The Burning

The Burning

And there are other reasons I burned the mattress.

I learned to sleep standing up against the wall

The moon cast a shadow on the mattress

of the both of us when we were children.

You were in your bug phase

The one where we researched the bugs that could exist

in a house with no couches, no tables.

You told me, “They smell like cumin.”

But I couldn’t smell it

We checked our bodies

Cleaned our couches

I still have the vacuum cleaner

It was 400 dollars.

You were married, that’s the one thing I never say

It was a girl who worshipped me

Her name was almost like mine. 

Castera Street

Castera Street

On the floor of Nana’s house

---I was sent there because my mother couldn’t handle

my sister and I--

I played with dolls and gave them voices and names

Nana disappeared into back rooms

or outside to water succulents

the plastic pitcher with flowers on the side

I never followed her unless I needed something to eat

she sometimes made me those cookies
white powdered sugar over crescent moons
Later she forgot my name
called me, Janet, her dead alcoholic daughter
I thought that meant I was bad
but had no one to ask
Sometimes I sat in the avocado tree
watching her love her plants

bending down, dusting them in her sun-hat

I wondered why there were no other girls on that street

I asked Nana-- she said it was time to water the garden.
When I slept there, I stared at the alarm clock with
glowing hands while
Nana drew letters on my back
and I would guess what they were
Sometimes I would confuse X with T
because of the angle.
Nana slept with toilet paper pinned to her hair
and I asked her once
“When you die can I have this?”
holding up a beautiful watch with diamonds for initials
I didn’t know what I was saying
She walked out of the room

Her short heels clack clacking on the hard wood floor

He Wore The Shirt I Slept In

He Wore The Shirt I Slept In

I
My ex is behind me

Watching my neck, my ear, my hand to my cheek
I slump down in the black dress
On a chair that belongs in basements
Cold and hard 
My black suede booties slung out into the aisle
Covering the feet that inspired him

To paint the dead thing and stick it on my wall
Leg over leg or ankle stretched out
I am with witch girl

Who swears she sewed her soul into mine

But I can’t feel it
She laughs her puppet arms around me
I touch her face like a lover
And make fun of her blow-job lips
Not quite kissing them, but almost

II
I stand in line and turn to catch him
In the purple shirt
I used to sleep in
Hiding by the coffeemaker
Eyes like a showroom
Full of the things he once loved
And remembering the things he thought I could make him forget
I only glance in his direction then turn
To the two men who want to talk about
My outfit, my style and what they think about
Late at night
I turn again to see my ex hiding, but I can’t see his face
Just the shirt and the torso of my lost lover
He hasn’t been eating
That much is clear

what sets you apart

what sets you apart

so me and some people are in an apartment


we don't leave because we are paranoid


they agree to anything i suggest

it is not my beauty or youth because i never looked more tore up


but my passion they warm to


I guessed you won't believe me, so i kept the pictures

in a box


they don't like me
 and i don't like them

but we get along-
our understanding is as loathsome as the political climate


but why should i care, i'm here ain't i?

hate streams from our eyes cause no one is smart enough to stop the dreary incomprehensible sameness 
of days


  

i hold my breath for what seems like weeks
 with kings on hollywood hilltops and dirty homeless
 in basements where hill street meets that bright neon sign of jesus



we are always peeking out windows

time isn't anything to us
--lifetimes come and go
 
i have always gotten my way through them all 
and what of it?
you don't let me and that's what sets you apart

By All Human Measurements

When I was a yellow bird. I sat high in the jacaranda tree amongst the velvety periwinkle flowers. They looked good against my feathers. I was small then. At least by all human measurements. In bird world, I am as I should be. All feathers and down and attitude. My mother died in the mouth of a cat. I saw it go down. She was looking for crumbs, for me. I was too young to know the difference—as in what I would have been like had I a mother to raise me. I don’t know if you saw me eating or heard my song, but I was there day after day watching you in your plastic play-pool with the sponge shoved in the crack to keep the water in. your mother made fun of your watermelon belly and you cried. You looked in my direction when the girl who did that bad thing to her belly button started screaming and bleeding. You didn’t know why you had to play with the girl. Far apart eyes. Dull voice. Blood everywhere. But like all things, there are no reasons, not when it comes down to it. I sang you a song the day your dad was taken away for thinking he was Jesus. The song was the best I had—you didn’t hear it, you were explaining the universe to the ambulance guys, vying for attention. Showing them how normal you were. But, you weren’t normal. Later, after you knew me, I came to watch you from the tree above your bunk bed, but you didn’t look out. You told your mother, “I’m never wearing dresses again,” but she didn’t see the impact—not like I did. I saw you steal cheese from the fridge and wipe the knife clean. They had put locks on things and you were starving. I saw you the day you ran out into the middle of the road screaming naked wanting to go to gymnastics class. Your mother laughing at your nakedness. It made me want to be a dancer. 

The Loneliness of a Body

The Loneliness of a Body

Your arms are a casket

white tulips; money; mouthwash
they push me into a garden
where ghosts keep us

from being ourselves

I dig my hands through wet
earth and find your father’s skull
vine-wrapped with a dead bat
sticking out of his eye-hole

I suggest I sit in a saucer of milk

or drag you with a chain

You ask me to come back
on a day when you are living,
but nothing lives, not like the dead

I stare into the sky
one hand on my grand-mother and one hand

on your chest --- the stars are wondering

if your piercings indicate slave or

master

What else is there, if we can’t talk
about the things you hid---
lovers in closets, man--
but, your girl found me, told me
you wouldn’t fuck her

I am not yours now
and that fact is endless