Circus Around Us

if a pastel drawing could be tall 

it'd be Santa Cruz- tall like thick

on the paper but soft and just

tall enough to fit me and

Livy- the body temp 

bliss envelopes

the circus around us

stays, we cruise 

through the landscape 

I think the west coast

looks imagined

and she says it's the garden

of earthly delights 

lol, clothes, bacon, 

tea and silver

these sharp jokes

for us alone

spill a 

feeling

that ends

at our fingers

drag in the sand

darken our eyebrows

it's a playground

I buy the things

that the people here

wear so that maybe

I'll have to stay?

remember the long days

of being babies

and those poems- 

when I pass the flat 

and easy street corners

spider webs on wet, pink paper

now down the long

california road

I wish to make this

as dense as that tall

drawing, as sweet

and marzipan as

that much pastel

it's almost midnight

and I need to touch on 

the ceramic purse-

speech bubbling on the beach

there's no perfect bag

so risky and chic 

and I see a free box 

with nothing in it

we laugh about

bringing one on the plane

so far I've just touched it

and our fingers are full

we fall on the sand

our ovaries burn

you touch all your socks

in the bird feather sand

plain, painted, people who

watch us hold hands

in circles around us the

circus

In The Land Where Black-Eyed-Susans Bloom Through the Winter say it backwards I love all of my sisters by blood and by choice Pepitas Stockings cuteofus My Enduring Memories

not heavy enough

I imagine buffing the East Coast sky with a sander

to make it bigger and softer

it’s so sharp and small compared to the West Coast

in current assessment 

the Tri-State Area is my black yin dot 

to my white yang California teardrop

every other storefront on Mission Street is under construction 

no more Thrift Town no more dollar store no more Goodwill 

peeling painted signs on unlit windows 

defeated shells encasing dusty construction tableaux

still a dirt-caked man sparking an already blackened crack pipe 

half beneath a soiled floral comforter on the threshold of the A.A.

still an ice blue pinpoint eyes woman staring from her throne 

swaddled in too many layers of clothing like a queen

I get on the subway, it rolls east out of sad and pretty painted SF

which is close but not quite my home 

in the moment between the train coming up from underwater 

and into West Oakland station

I see the line of yellow poplar trees, unreal, the Emerald City painted on the backdrop

that marks the apartment on Henry Street where my sister my mom and I lived 

just a flash of the red-brown roof, a flash of dappled sun glinting on green grass 

in the park at the end of our street, the end of the bottom of the Lower Bottoms

this view is the closest I ever get to that figment

I can’t confirm if it’s real

Mom gave me the corner bedroom in the trees after Lucia moved out 

it’s dark wood wainscoting hemmed me in

solitary princess in a twin bed

yellow shimmer-disk leaves in the windows 

towards the end of us living there we were more and more like dolls in a dollhouse

the clean particularity of our possessions

sparseness indicating the death of something

the Three Women dynamic that bound us

we would never exist in that configuration again

Mom and I were increasingly quiet and spacious with one another

cheap comforting smell of Suave shampoo

all of our household essentials came from the big dollar store on 7th street

I took lots of baths in the tiny tub

skipped school often just to draw and make cup after cup of jasmine tea

clear enamel Victorian hand mirror 

iron bust of a clown with a lever arm to slide coins into his mouth

painted Buddha and smiling flamenco doll

the objects that fleshed out our home were suddenly too flimsy

not heavy enough to add up to a permanence

I played guitar in the early morning before school

she listened through the door blocked by a desk that connected the two bedrooms

when I left it would be impossibly quiet

she must have felt the need to put the last of that era out of its misery

to whip up a whirling shit storm 

rather than see me off 

forever retracing the paw prints pinpointing the x marks the historic 

spots on the map of mega chapters  

when God shook out the landscape like a blanket 

She let it fall the first time so wrinkled 

as to make mountains, lakes, oceans, etc.

then She threw us down in the sand

where we like to flop 

I would wear that white dress

if I was Ferrante’s Lila or Lenu and getting married 

of course we are though

each other’s Blue Fairy

tan bums watch us walk

demand a personalized smile in their direction 

Haha fuck you

rag dolls on the beach in all of our clothes 

Not As In Final

One of those boxes is her resting place not as in R.I.P. but like she naps there

Thank YOU

thanks for the gum

women's restroom at the airport 

WOMEN in huge silver capital letters fixed to the marbled wall

like a monument to women

think about WOMEN

Forgetting / Remembering

cold gym scent as I pull the plastic cartoon door handle

I already feel it as an ill-fitting memory

past tense, that winter spent with purple and yellow machinery

in a strip mall

it bothers me for the length of the staircase

that scent being etched forever in place of something more romantic

up the three rises hugging a corner of floor to ceiling windows

black reflective winter darkness

Then I acclimate, I forget to be so careful

I like the gym

trying to feel like the most beautiful ant

I get scared in the winter

I want to be intentional about what I etch

what I chisel out

There is a consignment store and a beer depot in the same strip mall as the gym

a store selling exclusively swimwear year-round

a massage chain, a nail salon

Playboi Carti on the car radio

in New York I milly rock what hide it in my sock oo 

why do I love CVS?

It has become my crystalline fixation

in this nebulous whirl of a year, nebulous whirl of issues

that capitalism and "masculinity" are scourges on this earth

I want so badly to chisel out something better

Raymundo

mom called us into her bedroom

I was 6 or 7 or 8 

she was laying up in bed on fluffy pillows 

is she sick? is this good or bad I thought

why does she sound so strange

she said she was pregnant, they wanted to name him Ray

we were to celebrate but it felt wrong

the 1950s bed frame painted with powdery roses

her short dyed burgundy hair, sterling Mexican skull earrings, the pillows

she soon after either had a miscarriage or the whole thing was imagined

private prop

the day is a phone

even when the days are fun like baby

blocks 3 fun days big blocks in a row

they’re still big and there’s climbing 

I walk the blocks that are long curves

invisible until I am outside

the mysterious happenings 

of our neighbors

trusting the unconscious mind

to connect the dots

is the creepiness in writing 

this desperation

in trusting as I walk

eyes so wide as to

drink all potential

dots

pine cone garden

pink newspaper sleeve

am I exercising am I

private property

oranges that 

look like limes

at first

one birdhouse

in an empty garage

a blonde bombshell

her pending sale

exploding  

▢

on the block with the liquor store

where the guy thought Tyler said

correctors when he was trying

to say characters

like Mickey Mouse?

I make videos

so color correction?

no like Mickey

lol

this stuck so

this block I see

trees that look

like bony cartoon

correctors, naturally

part me of wants

to be in the know

about what it takes 

to rent-a-fence

to have complete

knowledge of the

neighborhood in

simple lego-like terms

but only the first

part when oranges

are still limes

the first part of

sims when it's 

all naming and 

decorating

what is it about

setting up that's so

thrilling?

a slime patty coated in dirt

draped over an electric box

it shocks me

Hills & Blessings

at 11:11
the alarm reminds me to pet and
all week I've felt so serious about it
so certain that Sunday night was perfect
for me and my sister, this weekend
was rolling hills
a monument of them
and everyone has their own
to cry on but
they roll twisted
and tomorrow just
isn't always so
my mom reminds me
so here I am
I've tinkered with pt 2
I've cooked and
I've cried and
I need a tarot
reading tonight
or
sleep will escape me again and
the mysterious shittiness
of my body in limbo
will keep me up with all its
options
for escape routes
so many options each leaking from
a pore and my jaw
is locked
right where my cheek rings
like an ear aware
of the dead moon gone
a face tat nowhere another
ghost to add to the
list that rings and
stirs and shows up
with the exit signs
that I remember from
a past life feels like a
Sunday night
and I used to think
only some people died
and I wish on my alarm
for a seventh heaven phone chord
to be drawn permanently
between us and for the
ringing to just be you

First Frost Frozen Pink Flowers R.I.P. I Love You Fred Cole

I chase the thought 
lacklusterly walk behind the poemfragment 
I was thinking
I look down for a moment 

flip the pages of my blue memo pad
chores and duties a pragmatic sludge
I look up and the thought is far away
I write the O's in "TO DO" as spirals
spiral of never able to let it rest
the cuteness of discipline

Texts from Mom about her plans for the day
I am uneasy at how similar they are to my own
on Saturdays I water my plants too
my lingering morning cough is hers
three ascending notes chiming mundanely

how she shuffles in her slippers
I can't explain it
resolutely solitary spinster
androgynous shadow shell
looking to me for completion
I don't want to be that

I resent that throughout this year not speaking
our habits have remained so similar
that now we talk competitively about our gardens
crafts and cooking tactics
our need to be solitary
our angst about having to work alone

There still isn't enough room
My brooding hasn't made me a different animal
It just brings me closer to a shade of her

I try to be full of love and patience
I cast straw over the sleeping garlic
pulling the covers over half of my garden bed
throw clover seeds over the other half
I rake them into the dirt

Fred and Toody sing to me
go to my room, lock the door
and plan my escape
run away from myself
I worry that its already too cold for the clover to root
the birdbath is a solid crystal ball full of trapped pink leaves
everything has wilted
thousands of shrugging shoulders

I rake up fig leaves
their deep green smell is comforting
and the slanted sun strong enough
A perfect fig reveals itself beneath the rake
I pick it up and bite into it
pleased to find its center frosted like sorbet

Everything dusty icy pink, pale golden yellow
the middle of the day already tipping into the end
Fred and Toody hovering around
I make the promise to him, another dead friend
that I'll never turn my back on magic
& resourcefulness

Nothing Every Goes Away (pt 1)

says James

the words feel strong now

I used to have

religion, but nothing

ever goes away

a song to hum,

one you wake up with in your head

a dead friend, any desire

any lie stays

relationships are

delicate truths made

of lies

familiar even with just 

words is the scene: walking 

through the city, the new couple

on the same streets I was

feeling the same way

along the lines of

gold and blue or

whiskey and perfume

she leaned closer to him

and the colors of her shawl flashed

when new york is about to burst

with heat and light and

everyone walking

is part of that

I want to convey the meaning

and weight of energy

without resorting to

anything that exists

already

but in the same way 

that New York'sparticipantss

create its heat, do the passengers

on this plane

create the stale air of stress

the combinations of origins 

the cauldron of energy in

any given container

maybe I should look at

chemistry

where does one energy stop 

and another begin how

does the massive looming west coast 

cloud filled sky goldenpeach ripe...

above the rockies 

where is the wall between that 

and the aliens of us 

how different could the big 

quiet sky be

from the stale stress

I have conquered my fear

of turbulence today

because it wouldn't cease

I won't clutch my chest

or close my eyes,

put down the book

but I say that now

I stare at my veins

and wonder about

their reaction to

this unimaginable

pressure

Again Turnpike

Outside the smudgy windows of the bus
golden rod and pinkish pussy willows 
Marshy beautiful ponds with 
white butterflies dipping around

the lady in my headphones says
Letting the self be just what it is,
letting everything be alright, is love

it smells like toilet
I remember
厕所 - ce suo 
which always sounded like cesspool to me
Csssssssss

Be alright with that?
Let that sensation into my meditation (self, love)
which says
Notice everything take it in do not judge it

Can I walk with that
In a dusty warm world
Heart spread out like a fan

Let myself walk
In the margins of the turnpike
Walk alongside the bus