Disaster Survivors
Break the unbroken—is the taunt of time. He and I have proven to break so many times.
I've had him three years, but only one summer, and we’ve swung around each other
each autumn, as the brittle idea of losing him threatens to break my branches.
I think, that once I learn to let him hold me, time whispers in the poor precinct
of my mind, imploring—Do you dare believe it's lasting? The answer is always no.
I would not dream to hold this electricity. Yes, now I am living a love too great
to not be doomed towards loss—and I will look back, graying, weeping
into the garden that he planted on my spine. He screams Have faith.
But each time I wake in his bed I scramble for a drink. He is too good.
His laugh too etched. His hands too iron to not rust in a storm.
The incessant need to tattoo his eyes inside my wrists twists this feeling
that I am hopeless. I trust he will never break my heart, but time will pull us apart
like the thread from the hem of his hat. I want to be a disaster survivor.
I want him as a haven instead of this storm. So I crouch in an endless game
of hide and seek, hoping he’ll find me, he’ll see me, he’ll fight through this shrubbery—
Ode to Plum Fruit
Oh Lord!
Oh good gracious savior!
Why!?
Had I not tasted plum before?
Why?
Did one not come rolling
down the stairs to
my mouth? Its blissful
flesh ripping
my canines
bruised yet
from its fall
yet still saying
what it needs?
Why?
just now,
do I hold the cold, cold
skin of your fruit
pulled from the fridge drawer
perfectly rounded
and split
perfectly sour
and sweet
perfectly!
Oh god, perfectly.
The first time I tasted you
was a hot summer day
you rolled across the wooden
circled table
And I took what was left on
your pit.
Oh baby.
I love you.
I love how you buy plum
fruits for me
I love how the juice runs down
your thumb as you
tuck my hair away
from my shivering hazel eyes.
You buy them in bulk, half off and still fresh
and we roll—yes.
We roll in that California King singing to the gods
who gave us plums.
Oh, the wow I feel!
The sun shines through the plastic blinds,
the linoleum floors,
the rickety clothes dryer
and its folded wooden door and I have a pot
full of seeds,
for you.
I love how you love
to garden and put things in the ground around you.
I love how you look into the trees
And see
The color of the birds.
I love how you dream of wispy clouds around our peaks.
Please baby,
plant me a plum tree.
With every fruit I ate
every purple dolloped
mahogany
I thought of you
and I kept the seeds.
They filled my cavernous heart and the pockets of my jeans and
I’m ready,
Baby, please,
Water and fertilize
Me.