it's just another day, another dude

just another day, you know

empty swing tied to a tree

been there since that broken spring 

when the papers came through. 

a Saturday like all the others

I pet the dog you tried to sue me for

while I eat a lunch 

you never would, never did, wouldn't ever try.

small life, smaller than a tick or flea,

I could pick off but I didn't.

I let your death, but not really, 

the promise of end of gone of finish

be a riptide pulling me 

under and under your thumb again, 

another case for your vicegrip.

the news really was "storm's coming

brace yourself, it's coming from inside."

No doubt they call me bitter bitch

and they're not wrong and look down

at me from the ivory hospital tower

but the doctors, like I, know better,

and sometimes it's time to let things die.

silent

collapse on the way to the movies

photo of a message from a friend

text from his dad a copy of a copy

i am at the end of the rope end of

the line telephone game whispering

games of children and adults in grief

without words yet we talk and morph

map my brain where its programmed

the lines between guilt and sad and

allow me to act a grief proxy to this

dismiss he died doing what he loved.

ex-wife widow dew

wildflowers now, how i bathed you,

i lifted you from bed, held your hands,

as you wobbled and were grasping 

my arms, teaching you to walk, 

like you were my child, birthed of 

my sorrow, my devotion, my hopes.

misty-eyed, raw hamburger nose, 

kick in the teeth, curb stomp my heart,

im physically, emotionally, beside myself.

sitting next to myself, sitting next to you,

but not really, just spirit to spirit, how

we would talk while you were comatose

now you won't walk; won't talk again.

the hours and days and months,

then years of silence, all my strength

and sweat to make you stand, now just 

an empty tissue box on my nightstand.

#facts

My ex-husband is being taken off life support. That's one of, but not the most, fucked up fact of my life today.

bereavement leave

eight years of silence,

all the lawyers and papers,

'i told you so' is unwarranted

but the tears flow fast, 

now as much as then and

that hole as big and wide.

thankful i could grow with you

even more grateful to continue

to grow, to live without you,

now the world will feel as i did.

you

I want to learn you

not like geometry or Plato,

nor will I just major in you.

I want to lead seminars

on your thigh crease,

discover and name

moles like constellations,

meet and greet each toe, 

be a professional reference 

for your baby-haired neck, 

hold muscle memory tight

as petals at your furrowed brow,

map the geography of your spine,

finally, retire between the islands

of your shoulders drifting

among summertime freckles

sweet refuge after decades

outstanding in my field

no hanging awards,

no prize, no merit badge,

just savor in the joy 

of knowing you.

body count

The death toll 

always rises

never goes down

doesn't decrease

report when there's 

really news in war.

friendship, love, and lust (curious and confusing things)

I've never done things right

if there is a right way at all

though that's a philosophical

question, not therapeutic,

isn't it? So lay out the hands,

like tomorrow would've been

eleven years, but I'm just eating

my favorite chips, he couldn't

even name, even under the gun.

How am I married again, 

to yet another man even, 

even longer than I was to the first, 

and we, he and I, laugh even, belly and all,

poking and prodding our lives

together and blended, a smoothie,

sip and savor as one, while I

cry at the word 'longing' just uneven

and alone in the word, shaking at

an emboldened, wild, future life,

I might even like, milking out the

whole of fat and cream life offers

how all I see, I think I should gift

to all the girls around me, unwanted stills.

true love

blood blister

palm hand

twinpeak scabs

love was seeing you

feet in the sand

first time at the beach

first look at the ocean

all those firsts

you shared with me

open, split open,

wide and supple,

as was the sky

gulls could fly 

in all that first

I bore witness.

only one first

and one last.

for me, right now,

both are you.

faded memories lost

college boy

dirty sheets

cigarette burn

at my feet

taste the air

choke hair

no sleep tonight

only pass out 

oil paint and water colors

Grasping last night's dream

like grasping straws, trapping

curling smoke in air with a net,

I get only flashes. There was you 

and me. Now, though we didn't 

speak for a decade. The silence 

was like us. Me, oil paint, thick

and heavy-handed. You, water paints,

delicate and difficult. The same, we.

How does one explain a decade

in a dream, describe a lifetime 

of choices that sum up to - 

I was wrong. I was confused.

I still am. In one toss, one turn,

one fleeting dark night?

We are just oil and water,

and I am a restless sleeper.