Agency

I’ve been getting stuck in the space between
filling in the blanks

what Celia said about global warming
being the perfect result of, and companion to,
late capitalism
because if there is no off season
business is always on

spots where the sidewalk is stained purple
from jacaranda flowers fallen and crushed
feel them under your sneakers

to be here on the beach
with the local women begging me to buy a necklace
and the white dreads yogis “searching”
and the French Canadians yelling TOSTADA

A Little Something

mood like the clouds passing
skittish 

heavy like the groceries

light like the song in my ear
worried about paralysis vs.

ability to execute 

want to daydream 

with words and music forever

but the course catalogue

volunteer application 

election Chemistry
Anatomy wind chimes 

seven inch virus 

Mom family art show

tour Dad family 

travel work schedule 

my hero in wonderful clothes

passing me by
clouds moving
I’d like to

deep breaths etc 1

doing everything fast except
what I'm being fast for
wasting mania on texting
falling, opening

a whole night's sleep as one piece of the puzzle
one place I've been
one cocoon in chrysalis

spiritual blazer

flirting with alcoholism
like a grown up
spinning my wheels

late to jail

woke up every hour still having not made it to jail

my probation was familiar 

like blank paper and color pencils 

looking for a ride there

yeah i was thinking of a metal rail 

screwed in tight with the anchors & everything

we were just awake i guess and 

i saw this rail as the other thing

the other thing that I thought was lost but

its the cake and eating a pocket
cut from my pants

the time he said
you should always have a secret plan
and
just play dead 
they can’t kill you if you’re already dead
disappearing in his bedroom

















Mom is loose in the desert
with the rabbits coyotes and roadrunners
vision of her driving till she runs out of gas
astral projecting beyond the landscape

General Issue

little mouths floating

saying some shit

more us than me

see it from all sides

let me be your chauffeur 

or a singing nurse
I wanna be dependable
in this small town

counting my friends/blessings
let me be real/sentimental

loving vs. needing

a classic q
let it be unconditional
let it be free

find out

waiting by the train station
in the dark car like a private eye
two tall buildings in my view
on one building’s LED screen the time ticks by
- - - - -7:57 pm - - - - - - - - - 7:58 pm - - - -
the other building spells out L O V E
then shows flashing concentric hearts
I feel the way months flatten
not that serious at all

I keep thinking about the
corny prescription from JJ
love is a revolution
an initiation
the only thing worth decorating
yourself and the world with
love needs action
it starves on words alone

Auntie calls flustered about Mom
but expresses zero opinion
I’m missing information
gaps in my ability to understand
loyalty, denial, protection
codependence
or is it just love?
is it just family?
I’m so far away
the outsider

Mom says
Do NOT call my family 
acting like a teenager
going home to her mom
locking herself in the bathroom
yelling till she is horse

Auntie says
You’re welcome!!Spoke with my 
mom this morning and she was calm 
and collected.  She baked a cake and 
was wondering through the garden. 
Mom said she was really angry and 
upset last night. Mom just listen 
and let her vent.

My mom? Your mom?
My family? Your family?
Mom Mom Mom Mom
baking a cake
wondering through the garden

my big rose

comprenez-moi

oolong tea plus coconut milk from a can and wildflower honey
sitting at the table in the window
sunbathing

Dornröschen

sleeping drinking dying
dis-articulating the cranium
the only rule is
do it
finally awake
after 400 years
be disciplined even about
indulging your vices
cos tomorrow is yesterday

weekend like

the fam in town for chunks
of stress the yellow lines
dividing the road all day
the lack of words like a
lemon wedge
the conflict
taped shut
the conflict
cracked open
the conflict when I cry

the smog like cereal milk and
mom wants to move here
through the tinted window
she waves with both hands

also

Mom says she is pregnant
my eyes roll up into infinity
it’s always a son

K.A.D.E.

a decade of the truest friend
I remember when we were 16
sleepwalking

the day we sat on the bridge over the river
we agreed that drawing was being
and you didn’t need a thesis

generation

forever 21 esque edm in the lyft
feels like eating a graham cracker

Headlines

FT reports on Biden’s Wall St donors
having a “sinking feeling”

my dog’s yellow eyes

I debate catching the bus up to money town
but it’s always the coldest day of the year there

Stanley Cntd.

the windows opposing ours light up at 3am
voices echo in the alley

oh you’re trying to keep your property clean?
you can keep it
you can keep it, I’m going home
I pay rent around the corner 
I’m going home
you can KEEP your property
and have a nice day
you can keep your property clean
have a nice day
as for me I sweep up
you can keep it

Stanley’s voice sounds different at night
deeper, a little screwed up

book town apple coffee

feeling seen and seeing

also seeing through  

and in between, etc

so no facade 

means all facade

uncanny

am I talking about windows

not sure

and then the mysterious way

clouds hang out in the park

stuck in the trees

shocks me

knowing 100% fantasy
is reality  

warm light from tall windows 

some professor’s home study

every square foot of the walls lined with books

god I love 

to be at my desk 

then more people silhouetted in more windows

I think about the Brian De Palma movies I've seen 

some people keep
their egos in their shirt pockets

always just at hand

easy as an apple

the boss sticks his foot

in the tiny trashcan to compact it 

I say

I don’t think you can fit in there 

Diamond Princess

all the little quarantined cruise ships
circling the globe







jingle jangle
disco blasting
thinking about
driving off the pier

















the movement is beautiful
fuck everyone in our way

Letter OG Devil Letter Angel Remix

yikes

full body theme

love in opposing corners

a traffic circle

Nora's fancy earring

pacing around/you’re loving me

eating off the wooden spoon because

I'm grown and the huge

moon tonight

my phone lighting up inside 

the glove compartment while

I'm Inside writing from paint chips

Curiosity, Untamed, Liquid Gold

B actually smelling them for her poem 

like a McDonald's bathroom she says

they all sound like nothing though

my back falling down

out of love?

in the nook w/ the music

to fall in love and stay in it

love/bread medievally basic

fundamentally speaking the crack 

there has me loose seeking a unique 

not-ok, for the in between, she wrote

to all of us and probably the person behind me

rearrangement

I was holding a piece of paper to my ear
with your name on it
talking into it
wondering how I was going to
delete the evidence of the call

pacing the sidewalk
you're saying all this stuff!
a sun shower
a heist, an earthquake
the shiny people becoming otherwise
saw your smile in a room
my paper was gone &
it wasn't even you

More Than A Woman

sunset the same colors as
The Ultimate Bee Gees album art

rest then

(1/5) Writing this early. I'm up to
see dawn in Santa Fe. I tried as b

(2/5) est I could. I'm extra tired
now. Not finding understanding,
exc

(4/5) Don't panic, Livia. (i named you).
I'm okay.
Just sad & tir

(3/5) ept in strangers. It's tough
out here.
My phone's losing charge.

(5/5) ed 😻

northeast

the moon on the roof
falling right into my eye
a diamond that’s piercing

fake sunflowers icy wind
the city is a picnic
its wide open boulevards

Dust Bunny

a bald techno dome
Disney owns the whole shitload now
generic 80s actors
close encounters to the third power

left hand

the whole pretty hand thing

unafraid to put glitter
in the tub tonight
too...bad
to consider why not
bad like you got it
considering appendicitis

woke up laughing though

from all the falling
the debris of an open mouth
silence/ weak with duration

premonition

a snake slipping out of its skin
I wonder if it feels bad or good

David

to be a figment
when I was 15 in his bedroom
disappearing

settings

scavenger hunt
where the prize is
pockets of garbage
plastic cups paper
napkins up stairs down
crates dust
gallons where’s
the switch
eyes stuck on

faucet setting

sky on overcast
body on shiver
sun on set setting

brain on nowhere 

heart on cracked

boring

I dream a man cracked his skull in pieces
and had to gather his thoughts in the park

some kind of fucked up spell
by an aspiring cult leader

wake up to the “trouble in Iowa”
the dodo, the mouse, the eaglet, etc.

everyone gets a prize, gives a speech
the vote counting app made by “Shadow Inc.”

time

Stanley's trail of ripped paper
pasted to the sidewalk by the rain

when the teacher asks us how we feel
on a very physical plane
I don’t

laying down
allow the slight curve in your low back
so a tiny trail of ants could crawl under you

this doing nothing
is who we really are

the show

way up on Kensington Ave
driving southwest right into the sun
a man walking his bike up the sidewalk
stops, leans on it
nodding out
pull over to check on him
he speaks like a sleepy puppy
soft
I'm ok, I appreciate it
drive safe now 
he's right
it's wild up here
people shaking on every corner
making wonky maneuvers
toon town
the painted signs are too beautiful
I buy some wine for Samantha & Sam up on Fox Ave
look at a rhinestone belt in "Got the Look"
on the way home
60 mph on Lincoln Drive
drive past my block
looking for a river view
nothing but run down
cul-de-sacs in the way
back and forth over
Grey's Ferry bridge
to catch the glimmer

footnote

a wakeboarding competition was held 
on the Schuylkill after a rainstorm
he thought it was funny because
it was sponsored by Yoo-hoo
and the river was brown
like chocolate milk

name game

we can name the shapes

bat their sounds around

while in the chrysalis a caterpillar
becomes almost entirely liquid
before reconstituting into a butterfly

how does nothing know

to keep being something?

also butterflies remember things
that happened to them from before
they morph, despite their tiny brains
disappearing almost completely

does it matter what you call God?

is it all just carbon playing games?

language also knows
to keep being something
slipping like the Schulykill

is a name a fate?

so many lbs

sitting for a day

breaking for menial tasks

I contemplate the word you

I can't eat but I do

you, could be a knife

a handbasket

a carrier bag 

fiction, the first tool

was more like a net

than a weapon

and I know it
by the weight
of my heart

and today 3

at least my art is in some Venn diagram 

sitting by the window/stewing 

the day is a phone and I'm full

of soggy blank envelopes

I was not hoping for

Wednesday

^ emerging as extraneous display stuff
at least--

fun pattern

finally call Mom
to see how it’s all
suspended shapes
still here, together
caught in a web
I don’t get to choose
the same but different
this time around
softer and older
this time
she knows I know
she’s actually past “that cliff”
even though she says she’s
“pulled herself off it”
I’m a little hoarse but listen
baby, listen
I’m ok
my stomach hurts
and it’s fine
I hold the shapes at arms length
they jangle
like a wind chime

and today 2

I’m cooling down

time be like that

getting older too

I know it while

washing my face 

for once

life is a turn off

or life is a blip

in eternity 

so I squash shame

like a grape under my tailbone 

and today

it's like half of my face wants to cry
and the other half is thinking about why
and the back of my head how
and that was earlier before
knowing what I knew

baby food experience in the car
all the ounces dripping at the
red light trying to write --

how it would feel to be free
its when i hear the bird songs
before putting in the headphones
i'm 5 again/it was all birds

how it would feel to be free
singing/making a painting
of singing the prettiest thing

he/art

woke up feeling creepy

my curtains at half staff

when the helicopter crashed

found out he's been with that

girl from work all week and

I'm sick w/ feelings up to my

throat like a jello nothing

I'm so hurt its uninteresting

all week knowing like low tide

the air is so polluted its gray

optical-illusion-y

I've been asking everyone
for about a decade now
if they can think of an adjective
that means "having the effects
of an optical illusion" that isn't
just "trippy" or "illusory" because
those both mean something else
"vibratory" doesn't work either
there should be a word, one word
so you don't have to say
the whole drawn out sentence
"it is like an optical illusion" or
"it is producing an optical effect"
it probably exists in a another
language

ijdk

received 2lbs of
my own beeswax
in the mail
list not checking itself off
fast enough
the sun breaks through the clouds
just as the beat comes in
then it sets and I don't get to choose
how I feel
longing to be
wherever the party is
in my heart
in my head

Thank You, Mary

a while ago

adding the mouth guard to my head 

was another thing too many despite 

grinding my teeth to the experience 

of a cold mushroom 

start contemplating the meaning 

of mental breakdown in the process 

i see metal parts and say now

you are breathing in and now

you are breathing out 

the doomsday clock is at 100 seconds to midnight

here still
full of nothing to
say one thing one day
and something else
another I’m
a mess
connect and
diss

new dream or hell induced wonder

the wedding of my own
(I call him) husband
to another
one of those big ones
in small town Connecticut
I knew the bride to be vaguely
I knew why we were in
Connecticut but did she?

some of us were given small notes
with scribbled speech prompts
why do you think me and ****
should keep sleeping together?
damn
that's mine?
what I came up with was
I can't talk, or I'll cry 

there was a breakdown/intermission
with strippers that was participatory
and revealed who was comfortable
with sex etc

I stepped outside,
into the dregs of a monsoon

I walked to a flower shop on the dock,
a man and his son

I walked into a hotel,
faceless people in the corner,
the way I curved around them

I walked too far down some carpeted stairs
and saw complete darkness

I turned back towards the wedding with
a waxing right to my pain
its shape revealed I thought
there's a lego vibe to the end of all this
I could have put some pieces together



**** **
to squeeze myself into the regular beginning of
what I thought was a dark morning but
the sun just hasn't found my window
yet

3pm

harp is the instrument most like sunlight
also Bobby Valentino “Slow Down”

we talk about death while training the new girl
I say I'm "trying to think about it more"

rushing to be alone

generous with time cuz 

it’s not mine anyway when 

I imagine a friend telling another 

I'm dead in some hour I planned for

/hoarded in advance 

yes you can sleep in my bed all day
text me
do yoga in your leather belt

next to me

Remember

the medieval building on the waterfront
tall and looming
every square inch of its exterior
covered in seaweed
blowing in the wind shiny
I see from a bird’s eye view
people playing with nets
in the shallow water surrounding
sun ripples up to their calves

 ~

when they asked how long
I’ve been in this city
I realized I haven’t

~

I learned that those ubiquitous spiky balls
on the sidewalk are from Sweet Gum trees
so you can call them gum balls

tiny medieval weapons
“morning star”
is what that weapon is called

stress relieving and magical

a vein parallel to my bone

or what is that

center of the wrist

a bath in a big enough tub

one twinkling song

and I’m home

I sense some strands

have been stretched

tired, also death

living next to the train

for one night and

sleeping in the same room

as the baby 

it’s what I thought life would be

before I was born

tattoo?

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

My grandma my grandma

Mima! My grandma 

My grandma

Say it Straight (Livy I'm Here)

sad the first night

you could have done something

gone to the desert

the national park

problem is 

this feels like

the wrong search result

like a hard sheet of some

super obvious

shattering substance 

we just walked along the main road

winding, loud, with burs

the dogs paws bothered

we sang an entire musical

to be in song, walking, like

eating two right foods 

for good digestion

to eat for a fun time

not sure how to act hot

like the others in their 

pictures so 
I play easy
to be around

another

unexpected day off
to freak out
about everything
and do nothing

stanley

the same

curling a ribbon
deveining a shrimp

angel-abra

dappled

I watch as the woman
lifts her apple watch 
to the infant's face







nobody told the flowers to come up

you have to sprint towards your goals 
or inertia will crush you like a stone
it's all around us 
at the end of an 8.5 hour shift
you just have to pick yourself up
and keep throwing yourself at that wall
(pick a wall, any wall)
until it cracks
cos 9 times out of 10
you will bounce right off 
there's no silver bullet
for this thing
(living)
not in a poem 
not in a horoscope
I set a timer 







nightlight

the person who stands outside the store 
asks me to buy her white vinegar
when I hand it to her she screws off the top
and starts drinking it like water







imagine

I'm here for you like 
the nightlight in the bathroom
when you stumble in

intellectual birthday candle

when you try to make something that you pictured
and it turns out the materials on hand don't work at all
and you're right back where you started with a fantasy
less time and some wasteful scraps a sticky mess when
you try to make something and you realize you will
probably run out of materials and you're going to have
to spend money again when you try to make something
and are confronted by technical challenges harsh reality
impinges on the fantasy object when you try

* * * * * * *

Consider Discipline (Again)

in the dumb cafe
I unwittingly
braid the potted fern
behind me
into my hair



I think capturing
slivers of her
shiny painted nails
in the scanner bed
when assembling
our reading packets
is part of our teacher's
artistic practice



the White House wants
to let many pipelines
and other major projects
go ahead without review



I wonder what's a choice
and what's a habit
anymore
I wonder what we all are
without each other

remember

50 people die in stampede
at funeral procession of Soleimani
missiles fired at US base in Iraq
Iranian Americans detained for 11 hours
at US Canadian border
Australia in flames

dirt equation

family trees
should be upside down
given the old ones
are up there
or out there
or
so
we are the
roots more
down low and
I like the idea of
put in one nurse
 + one grandpa
get out one
mom
put in mom
+ dad
get out two
nurses

walk sign is on to cross

following him on his trash route

x
x

long pause at the corner of Landsdowne 
and Baltimore 
diagonal sun
crosswalk chirping
wait
wait
there is quite a lot of litter
by the bus stop
I try to follow 
not too close
but I couldn’t be more conspicuous
funky skirt bold scarf
jangly accessories
dawdling as only 
a hipster can
what is a poem more than
hot pink plastic ribbon 
looped through a fence
waving
a mennonite construction worker
with a bowl cut stares
    $ A STAR $
     BAZAAR
      SO MANY 
    VENDORS
       UNDER 
        ONE
        ROOF
but the lights off
it's all closed on this Monday
Landshutdowne Ave
I lean on the parking meter
cars run over my tall
3 o'clock shadow
someone says shadow 
on a speakerphone call
I catch it through 
the open window 
of their car passing
    Jesus = the Light of
   the World Reflect 
          that Light! 
  Have a Blessed 2020
written in chalk by hand
the last half of the route 
is going east on Baltimore
towards the skyline like 
the Emerald City again
church bells for 3:30 pm
moon white 
on the center
of the blue sky
like a fruit sticker
layer upon layer 
of chipped&faded 
lavender paint on 
a metal pole
trophies in the 
window of a martial 
arts studio
I don't need much

all I ask is just
park me in the sun

after jung tzu

the mirror in my bedroom

is an elegant forest

when I sit at my desk 
peripheral vision

shapeshifter

on a frozen pond

trick butterfly

smokey glass eye

my bedroom mirror

is a free agent

ice fishing for a dull face

to stare into

a heavy sleeper

to fuck with

the elegant brain

nuzzle a beer to my cheek

wipe the toilet seat

Chaplin vs Keaton
avuncular vs patuncular
why not avauntular?

looking for a shiny surface
to make eye contact with
I'm always texting Mega Bed
but the friend of the friend
is apparently always secretly
recording audio with his phone

wet lights

babysit the
wet lights
on the rain walk
instead of all
the smart boys
who don’t even
need me

babysit the ice rink
babysit pearls
on the edge
of a feeling like
a lake

we’re all just skulls
waiting to happen
feel your eye sockets
see what I mean
do whatever
you want

Fat Stream / To Do

my list
is always long
so in the purgatory
of a sick day
do I do all or
do nothing?

it goes
on
and on
choose ice skating
or nursing school
tired of needing
rest

listen to Key
by Meredith Monk
start to finish
like the answer is
in there somewhere
half medicine
half torture

my list is long
#1
more money
do you have to
wrestle back
into yourself
all the time?

moving

a waste of plastic
to bag up what
I'm over so
I rake it all
against the fence

this morning with
limon lays
the mountains
rat shit and the
truck

the hot roofer
his neck tattoos

I bet you have
the nicest roof
in south central

I wrote out my dream
in big thick marker:

walking briskly to
a more perfect food
& scared someone
along the way

goals, perfection
amidst transition?

unapologize and
publish!

a little bit of everything everyday

   boy paws&
dog paws
at 3 am but I'ms
leEp
  ing
visit
  from
a college
figure who
I can only
remember
by Instagram
 name now
    he gave me
a Super 8
camera
encouraging
my "work"
 I was
touched

chapter called Church

people say they might Jewish this week

perhaps in solidarity with the stabbed—

negotiating this, the Hanukah 

party, the floorplan of the rabbi’s house

can I start off bouncy though

really easy on the surface

so it’s just like look over here

a fun keychain, a floor routine

ribbons glitter scarves chalk

I am moved by a caption

she's like 

I'm adding to the pile 

but wishing the kids could just 

be free

basically saying a moving

train but even that is

going somewhere

I won’t forget the train

from Paris to Berlin

I won’t forget how it

rehydrated Hebrew School

dropped fear back off

in my cave 

at the house I’m out 

of hammer and nails so

I sit still, I eat kind of

dying 

not to read but to know 

better the bible I get

mass selfies from my top

2 literally from mother 

and Mary

I turn it on and I can’t think 

I turn it off and I’m scared

to be alone without the music

that fills me with inspo but also

stops me like a drawn bath

they sing this song 

fill my cup, lord!

and then

my cup runneth over*

the choir does the wine

pouring motion or

blood pouring

I can imagine you 

shutting my dusty zine

as if a heavy book with

fear on the church chapter

but grow up 

god is back

and pile theory

are some other
title options 

*

make a wish, make a joke

C and the W

the man in office
is a big distraction
I don't waste any breath on but
for 30 seconds I want to acknowledge

my deep disgust when he says “witch hunt” 

to decry any accusation

tell it to all the women 

burnt

that wasn’t a fluke

it never ended

he will always be the hunter

he has never known 

what it is to be hunted  

ancient drunk or

texting
from a padiddle
(I didn't know
this term
it means a
car with one
headlight
burnt out)
in the middle
of 95 south
at night

Parra Sonnet 1

I would prefer to die ahead of you

an interesting mess behind me something

like shouting just hang up, hang up and thrive

paranoid sitting next to your pencils

the trash can courtesy of a phony

pen-name considering where you’ve bounced to 

my poem on the coast on a wall on

1950’s Facebook, considering

the family that I am pre grieving

the mountain I came down with lord knowing

an amount of time handing off justice

or sitting on a fruit scale and thinking

about the pit of your lie and actually

I would prefer that you be first to die

lontanissimo

eating seaweed snacks
with lipstick on at Penn station
green dust in the corners

Nothing Bundt Cakes 2

he got me a job at McDonald's
it was at the end of my grandma’s street 
in Santa Cruz 

it was the middle of the night but I walked over 

and made a Shirley Temple per someone’s order

using the many plastic packets provided 
which dosed out the grenadine and soda 

mixing the drink outside in the parking lot 

a cop sitting in his car behind tinted windows

listening to his dispatch radio 

x

to reclaim the idea that 

nothing is possible

that is poetry 

I baked a cake shaped like 
the queen of England’s crown

a duvet of jade colored marzipan spread

edges piped with edible metallic pearls  

it tasted like 

looking through the window of a moving train 
the sun rising over a frozen field

truly I baked a cake 

entirely out of 

nothing












the almost sleep
feeling of having
really big
far away
body parts 
that you might 
drive to

I’m Talking

the city vs the country 
vs the Amazon
East Coast vs West Coast
vs Milan, Italy
people in the Amazon
who hold your hand
and look into your eyes
to understand who you are
children who can’t learn 
because they only engage with
screens as babies
missing sensory information
and synapses
no real social skills
looking into the phone
the 17 sustainable development goals
we’re signed into agreement in 2015
but none are in effect
if they just did number 5
gender equality
how much would change 
it’s all about economics 
there is enough
it needs to be redistributed
...in some ways...
but consumers are demanding
the electric car
capitalism is taking care of it 
I don’t want to talk about it
it’s unpleasant
not today
I just see his orange face in my mind
... diapers
dementia
the further I advanced in archeology
the fewer women there were around me
particularly on expeditions
I looked up and I was alone
this can’t be right 
there are so many women
waiting

monday

babysitting at the weed 

I mean I went to the parking

lot is full at the store with

the babies in the shopping

cart in the rain and I went

to the weed store after

sativa is the mind right?

hemp papers cuz she

a hippie alone in my car

in the rain in LA agua

puddle agua dew 

agua sandbox agua

pink hangover tide 

me over with 7% thc 

until the movies until

god removes my

blocks in the closet

molto smart, such physician

we love to play

with our food and our words

the silver placemats

silver = argento

feeling medieval

with mi vino goblet 

tutti argento, snail tools

me and Coqui, devils 

Papa, quiet

observing

I wonder if he is writing too

this week is a statue pt 1

mandrake

of course bleeding
like paw prints
in the toilet
dark iodine

there are so many types of shop
thick shining windows
hanging perfume
cigarettes

loosen up
in every language
become my mother
loud, stubborn

go work a real job 
then get back to me
good, glad he doesn’t
think what I do is real

stirring clams into pasta
their shells sound like rain
I giggle uncontrollably
devil horns

Twist 3

dtf who I wish I was

when you see me

it’s always the pants

an opaque leg

a departure from

the truth of my

body that gets me

meanwhile I was 

very prepared

for the climate protest

in which you had leadership

I thought I was waiting out

practice, the scaling

of the wall alongside

the mock freeway

suddenly I was alone

twist 1 is that I wasn’t

thinking outside the box

concerning my definition

of practice

twist 2 is no one does

think around

all the furniture

and traditions

the invisible fence

on the lawn of brain

all the groups like

rice patties 

all the crusty strangers

of adjacent scenes 

where? without me

I'm stuck but here

to wring poems 

for clean cloth

spread out

information 

to blow seeds

group's origin 

in crop

Liminal Ladies

doused in the white fluorescence of the airport

I can see just how dirty all of my clothing is

how wintered and spotted my face

ragged and static my hair 

I daydream a very wealthy lady

who lives in the air always

only touching down for fuel and food

swaddled in white noise, cloud views 

painting her nails glossy red

watching The Big Sleep on tv

biggest bubbles in her champagne 

endless pasta alfredo

so I skip the automatic dryer

using my damp hands to pull

lint and dog hair 

from my sweater 

to be liminal forever, the ultimate luxury

I love this lonely lady

I see her in a white unitard, leg warmers

and camel colored cashmere

I stretch at the gate

clasp my hands behind my back

drop my head and roll it from shoulder to shoulder

lift each foot to stretch each hamstring

try to embody my lonely lady

I hope everyone thinks I’m Italian

or a ballerina

or an Italian ballerina

I align all eight of the silver hoops in my ears

adjust the bun at the nape of my neck

make sure my silver bracelets 

are glinting and exposed

touch everything in my “personal item”

apply the balm and the salve

take out the b&w checkered scarf

lovingly fold, reinsert

I buy a toothbrush and toothpaste

recycle the cardboard, trash the plastic 

make a plan to stay in the tiny bathroom 

and pamper myself, for a very long time