Love

The boy at at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakeable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel  with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello,

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manilla envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something  remarkable
something that identifies him as God.

Man in Space by Billy Collins

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own 
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.

With My Lips Together

With my lips together
I make the loudest sound
Speaking only through my eyes
using my body to compensate for the silence
I say more with my hands
than most people say in a lifetime

I am a slow southern girl
taught the etiquette of how to be a lady
taught to smile and laugh
and keep my opinions to myself
Raised on grits and hospitality
encouraged to be a wife and a homemaker
I learned instead to write
to explode on paper
to expel my emotions through blue lines and black ink

Today with my lips together
I collect emotions and pleasures and disappointments
I build mountains and castles with their blocks
and with my black ink
I hold my tongue

Poem 1999; Published by Random House

Between Me and You

Last night I dreamt of falling face down
into my bathtub filled with lukewarm water

I dreamt of opening my eyes underneath
and finding you shriveled
like a grape and smiling
needing an oxygen-filled kiss from me

I dreamt of passing back and forth
that one breath
and having it last forever.

Poem: 9.21.2003

Levi's Kind of Love

There is nothing I'd like more
than to fast forward us to that stage
where you just come home to my house
after work and we talk about the day
while I paint my toenails
or where we wake up lazily together
on a Saturday and stumble,
together again, out to breakfast.

I'd like very much to discover
a forgotten garment of yours
mixed in with my laundry
and enjoy the simple beauty of
two toothbrushes in my stand by the sink,
instead of the somber one
I usually find.

It is the this stage we are at
that is awkward and uncomfortable,
a sock with a hole in it
that strangles your toe,
and I'd like so much to
already be comfortable.

But comfort comes in due time,
I suppose...after all,
those jeans you love,
you've had them for years
and that makes you love them,
despite the battered knees
and distressed seams...
Its the softness and familiarity you love,
as I am sure one day, I will be able to say
about you.

vomit: an ugly title

i'm lost inside everyone else.

i only wish i could get lost inside of me.

but getting lost inside myself
is sort of like going to grandma's house--
it's too familiar to forget.

if i could, say, get lost
inside myself
i am sort of scared at what i would
rediscover.

certainly, i could use a spring cleaning
too many cobwebs, mysterious creatures lurking in the shadows
dirty corners with carcases half eaten
by the spiders of my subconcious

i wonder if anyone else imagines their imaginations
like a closet in the hall?

it's nice, though, and i think you'll agree
to just close the door to myself
and get lost in others
it's easier to love others
to expel the demons of others
to weep about others
to believe in others

i think of my hall closet as a narnia of sorts
a portal to another land
only mine leads to destruction
self-doubt, inconsistency, fear
ambivelence, solitude, dangerous games


maybe it isn't a spring cleaning but an overhaul

i thought i had cleaned it all out
that the exterminator had redeemed the cleanliness
of my house
but today there was a roach crawling out
from underneath my door

Traffic jams

today, because i am having a feeling kind off day, i wanted to capitalize on the things i never say. or maybe i say them, but no one listens, or maybe i just don't say them loud enough, the timing isn't right, or the day is too full of other feelings for the real feelings to rise up above everything else in this busy world. my words are having traffic jams today in my head. it's as if all the traffic signals in the city have gone out and the words don't know their way without those signals, the dull red, orange, and green lights that live with blinders on in the yellow cylindrical houses that dangle precariously from the wire. the words that carry so much emotion, so much thought, so much of my precious life in simple little syllables, passengers in this life, wanting so badly to arrive at their destination. words that long to ride without a safety belt, that long to get whispered into the soft folds of an ear, that dream of being written down in a heartfelt card, that aspire to fall off the lips of someone during a proposal, a promise of forever, a promise of a life that makes the world a more beautiful place, whether for everyone else or just one.

call me sentimental. i am a poet after all. i am a woman. i am a child of god. i am a twenty~something, recalling life, loving my husband, realizing the thickness and the grand quantity of blessings i am smothered in, in a good way, that dodge so many other unfortunate souls. i love words and what they carry and how they connect me with others, whether others ever really read them or not. i know they have been said, out loud. i know they have been written, in ink. i know they have carried so much more than just the syllables. i know they have carried pieces of my heart, my passions, my soul into the world, into the minds of those i love, into the periphery of strangers, into the consciousness of the universe.

let me start with an apology to those who knew me before i learned how comforting an apology could be. i am sorry. i am sorry for ever hurting you, in any way, that served me and destroyed you. and even if it was something that small that didn't destroy you at all, but it was big enough to cause you to stumble, to reconsider your path, i am sorry. i was selfish for a long time. i relapse even still. i am learning to allow my love to grow so large and consume so much that the selfish part of things will fall by the wayside. i am sorry.

i love you. maybe i have said it to you before. maybe i haven't. that is the point of this after all. i love you because i have known you too long not to. i love you because you have been my friend when you didn't have to be, when i didn't deserve it. because of the way you make me feel when i am around you. because of your musical laughter. because of your talent. because of your heart. because of the great stories you always offer up to make me smile. i love you because you cry with me over the telephone when i am happy or when i am sad. i love you because you make me a better person. because you share your happiness, your sadness, your struggles, your laughter with me. i love you for knowing the right thing to say at the right moment, for knowing how to just be with me when words simply fail. i love you for taking the time to say hello to me. without that one small moment in time, it never would have happened. our lives never would have merged. our stories would have never been parallel, intertwined, our stories never would have existed. what a shame. i am a better person and it has a lot to do with you. i love you.


i cherish the small things...i smile at the sound of the loud truck that pulls into my driveway every evening. i find fondness in the neighbor out mowing the lawn. i enjoy coming home to a home, not an apartment, not roommates, but to my cats and my husband. my solitude is now to be shared with my husband and it is amazing to me that i enjoy it as much as i do. it's as simple as a cold beer or nice a glass of wine after a terrible day. it's listening to good jazz in a home dimly lit by the flicker of candles. it is all so opposite of my days of traffic, drama, stress, fluorescent lighting, bosses, and people who are angry and empty. i am so grateful for having a safe place to lay my head and an amazingly kind man to share my pillow with...

i find myself learning more about life, about how little it has to do with me, about how precious my family is, about how deep my ties go with my friends.

i can't end this. i can't write more, but there is much more left to say. stayed tuned for this continued tangent.