The Dance

Dancing to most means moving feet
and arms with fingers holding
dancing hands.
His song comes on in the living
room, eyes and lips
meet. Deep, Hard. Kissing.
The love is so deep. Dance
Love. Dance

Who Am I?

I’m but a bubble
Cascading up
And down the spine
of my own crooked life.

Some Kind of Neighbor

(For my grandpa)

On some evenings,
when the streets have given
up the sound of cars and kids,
the silence delivers me a ghost.
I go outside when the quiet
comes into my bones.
Blinds everywhere close shut.
The air smells of a long day.
Homes start to sleep
like people do.
As the neighborhood tucks itself in,
something happens to me.
Aspens start to sway. The wind
picks up when I ask it to.
There are closed-eye moments
where I, too, sway with the trees.
I ask them to blow this ghost
slowly into my heart.
Trees are such giving pieces of earth
when you ask them the right questions.
"Give him to me," I mouth in silence.
"Bring him into my body."
When I open my eyes, it happens.
Branches shiver and I start to cry.
My ghost is among the leaves.
As I stop to listen to the speech of trees,
my ghost comes home.

For a Mother

Listening to my mother
makes me understand.
Hearing mom
sounds like music.
Mothers make sons
into something more
than just boys and teenagers.
Mothers are more
than just parents
and best friends.
When I think of mom,
I attempt to feel
how it must feel
to be loved like that.
As sons grow
from grade school to college,
I only hope that they understand
how mothers are smiling
with their boys.
All I know in my life
is that I want to be like her.
I want my kids,
as a father,
to know that I love them.
I want every child
to feel the depth of love
my mother has given me.
They need to feel that.
They should want that.
Children,
like the adult I am today,
deserve a love like that.

Couch Comfort

They say anger is a gift.
It is.
Ignorance.
I like when you ignore me.
Actually, I prefer it.
That way I can feel something normal.
Turn off your phone.
Let me sit,
back against the couch,
and think about you with me.
There is the hope of happiness.
I am hopeful of smiles
with you
But you won't happen.
In my world,
I want you for you.
Sitting here now,
with my spine along the pillows,
you have no place in the world.

Bearing Down the Bottle

I am so sick of you
as my daily routine.
Waking up with my own fingerprints
framed frozen along your bottled body
breaks this alcoholic heart of mine.
You come grinning out of the freezer.
Knowing what I know,
I grab you by your fragile neck,
drink and dive right back down
into my own
fucked up habit.

Jukebox

We are our best
when the night comes to a close.
Bar bus boys hang in the towel
with the jukebox still playing
my two quarters.
Our hands hold tight
as the boys across the room
watch us kiss.
We sip house whiskey,
laugh like children do,
and smile back.
The jukebox retires.

Sliding

The grandfather clock
slides its way past 6 a.m.
Outside, garage doors open
and shut.
Front porch lights
make their way to bed
while the rest of us stretch
and move our sleepy bones.
School children bumble along sidewalks.
The sun casts shapes
of backpacks and bodies
onto the corners of every street.
A swell of geese above our roofs
creates a clever chatter that bounces
from house to house.
Every morning,
It is as if Earth wakes up with us
to this magical parade of life and light.
As the sunlight fingers
its way through the wooden blinds,
I thumb the sleep from my eyes,
smile, and let the light
slide in.

Letting the Ice Down

With the crisp diamond
wrapped snug around your ring finger,
I think of home.
The sweet band of silver
held together by skin and promise
turns him from a friend
into a partner.
I picture the way father
proposed himself for life
to our mother.
An image of dad,
down hard on a left knee
while the crowd dances.
His own heart, dancing,
never falters.
Mother locks her stare into father
like ice.
Cracking into a warm
and lifelong love they did.
A kiss breaks the ice.
Even now
I see how husbands and wives
melt themselves
into one another.
I pay attention to women
becoming wives;
Husbands becoming heroes.
Every day,
wives and heroes warm the ice around themselves
down to a puddle of promise.
Husband and wife,
Change me, you season of seasons.
For one day,
remembering dad knocking his knee to the floor,
mom taking father by a ring,
I long to watch fire and ice meet
for the first and last time.
One of these years,
I wish for the crisp
around my own heat
to founder.
I long to melt
the way dad did
when he let the ice down.
Though our ice
we find warmth
when it wants to.

Pull the Trigger

I want love
to bare its broken teeth
and bite down.
Stare down at me
as if you mean it, love.
Let your jaw snap back.
Reveal those bloody gums.
Take out your revolver
and slug me in the chest.
Every morning I wake up
without your gun to my head.
What will it take
for you to bare your mouth
to me?
What has to happen
for love to cock the hammer
and let the gun barrel roll?
Fuck me up, love.
Beat me to a beautiful pulp.
Make me the mess I want to be.
I need to feel my knees buckle.
Make me come crashing.
Let me come bleeding.
Leave the blood to swim away
from the bullet holes.
I want to hurt, pant and lose consciousness.
Take out your love gun.
Point that weapon at my face
and pull the trigger.
Better yet,
aim the firearm at your own heart,
let the chamber click forward,
and let love take us both down.