7.

At some point, they stopped calling it
goodbye.
The years rolled in and out,
the seasons flowed sweet and bitter
they both stopped getting taller
early on
He dated a series of foolish and wonderful girls
She put on her backpack and didn't come back
for  a while

They talked on the phone
in moments of heartbreak and nirvana
He described in detail
the patterned chemical response
of our habitual emotions
She told him that she danced under the moon
She slept in his bed when she visited
His girlfriend didn't care for her after that.

He showed up at her house 3000 miles away,
set up his pup tent in the yard
befriended her boyfriend
Was waiting there for her
when she got home.
He photographed her like no one else:
she looked more like herself in his photos

Maybe, he told her,
because he saw her so rarely
he could see her simply as she was.
Or maybe, she answered,
because he saw her so rarely
he could see her only as he imagined her to be.

8.

She: surprised at the new thickness of his shoulders
and the familiar delicate slope of his father's nose
his new grad student glasses,
but those same favorite blue sneakers
He: shocked all over again by her beauty,
the frame of her new haircut
her sparkling earrings
the new smile lines curving away from her eyes
tying together
a portrait that is almost unbearable

How they had shrunk in each other's mind
to the last clear image
a halo of sun
a pair of knit eyebrows
a pair of feet dangling off a dock

he sits beside her
he says he thinks clearer when they talk
"You might think I sound crazy,
but you should hear me when I'm not talking to you."

he asks if she thinks of him
and where he fits into the rhythm of her life
he says he thinks of her
wishes for her to bring some chaos into his logicked world
he says he just wants time with her
fifty days on a desert island

she reminds him that they're both in love with other people
that they live 3000 miles apart
that the rhythm of their lives
has never carried them together for very long
before tugging them apart again

she says the time is not right
and the time has never been right
and maybe the time will never be right.

he doesn't know
that she has just had to catch her heart like a balloon
by the string and tug it
hand over hand
back to earth

9.

He was once a connoiseur of wildness
Coke on the beach in Mexico
The dark thighs of strange women
Piercing, reckless love letters
Sometimes addressed to her

He was once a force of nature
Broader than a hurricane
Lashed to a pier
Set to destroy himself

She was there for all of that
Lay in the back of his huge Suburban on an old sleeping bag
when they skipped class together
he drew demons
sang his good songs
she read Revelations
and laughed and gasped

He was intuitive, frightening sometimes
had a good goatee, even at seventeen.
He can't find songs to sing now
But he writes lengthy papers
His head is so rich with thought
He is paralyzed in his armchair.

10.

She scribbles in a small book
It's undeniable.
You can't turn summer back into spring
or winter into autumn.
Birds don't turn back mid-migration.
Love doesn't back up and take a different turn this time.

She is on top of a white mesa
as if she has always been on top of a white mesa
The sun is blazing
as if the world has never been dark.
Her hair was once short
now long
someday silver
She can't ignore this.

He is brilliant. More
every year
Someday
less so.
The gypsum crunches underfoot
She dreams of him, forgets him again,
likes to dream of him when things are complicated.

She gets up from the shade.
Time begins again.

11.

He dreamed of conquering the world.
He told her his plan. He would
arrange everything.
But when he was in charge
He would be at risk of getting bored
So she would have to be there too.

She said she didn't want to rule the world.
He said then, of course, he would have to enslave her,
Make her play war games,
Keep him on his toes.
She said that she wouldn't play.

He holds her on the afternoon of his wedding
in the doorway of his bedroom
in a tall white beachhouse
She is trembling, about to spill over.
He uses his thumbs to wipe the tears from her eyes.
Once, he held her in a white nightgown
She was brimming
one shift of his hand
she would have melted into him

She has just watched him marry someone else.
Now he is holding her like this,
wiping her tears away like that.
One shift of his hand.

She stares straight into him
Her eyes big round mirrors
His new wife steps into the room.

12.

She was awake all night
with the moon blaring through her window
Pipe down, she wanted to say.

What if she had gone with him?
Or for that matter, with the puppeteer,
the bilingual breakdancer,
or the Maltese diplomat?
What wildness,
what infinite hallways of doors
what weeks wiled away on desert islands?
Did she have a finite amount of love and time
and could it only be apportioned
like slices of pie?

Better not to think about it
Those questions with no answers
But at precisely 12:08 AM
she was staring at an endlessly bright moon
and she couldn't think of anything else.

moonlight dance

i call in
the one
in the
moonlight dance
of what's possible
right now
despite
the evidence
of my
oneness
i call in
the diad
of what not
what could be
rather
what is
right now
in a hot union
of two souls
two bodies
besos
abrazos
risos
limbs
and many
beads of
sweat
conjoined
into
one.

by mariposa 

 © 2012

13.

He woke up lost.
What time is it, he wanted to say
And for an instant, couldn't place the month
The season
The time of year
His age
All of it lost in the filmy gray
between sleep and awake
He could have been any age
Thirteen and in love for the first time
Seventy-five and in love for the last
His back still aching
His eyes sandy.

He blinked.
A stunning woman there next to him
Soft, yielding, curled in the quiet kiss of sleep
Sunshine hair spilled out across the pillow

How did he get there?
Did he do something wrong?
Did he do something very right?

This was his wife.
More cream and more silk
than he could have dreamed
as a teenager
when he wondered,
which of the three girls he had a crush on
he would marry

He brushed a hair from his wife's forehead
All those years, he was talking about her
Wondering about her
And they were hurtling towards each other
Through time and space
Without either of them knowing it.

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Let’s get basketball, let’s get skateboards
let’s get girls, and a band

In the Goodwill Outlet young sweatshirt
grandmother feels the sequin blouse,

Beaded belt, moon grafitti
little schizo fez dictator barks nonsense

Whatever makes you feel like the boss, right?
Legacy city, marsh canopy

PA systems and greenrooms at the market –
you want tacos? What are your needs?

Bank teller raccoon eyes with a
cat named Thunder and a thing for hello kitty

All the million types of coffee
a few good spots for neighbors

2 AM closing time, but once in a special while,
we get drunk on sun.

4 Month Slaughter

I forgot what month it is.

The last of the 4 month slaughter.

A friend told me the other day
that I have alot of babies in my stomach.
"You are carrying them," she said
"you are giving them a womb to be in".
Maybe this explains the hotflashes,
these sweaty bursts and pauses.
I go from zero to ten in a tiny heartbeat.
Maybe they are ready to carry themselves in the world.
Maybe it is time to let them go.

I forgot what month it is.

It is February, the last of the 4 month slaughter.

Let's put on some Marvin Gaye.

Let's dance.

14.

She was once small.
Her fingers were tattooed with marker ink
Her voice was a giggle
Happy to be seven, then to be ten
Hating olives
Given to fits of rage
That would drift out to sea
and vanish

She never dreamed of marriage
Of being a white princess,
But now there's a tiny diamond on her finger
And she has just cut her bangs.
Doors have opened
And she has walked through them
Again and again
Until she got here.

She cannot doubt now
Every past version of herself
Who looked at each of those doors
Then said,
"Yes, this is the one"
And walked through.

Ex Opere Operato

I.
she drove me to the train
i whispered my confession
to crocus buds the mud
the blooming quiet sky

said penance to the fog
a cashier in the store
who shyly bowed to trace
a cross between my eyes

II.
the summer hummed too drunk
i walked too far against
the dust of passing cars
a raccoon family paused

to pity me they watched
front paws aloft as i
the pilgrim trudged for blocks
my blisters bled into the sheets

III.
a war was fought and yet
the clouds are ordinary grey
it’s just a bus, it’s just
a corner, just a song

a merely mortal mess
i miss our gesture cluster
disorganized i’m left
to live my way through this

February

seems to be secret season
round here, the sun is out
a good time to say hello
for the first time, or goodbye
for the last

a season for midnight snacks
for those forbidden phone calls
pacing, your breath on the mouthpiece
moon voices, all of us the same

a season for vacation or just vacating

maybe days are getting longer
but the nights aren’t getting any shorter yet

warmth is the anomaly & doubt
still slants down from the sky

steady now, if you believe
coincidence, it will be hard
to get up I find
meaning is just easier

feb 4

wait

are we still

doing

this.

oh yes

said the frog lulling in the soft warm mud.

dead lines

whole ache of my own vessel
tissues slough & flake off
cold extremities, reaching deep
to the core, there must be energy
stored there, there must be better ways.
no stillness til dawn
or dusk, whichever comes first –
why the constant race, why
the focus on finishing,
why don’t we just extend
the continuum, mystery
of immunity, just float.

both/and. labels releasing.

“are you holding onto something you want to let go of?”

shaking arms, face hitting the stearing wheel

I slid away from you on the bed, trembling

Shaking, spasm

check,check,check, checking email

“are you letting go of something you want to hold on to?”

Yes! I’ll keep you cozy through my shoulder for a while

(Is that you in my shoulder?!)

Just behind my eyes, or nesting in my tongue,

your sweater, mangled in the lost and found, rests on my bed

Separation Occurs Naturally. Shake it up! (4x)

Separation Occurs Naturally. Swirl gently. (3x)

Separation Occurs Naturally. Shake Gently.

Separation Occurs Naturally. Stir and enjoy.

Once a day

Once every day we do something
a shift of the hip
a blink of an eye
and then we recover
and go back to the beginning.

We rise
and stretch ourselves
put on an outfit
and then move in such a way
once everyday.