab held high in my wooden bucket
Another claw? Another half body?
91 Chinese millionaires waving their chopsticks
and shouting at each other over newspapered tables
greased with mayonnaise and coleslaw, cheeks reddening
with each new glow of McCallum 15. Now we're on 
the 12, and still pouring the 75th Chardonnay, 
and xie xie, baby, Happy New Year
the cameras are out and the volume increasing-- 
it seems to be doing the trick

later in the bath
in the quiet room
I will sup
steam, and laugh
softly,
surrounded by your love
the way the warm water
covers my chest.