POEM A DAY 2019

Analysis

Poverty's patron saint
is lining the floorboards with pennies.
insulation, protection, prayer
they drop into coffers below

In Harare, there was no more bread.
Shmica needs three dollars for a loaf.
She follows me through the apartment
fishing for quarters in jars.

Skills, risks and pleasures,
Hollibaugh gained from her
working class life. Shmica says
The lights will be on tomorrow
Okay, I am sitting up here.
Glowing screen, gripping plastic.

Upstairs, living like a queen

Jacques knocking at the screen door and
I'm cooking, mustard seeds popping in the pan
Can we plug in here?
Get paid on Friday
Jacque's shifting in the shadows
Sharp sizzle. Burnt mustard.
I turn--grab the cord.
Singe.

Ochsner Primary Care Center

 EARLY DETECTION
stay vigilant, stay a
sentry of rumbles
guard at the border of every
twist, every twinge
betrayal is common
and can be deadly.

WAITING ROOM
what did you look like
when you were well?
are you well now?
am i overreacting?

PHYSICIAN'S ASSISTANT
a woman in blue comes out
to call Mr. Sims.
she is wearing a tiara.
her arms and legs push
push at, against the blue
nestle and slide across eachother
she is loving the swell of her body.
 

Arizona

Marie's hair is a parade
white catching up to pink
tumbling on brown.
Pulled back, the years of
squinting into windshields
are raked into her cheeks:
'14 a day is alright, if you gotta.'
Marie turns Arizona over
and around in her mouth.
'I'd've quit the circuit years ago
if it weren't for Arizona.'
All that coffee. That sky.

instagram selfie, plagiarized.

Is it me? 
Am I he? 
Is life slop? 
Is trash soup? 
Is soup life? 
Soup slop lief lop?

Galaxy Bar

thick tonic
thin wine
fists ricochet the table.

drunk poem #1

used loosely
get over it or
i did it so     so tired
siempre
siempre
cansada.

i forget that i love to be touched

Jorge flicks the top of my arm every now and then to make a point
Hilary nuzzles into my chest when we find each other in the big room.
Sarah writes to ask how my neck is doing, meets my vulnerability with care
touches through screens the ache of my body.

Autonomic Reply Message

I will be out of answers for the next 38 hours
Please contact my mother if I have hurt you.

things we do for pleasure

how delicious to plunge my thumb
into the fleshy hook over the hip of this woman
who i am definitely not going to fuck, i am just
holding her as she flies.

egret & crane

the egret knows its territory
steps forward with poise, without care for
the edge of the grass, the border of the creeping phlox
pokes at the sky with its beak perfectly, pleasingly angled
silent.

the crane hovers in the distance, drops
its shadow to its steady soundtrack of beeps
and the persistent, percussive THWACK
of the white Tyvek sheets in the wind.


the egret lifts its feet over the crumpling wire fence that it ignores
pokes its head up at the towering Tyvek
poke-THWACK-poke-THWACK-poke-THWACK
ducks under the shadow of the crane
poke-THWACK-poke-THWACK-
gone.

portals i traversed today

portal of being held upside down
portal of crying while witnessing acrobatics
portal of wind and cold
portal of a singing bouncy castle
portal of omphalakeptic whiteness
portal of the bartender's labrys tattoo
portal of two whiskey drinks
portal of crying on the kitchen floor
portal of purple lipstick
portal of my vibrator
portal of thirst
this portal: HELLO!

all of our vices

we drink too fast before dinner
we are afraid of silence
we move our legs apart too soon
we get so hungry
we never refill our water
the bar is so loud
we stow away our chances
we swallow air and live off the promise
live for the missing
we are still in love

beauty i saw today (because of you)

catching the snowy egret, webbed foot suspended as i ride by.
the way my neighbor's chin wobbles into his neck and trembles a field of newborn stubble.
the yuppie playing bocce ball at the new fortress of masculinity just off the bayou,
who greets me with the face of apology, who i immediately pity,
who i also hate, and i wonder.
were you ever a lesbian separatist?
did you have the time?
between poems and poems and not wanting to die?

Absence of a Sniper

I am watching her
not up there
not on the sandy tower
not walking, stalking, crouching, camouflaging.
catching me in her range
betraying her bulk in a field of antennas
harsh and lonely spires.

Fragment #1

the tampon disintegrated along my cervix
soft shards of meat-soaked cotton
shredded paper turns to rice in my hands.
the kind of rice old men write on with tiny pens
hard grains, I rinse them off in the sink
peer down and squint.
HA, says the first one, wriggling off my palm, then--
Haha and HA and Hahahahahahaha
palm full of tiny, squirming worms.

P.S.

Promise you will think of me?
Even once, as you are
Going on your way as a
Gay Icon, and
Yet--

Should your consideration fall upon my
Hand, crossed over itself in
Anticipation of being known, and how and
When.

Fabuloso

I love the way my clean house sounds.

pain

crooked at the bathroom sink
cast polymer fingernails press
press into what
a bloom of needles grow from a hip
that i am watching twist
down the thick gristled squeeze
torquing in my back
neck is flowering
towards a heavying, unsteady sun.
"look at me," says the lover.
i hear my laugh break free.

new holidays this month

1. Give a stranger scissors day.
2. Sweet potato month
3. International Lesbian Breakfast Week.
4. Remembrance of young friends who have died of cancer.
5. Adults without children day.
6. National day of maps.
7. National day without maps.
8. Mesopatamia
9. Shoe horn festival.
10. Bigger, better, bolder.
11. Second ephiphany.