vespera

In our humid perfume, or by it, the sun steamed the husked prairie hillsides. My palm in your palm was a plain wren, simple as earth made dust by a wind—up and up—into unfiltered sky and your eyes were big as ripe nectarines. I noticed none of these things, could not smell the pine for you were a heady pheromone. Our tent was an idle curiosity, how we would bookmark into it. There were other sounds than the gauzy rustle of small blue flowers butting the nylon. Is it enough to re-remember history? How I pinned one cornflower, its proud head full of superstition, right then to your collar. How blue it stayed. How blue and brimming

I wait in a womb of Chinese silk, thoughtfully tucked away from other ornaments, in a dark where I wait for her more than she waits for me. Once, I grew on the soft pallet of a sea of tongues. Once, I knew the covenant of salt, was built to protect, to grow hard against assailant. Was it your greed which stole me from safe mouths? Or hunger? Now, I'm your adornment. Your adored. When I dull, you take me from your soft skin and acid, and worry your oils from me. I have my own rag. My own care. When I lie in the dark, I cannot even click my spine of nacre. I make no noise, cannot rustle my truths:                                          

When I was little, my aunt dreamed of daughters. On the weekends, she would take me, my dimples and my temper, show me flowers blooming in her garden: the ground moist, yellow pansies and sweet peas taller than my four feet. I collected garden toads, plucked one from the soil then another, and she let me place them in the old tub downstairs, its white walls inescapable. I laid there quietly, their little legs finning the water, the press of ripples pruning my skin. I was an empress in new clothes. All my subjects loved me.

i. In my dream Grandpa My stands in the veranda across from my apartment—as always, in the shade, and his linen shirt shows no perspiration from the heat. I believe we are in dry Madrid where I have not been for years. He has been dead twice as long, yet here he is: no death mask and his smile calm. Grandpa! I call. From my window our eyes meet. Grandpa! It's me! He remains smiling, but won't return my wave. ii. In the next dream Grandma Suzy comes to visit, maneuvers herself through the door of my Piso. Grandma, I say, hurry! Grandpa's here. She gives a girlish laugh and comes to my window. She is seventeen, as she was in Chicago

Momma, your daughter is dripping down the side of the world, dissipating slowly. I thought you should know. At night I hear the police helicopter circling like a fat buzzard, contemplating if it will kill- perhaps, not kill. It hums as it picks the city clean while I am a sieve, howling hungry. I gape and gape and run right through the days, thinking: to kill or not to kill. I thought you should know. Tuesday rolled into Wednesday and I was caught somewhere between, slipping through myself. I dreamt of orchards: tart citrus splitting my tongue and bees working themselves through my hair. Grandpa was there, asking after Grandma, his shirt, cri

I smile as I unravel an e-cigarette from its plastic and cardboard. You've bought it for me As if you could dam my mania, my titanic movements, inside 4 inches of vapor. Naïve lover mine; naïve lover, who knows me so well, I love your love that believes There's a tame me, more than a wildebeest or the Jenga game played too long, Ready to fall, you wonder if you'll be it: that last gap                    to topple all.

1. the year Vic turned 21 his left testicle inflated, a startling balloon 2. thing is- you know the only people who see things the same for sure are blind 3. all truth aside, he was a Regular Joe, did Regular Joe things, wife like a Jane. 4. Asphalt tamed the west, brought the tourists with their white socks and camera straps 5. There are finer truths. My hair, for example, is still wound 'round your drain.