City of Apples

In our lunch hour,
I ask my friend why.
He tells me
Its because we are oranges
In a city of apples.
When I protest,
He says
"A peach then.
You are a peach in a city of apples."
I don't like this any more
Than the oranges thing.
So he sighs
And says
"People here want apples,
Something you and I will never be.
There is nothing wrong with this."
And I hate this explanation
Most of all,
Because what I am really
Is a fire-bird, a phoenix.
Anyone with any shred of insight
Should be able to see this.
This city, despite the hoop-la,
Is full of men without imaginations.

It is a bleak day,
And a momentary silence falls
Between my friend and I.
Then, he thoughtfully says
"But I'm really hot, back in Pittsburgh."

riding home

You in the red shirt to my left,
I marry you, riding home, without you knowing it
When i turn slightly, and see the inside of your ear,
Clean enough to eat from.
There is a small mole on your brown neck.
Around your neck you wear a silver chain.
(I imagine and wonder what it would feel like
For the chain to brush the hairs of my chest.
Would it pull some of them out?
Would it hurt a little?)
You get off at Lorimer, unaware we that we were meant to be.
You look to your right, and your gaze rests on me,
Just a moment,
Before you walk, mysterious and beautiful, out into the night.

a certain type of man

Where are all the handsome men in khakis going?
What music do they listen to on their i-pods?
I want a listen.
I want a list.
Where do they sculpt their bodies?
Do they get a deal at the Y,
Or do they splurge and join the sports club?
Do they read?
Do they decorate their rooms,
Or paint them some manly color:
Grey, or brown, or blue?
Do they leave all of their loose change
In a tray on top of their dressers?
Do they keep pictures of their mothers,
Or a best friend who died in a car crash senior year
Beside the tray?
You see where I am going with this,
So I'll cut it short, and admit
That I have a fascination with a certain type of man
Whose life seems just so,
Who always smells fresh, or, at worst, neutral,
Who never ever sweats.

The Ocean Floor

Love agonies are so completely mundane,
And I have walked, so often,
The paths of puzzlement.
I have so often waited, in silence,
For words that, for the most part, did come,
But sometimes didn't,
That I can stand back from myself and think
"What a joke!".
I should be happy, free, unafraid.
I should play with the cats, or water the plants,
Or take the train into the city and see the Vermeer.
So why is it I am, once again,
Lying on the ocean floor?

voo-doo/a curious dance

I've returned.
I'm back in that one-horse (no horse) town,
That quiet town,
That ghost town.
I've returned wild-goose fashion,
Boomerang fashion.
I really never left.

Our house there is home, sweet home,
Only now there is a wall missing,
And the sycamore tree is growing inside the living room.
The crab-apple tree is growing in the living room.
(And I can't understand why we didn't have it this way before. Its perfect.)

The cats are inside.
I and the two cats move around in a circle,
A curious dance,
And there is something wrong with one of them.
Because of this, I try to hit it with my broom,
But the cat is always out of reach.

Its darkening so fast, and there is someone else in the room,
Always just out of sight,
In the kitchen, or behind the sycamore.
Perhaps it is my Father, but I don't think so.

I move about in the yard-room,
Turning on the lamps,
And each time I believe I have them all lit,
The room is in darkness again.

Its very dark now, darker than before.
There is a doll in the closet with human hair.
There are two pairs of eyes in the closet.
They shine out-four bright discs.
Perhaps it is the cats, but I don't think so.

the Visitors

We looked at pictures of these young ones
Who were coming to visit,
The photos of the good times they had had
In the past, dancing.
It was funny, they had never even heard of the nineties
My Mother said.
There were several Chinese among the rest, which I thought surprising.

When they arrived we were supposed to give them love,
So much love;
I held the Irish girl very tightly
Against the sea wind that buffeted our bodies.
Then I shined my light up, into the dark sky.
My message, in the light, to the girl was
"You are beautiful,"
But she couldn't see it at all, despite me trying,
Trying again to show her.

We both fell silent
At the ominous hum in the distance,
And after, she and her sister left.

The girl had hidden something for me
Which my Mother found, and gave to me:
A linen cover in which to carry the missal.

why don't the stones cry out?

I know where Michael is...a lawyer, and still in the same place we were briefly together. When I think of him, I think of magical young love...swimming in a cold river in the mountains...sleeping together in his dorm room bed which was too small for even him, and the rain falling steadily outside.

Dan...I haven't a clue. Dan is the one who might possibly no longer be alive...I, being the private eye I am, have looked for him on the Internet, and all that I have found is a post on an alumni website asking for any information about his whereabouts. Dan was in love with me...really, that sounds dramatic, but its true. And I wasn't attracted to him at all...EXCEPT, he had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen...a perfect mixture of light green and sky blue. Also, he was one of the best kissers I have ever met. When I kiss now, I try to kiss the way Dan did...

Tony...Spanish Tony...what a jerk-off, although I don't think he meant to be. He had a small, very nicely muscled body and a face like a young Jeff Goldblum's. He dragged me around shopping one day...I didn't have any money, but he had a new job and tons of money...I remember I held all his shopping bags. We were at the J. Crew outlet store...Bach, overlaid by some kind of techno was playing on the store sound system...I was feeling so tired and drained...I wanted to lay around with Tony...not carry his bags. Later, he told me, over a huge bowl of split pea soup, that I was too clingy, and that he had to leave. We went back to my dorm room and I carried his bags, one last time, down to his new SUV...Georgia was beating LSU in football that night...kids were leaning out their dorm room windows screaming. Tony drove off. I walked back up to my room, and, crying, called Dan, who came over, and held me, and scolded me. Poor Dan...Poor Me.

Jennifer...somewhere in the Deep South studying marsh birds...we were so close, and so far away...there is so much I could say...so many stories...not all pleasant, and not a pleasant end, ultimately, to the us I knew, though I recently said to Chelsea that in all relationships the stuff that matters is the good stuff, and Jennifer and I had some fun times that only two crazy college students can have...

Bianca...the only one of these people I'm in contact with...the most grounded of these people...singing karaoke in her feather boas...coca-cola and cigarettes on the smoker's bench at all hours of the night...wine smuggled into her dorm room...a boa constrictor smuggled into her dorm room that we named Fluffy, and that she carried, sometimes, in her sleeve...brown babies...and now she's married, and she looks happy...

Belinda...dark, angry Belinda. She accompanied me, faithfully, to the gay bar, and down various, crazy rabbit holes that took us to beautiful rooms and ugly rooms, and just when we couldn't be any crazier, she ran away to the military, and that was just before September 11th, so God knows where she is now...

Finally, Ryan...up in the wilds of Canada. Tom called him Madame Butterfly later, which was mean of him, though Ryan did have geisha brows, I have to admit. He introduced me to sushi, and mussels. I smoked cigarettes and drank scotch and soda on his front steps in the long, green Summer. He was with me the day my Mom tried to hurt herself...he took me to the hospital. He was kind. He was always kind, though when I found him later he denied that we had 'dated'. But back then he wanted me to stay over, to sleep over, and I wouldn't, and now I haven't a clue why I wouldn't, when I was always very happy with him. Not to be...not to be...

September nights, when it becomes cooler, and quiet, I think of all of them. They come to me in the dark, as I lie there, trying to sleep. I wonder about them. I wonder about me, the person I was then. I wonder, wonder, wonder...