Just Like Honey

He said he loved her
Like a burning building
Just as she decided
To leave his bed of clover.
She had felt it could be
Not just anyone
Who could look into her jasmine tea
And make the world take off,
But no light entered
His eucalyptus eyes
And they deserted
Her five-point gaze,
Causing a tangle of orange blossoms
In her honey-haired head
And more than enough fury
To drain her cup.

Henry Walter

We saw the
Lemon slice
Moon cradle
Rocking above
The church funeral
And heard the
Mourners' songs.

We watched as
Painted carnations,
Lunar blue,
Were buoyed about
The pregnant coffin
And felt
Survivors' guilt.

We looked into
Black, lidless,
Crescent gazes
Reflecting inside
Our empty cups
And listened for
Grandpa's laugh.

Photograph

In the shadow of the mountain
Blood cradles the soul.
Brothers and sisters like potatoes
Develop strange eyes.
Twins of spirit pass
From fellowship to film.

We are integrated,
Subjects not subjected,
Our girls blooming,
Articulate with imagination;
Our boys brightening,
Relentless with wild ambition.
Dancing cells
Happening backward,
Growing up
And down,
Eating our way through
Fields into orchards
Across dirt roads,
Steep inclines and slow slopes
Until we are as old as the forest.

We crave the company of peers.
We share the moments,
Find sacred the ecstasy
Of kisses and rings
That slip to sea with the moon
As blood changes form
In the foam of rising tides.

Fulfillment

Last moments are
Superior in feeling,
Sharply poignant,
And I can see still
On the backs of my eyelids
The tree outside
The second-story window
Out west of Damen Avenue.
Its colors are vibrant.
The day is gray with
Soft showers and
Chicago street smog.
I cannot go home.
Thoughts of
Dying in sight of this tree
Have mesmerized me,
Have sat me four hours
Eyes through the glass,
Touching souls with
One tree,
Trading stories,
Teaching songs,
Pledging to fulfill one another
With edges sharp
As single atoms.

Instinctual

White girl novelty
Kicked in the stomach
In kindergarten,
Cries outside school.

Super Saiyan
Takes shortcuts home.

More than a person to many,
Less than a child, too.

Little English teacher likes
Tangerines,
Curious about
Pornographic magazines,
Enjoys eating cashews.

Lonely sixth grader
Says no to sex for money,
Leads Sunday school.

Runaways

Runaways,
This is our empty pledge:
To live as though we are not dead.
What deviant children
Of love we are
To tell the world
Our discolored desires!

Besides,
We care most to cradle
Scars and pains and gutted plans,
Each explaining,
"Baby, I'm still not who you think I am."

So they say to us
As we awkwardly grin,
"Your resolve makes this go on,
Aids the cycle aimed at death.
Because you know
As long as something's wrong,
We'll be here with bated breath.
For without you,
We're all without!"
They beg.

Dinosaur Park

Tomoyuki scales the nets
Of the prehistoric jungle gym;
Caleb drops through the tunnel
To escape becoming "It."
I am "Ramen,"
Blonde perm bouncing
As I take to the slide standing up,
Jumping off midway
To tag Andrew
Who skids across the dirt,
Then darting back
Up the ladder,
Lunges for Hidemi's legs.

The neighborhood drunk
Rides past,
Wobbling on his bicycle.
We gather and snicker
"Deta, deta!"
I boldly claim
Once witnessing
As he urinated through
His apartment window.

Aletheia Knows

Floating down
Rivers like scripture
I am cloud-speech
Reflected off waters
Smeared mascara
Myself
Saving myself
Imagine saving myself

Women rise like mountains
I twist to pass
Newly-skinned lava-slide
Mother of ash
Scrubbing crayon
From her insides
Ire-filled broken-earth
Lady of wrath sinking and
Devastating forests
With tales of her past

Smiles deeper than any canyon
I have crossed
Poisoned springs
Only cured by strong spells
I slither along her edges
As the water passes the wasteland

My heart courses
With time's secret summons
Deeper to myself
Saving myself
Imagine saving myself

While a lost aspect of spirit
Remains
Beyond the heavy curtain
Of coming-of-age
There is still this
Rushing and turning about
With my sisters
And myself
Saving myself
Imagine saving myself

Hutchinson

A story reaches its end
In the sun set with a crash
On a bold prairie horizon.
Here twin silhouettes embrace
On a blackened roadside
As the one with hopeful face
Seeks the lips of distant summers
While the aching other closes eyes
Wet with burning tears.
The winking stars seem too severe
With their ageless, beholden light
Illuminating so sincerely
Where past and future
Cleave and part.

As Rivers Suffer Stones

Reviving within some undead thing,
We, forever despondent, forever assailed,
The suicide survivors are solemnly striving
With inclinations to unrepentantly bless
Mother Theresa smoking a cigarette,
Pleased to have certain virtues derailed.

Think I don't know cigarettes are terminal?
I'm sleeping in graveyards, hope subliminal.
Will you pick me up
Or will you roll me into the ground?

Maligning the Christ with unmarred hands
As he, forever incarnate, forever nailed,
The unfed vagabond of hearts withstands
Our inclination to unreservedly rest
Soiled souls against his heaving chest
While we're pleased to know his wounds were fatal.

Think I don't know cigarettes are terminal?

North Star Emma

Emma in a stroller.
Red-headed autumn babe
Rolling into my third year
As my rising sun,
Pushed by the regal Demeter
Amidst the swarming
Suits and suitcases.

Parting words for my grandmothers
Punctuated with
Glowing gold-red curls.
My self deepened then
As she sat
Unaware of her affect.

Trans-Pacific flight into
This warmest,
This most huge,
This first, strange sureness:
Connection and surging recognition.

Then ruddy knees,
Waiting with my brothers
In bored, over-sized terminal seats.
Holding on,
Letting go,
Voices echoing
Behind our fierce, photographed smiles,
"Home,
We don't have a home,"
Before this opened channel:

Now Emma beating in my marrow,
Shapes,
Hues,
Noise.

Emma anchored in my sky.
North Star Emma,
Not one year old.