Lost light fixture,
hanging smoke alarms ringing—
I can’t wake you.

The last night:
sharing my twin bed,
your furnace/your face.
When you love me, you rest your head on mine
and leave it there,
forgetting that it’s heavy.
It hurts to feel you, but you call me
girl over and over
and it makes us swell together,
melting lashes, singeing sheets.
You never know the last time is the last time.

I bought wine-colored curtains to keep
the sun out, the dark in—
the bed, it was getting so hot.
I don’t know what to do with all this love.

The south in summer—
feet bare trail hopping
in a cotton-candy-colored skirt, flowing neatly below the knees.
The sun is his periphery and it dips into the water,
shine stretching the length, dyeing the top of his nose:
the kind of scene that makes you regret Godlessness.

I touch it for a moment—
touch the faith, feeling it—
and step onto the tracks.
He’d save you. He’ll save you.
How fast does it go?
About 75 miles per hour, a good clip.
It’s a lovely lemon sunset.
Yes, I’ve been watching from the window.

In the night, the pond water
mixes with his salt-sticky sweat, and never seems to dry—
the humid air lingers, making batter of our limbs.

The bulb light shines down, his face and torso mine,
but his arms are only smoke stacks in the dark.
What I can see, I claim; what I claim, I love—
I try to take everything back.
I climb a ladder in the dark
and cover the buzzing fixture with my fingers,
leaving stripes of black on his body.
Later: the sheets are wrinkled and I fall into the creases.

You like dive bars, and so do I.
Walking away, my heels lick the road.
No one knows this city like we know this city.

From behind, you bent—
kissed the hook of my back.
Like a tree, carving your name on me.
All around me is stale water.

I look at my hands, think:
these will decay some day.
These will decay and
the things touched—
Your lids close when I look back and
I adhere my hands to the wall and wait.

Down in the cellar,
she smoked hidden cigarettes—
the atmosphere of what she wants.
I stand with the face of a dead woman, my palms up on the counter.
Sometimes you find out things on trains, I think.
Sometimes it’s very inconvenient.

I finally sat down and connected the lines I was gathering for a found poem based on Craigslist’s m4w Missed Connections section. I mostly wanted to write it for the first line—the first line is just awesome (and, absurdly, I wish it had been posted for me). Also, the OkCupid email on the bottom of this post has nothing to do with this, but I just found it hilarious when it arrived in my inbox the morning of my birthday and feel the need to share my apparent spinsterhood with the world. The internet is so weird.Continue reading “Missed Connections: Treasure Trove”

In the night, the building is still—the pipes dry, the floorboards cold.
Everything is tainted a strange gray, only sleep is in color.
The passing train vibrates her stomach like an eager violin and she knows:
Every night we surrender ourselves—
she will die tonight and wake up tomorrow reborn.
The ghosts of the old Jewish hospital bow their heads.

The ceiling soundlessly parts with the walls, evaporates—
after-blizzard clouds float lazy and full overhead.
Above her, the stars are suspended lanterns,
while in bed, she’s a tree-stuck kite.

The shadows step forward, offering colored balloons
to lift her into the disinterested sky—
she tries to fuse them, loses all but one, shrinks as they distantly pop.
She holds the lingering blue balloon firmly,
keeps it from swimming away.
She remains earth-yoked but looks constantly
toward the balloon as it sways against the sky;
connected, they both dance.