if I could tell you all of me

through the tears I cry

spilling my love over my smiling, laughing lips

slipping into yours

 

emotions too strong to grasp

cannot be contained

I try to tell in half-sentence babble

love I cannot yet explain

my heart is full

with words too beautiful for speech

 

I could cry into your chest

the story of my soul

sing it to the beat of your heart

I could dream you a vision of me

where words are left unspoken

hoping you can see

Bob Dylan on a Cold Couch

My fingers learn to do yoga.
They callous at the tips, and I
cannot feel you nearly as well.

Dylan learned to play guitar before
I was born. Had I been in 1950,
I would have run away from home.

Your banjo sings to my skin.
Goose-pimples are like snow-capped peaks
And your song skis my shoulders.

I sing in the car, and the shower,
and crossed-legged on your cold couch.
You prepare breakfast and green tea.

Sometimes fingers dance until
they are broken. Dylan didn’t want
to talk about that, either.

Dawn wakes us in the morning.
I laugh at everything now.
Let us perform on a small stage!

Empty Sucker

You fucking sucker
Motherfucker
Lying
thieving
cheating
home-wrecker
Loveless
soulless
druggy shithead
Shoot-up
fuck-up
lifeless meathead
Care less about
your kid
than you did
about your fix
Care more about
yourself
than anything else
Use up
eat up
drink up
fuck up
take up
more space than you’re worth
Empty smile
empty heart
empty promises
empty bed
Fill your fucking veins with junk
Empty soul
and a body full of toxin
Empty the trash
and you in it
Empty sucker
Motherfucker
You made me
hurt like this

bones

You dig at my door
wearing nail marks in my frame
and hand prints in my handles
Your begging voice through walls
whines and moans
grating my ears with why won’ts

You know why
You were there when I jaded
You plead with eyes
that are sunken
dark and unseeing
unseen in the dark
The porch is cold
even the puppy door is closed

Behind the walls
bones on mine
skin stretched against them
sliding on sweat lubricant

Remember nights where I
hung ’round your step
scratching at the door
rubbing against the poles
My mark was left
But not the nails that dig your back
Now she’s jumping in your arms
she may break your neck
but she’s something I am not

Delicate.

But not the nails that dig your back
or teeth that tear your throat
She’s not the one who is on top
She’s not the one who drags you home

She yowls to the moon
between the leaves above the lawn
Pacing circles in our crab grass
Making face-prints on the windows
Impossible blonde-blue eyes
She pleads in Hellish tones

But inside
bones on mine
skin stretched against them
sliding on sweat lubricant

Energy Between Us

energy between us
swells and crashes
live-wire strung lips
poised, soft-wet
tongues entangle
fingertips to faces
palms cradle dizzy heads
butterfly eyelids flutter-close

eager hands explore
quest soft places
map trails of our passion
snaking up under clothes
straps slip from shoulders
pants from hips
bare bodies fall into bed

trunks flush
limbs intertwine
you grow, I blossom
sweet welcome
whispered names
petals parting
entering with a gasp

drum-beat rhythmic
catch-release dance
hips arc to meet
hold deep
hot breath quickens
opera of moans
symphony of climax
trembling into other worlds

energy between us
magnetic fingertips
tracing magic contours
sweat-wet skin
salty under parted lips
whispering promises
starry eyes hold each other
sigh to still
and I welcome the weight of you

Gods of Saturday Night

I wake
too early for a Sunday
mind still buzzing
memory of a kiss between my thighs
still aching, pulsing
I can almost feel your body
still pressed against mine
almost feel your hands
and your fingers…

I love your fingers
Just one fingertip
I lose my words
lose my mind
tongue-tied
heavy eyes
ragged breath
wet and wriggling
beneath your touch
and your mouth…

I love your mouth
manipulating my body
manipulating my mind
your tongue lights fires
but you don’t leave scars
you leave memories
smoldering in me
body begging for more
just one more taste
just one more time.

Your lips kissed shivers
sprawling to my toes
I close my eyes and try
to recapture the night

You say there are rubies in my fingertips
and perfection in my pussy
and with your words and lips
you rewrite the map of my erogeny

You say one day at a time
I fear to look into the future
I didn’t see this coming
I don’t know where it’s going

Moving blissfully moment to moment
if a moment is all we can count on
let’s not keep count
just enjoy

I wake
too early for a Sunday morning
memories
buzzing in my mind
wearing your shirt
the scent of your body
clinging like a ghost
I bury my face into it
praying to the Gods
of Saturday nights.

Light breaks free
from our smiles
bounces off glittering eyes
blinding us to all
but each other
Cheeks sore
from holding our lips
from our teeth
while laughter rolls out
between them
filling the room
It must be made of a gas
lighter than air
We float

I Need Warmth for Home

I cannot live in unpainted rooms.
No wall is left white.
I need warmth for home.

Honey walls beside pumpkin-spiced walls. Amber wood-grained lacquered doors. Warm, red, glossy door frames painted deep, wet red.
Chianti curtains. Lush, waving drapery hung ’round midnight’s windows. Drunk, long curtains falling slack and hanging on
to swirling wrought-iron rods.
Silky, oak barrel flavored rooms.
Rooms with tannins.

Not the sterile walls of rental houses. Not the over-clean of the office.
Not the eggshell, ivory, dove or linen of my mother’s homes.
I need warmth for home.

I need fields of strawberries in the Summer. The rusted undercarriage
of my Chevy truck. The soft, parted lips of a ripe woman.
The red of clay on the mountain side.
Barns, tractors, black eyed susan petals.
I need the coffee-stained color of my father’s teeth.

Sepia-toned, wood-framed photos smile at my warm rooms.
Frankincense and myrrh candles light the corners yellow ocher.
Bay window for winter mornings. Lattice shelves full of rose quartz.
Sunlight glitters through to highlight the cherry red Formica counter top.
Sunlight splashes on the teracotta tiles.
Sunlight rolls up the walls
I rag-painted myelf
while pregnant with my daughter.

I cannot live in unpainted rooms.
No wall is left white.
I need warmth for home.

Pinky Fingers Crossed

Sliding up on Locust Grove

Foothills speak of mountains

Red clay feet

to find our way

and ears to hear

your dark banjo sing

Patchwork leaves

 

Olfactory memories of a change in season

We roll along

past Atlanta’s maze

and look for roads

to cut walls through slate

 

We can trade

instrument for steering wheel

every couple hundred miles

Creep outa Georgia

singing Nashville songs

Wander trails

with our pinky fingers crossed

Ten Years

I was seventeen when he promised he’d come back to me. We’re both pushing thirty before he calls. We sit across from each other on my screened porch and talk about good times and old friends. We watch our daughters play fairy-princess dress-up though the sliding glass door. I remark at how well they get along. I can’t believe it’s been ten years. His face is the same, just a few pounds fuller. His smile is the same. His eyes are deeper. He holds my stare. He is saying something I am not really listening to, and he moves his knee over one inch to rest it against the inside of mine. For three seconds I can see nothing beyond his pupils and can only hear the sound of the hot blood rushing beneath my skin. I think I feel the porch catch fire, and everything melts. “I have to get something out of the way,” he says and he kisses me with a mouth as soft as I remembered in a hundred dreams. His left hand is in my hair and he brings it to his face and breathes in deep. “You still smell like you,” he says. My heavy eyelids blink only twice before I am called inside to make dinner for the princesses. Over-easy free-range eggs, straight from the hens in my backyard, fried lightly in coconut oil and smothered in organic catsup. He laughs, “I can’t believe I’m in love with a hippie!” I ask if it was the armpit hair that tipped him off. I smiled so much that night that my cheeks were sore the next morning. He never called again.