sunshinegypsy

After the longest Friday at work I come home, get a little drunk on honey whiskey, make lemonade from scratch, cello on the speakers. I get high & rock Lindsay Sterling. My friend’s fiancé hung himself: a good man, videotaping his death, somewhere; a failed conversation, a wealth of unsaid words, my voice is useless. Tonight doing dishes becomes a poem; wearing a dress, back exposed, skin still          hot from loving, I purple passion paint my toes. I like cooking with you, that sneaky, subtle dance, the way you taste my finger- hold the whisk, turn, & spill spices in my palm, drifting into warm haze, rising

After the longest Friday at work I come home, get a little drunk on honey whiskey, make lemonade from scratch, cello on the speakers. I get high & rock Lindsay Sterling. My friend’s fiancé hung himself: a good man, videotaping his death, somewhere; a failed conversation, a wealth of unsaid words, my voice is useless. Tonight doing dishes becomes a poem; wearing a dress, back exposed, skin still          hot from loving, I purple passion paint my toes. I like cooking with you, that sneaky, subtle dance, the way you taste my finger- hold the whisk, turn, & spill spices in my palm, drifting into warm haze, rising

She is lost and the monster is coming. Her head tilts and jerks like a bird balancing lightly on the bladed grass. There is a ringing phone in her hands and it confuses her so much her chest aches and she begins to rock, tracing the blue buttons as if they might speak. Press down. A voice. This she knows. This voice is strong and limber inside her whiplash of a body. So thirsty, she whispers. I got lost. She tunes in and out. The cadence of a voice who knows that to keep talking, on and on, means life to the listener who is trying to blend the music of voice and whispering corn blades and that far off discord that means danger. Later she

my 5 year old daughter only wants to run through the park, loping beside our wolf-puppy, both lean & fierce, joyful as she tosses her hair back & suddenly I see my body in hers, tireless & certain, despite my pounding heart & damaged limbs, I run&run& then she gives for a moment, tumbled full-length in the grass, feeding the puppy from her cupped hands, & demanding, scratch my back too! then down her sides & over the ripples of her ribcage, her leaping heart & tummy, still baby-soft, until the shadows reach us & I must give her back, inch by inch, a long, twirling hug my mother will echo with sad arms, murmuring, you look really good,

I should have known things had begun to slide when my dog stopped eating, curled against me, our ribs slotting together, the wild look in her eyes; when our bed became a ship on a restless sea, no longer for sleeping, she ached by my side. And we lost so many weeks. She tells me she will love me forever and I believe her because I am fragile but she's not afraid anymore. She's angry with me, snubs my attention, but keeps just one sharp ear tilted towards my laughter.

I open an artery in my arm. Not where you would expect, but where the nurses, tired and annoyed, finally find a place close to the surface of my arm, where my heart beats, lightly, on the outside of the bend in my elbow. I do not know what to expect or even that it will work, but I am scrambling to grab a t-shirt as blood swells like a rising tide, flooding the white pillowcases crimson, slipping down the inside of my thighs like I have only just become a woman. I dive into my body. If I can see it, I will understand. I will know some secret of breaking and healing. My arm heats like a furnace and I start to get shocks to my s

Once upon a time there was a girl who did not want to be a princess.  She longed for attention in a world where strength and independence were valued above all.  Talking was not.  The queen was sad all the time and the princess who did not want to be a princess slept outside the queen's chamber on the cold floor.  Surely if she slept on the floor, quiet and perfect, the queen would see how much she was loved and needed and would come out to play.  But days went by without a sound from the room and the princess abandoned the queen for the young prince who loved her without condition. She learned to always say, "I'm happy!" but never "I love y

the dog slides up subtly until her head rests in the hollow between my clavicle and shoulder, her breaths move my hair gently in and out a long sigh we both know what is coming, the pacing, the long, dark walks, the snow falling into more snow the endless conversations that go nowhere but we lay quietly, the music of pages turning, my hand tangling in her hair, in and out

to not write about hands, or lips, or faces. to not write about your touch. to misunderstand the grass struggling from under the snow. to turn away. to not explain the difference between you and i. to not have the words. breathing heavily, leaning over the sink, not thinking, not about that anymore - sinking into bones, eyes pressed into fists. waiting for the army of voices to kindly shut up.

my 5 year old daughter only wants to run through the park, loping beside our wolf-puppy, both lean & fierce, joyful as she tosses her hair back & suddenly I see my body in hers, tireless & certain, despite my pounding heart & damaged limbs, I run&run& then she gives for a moment, tumbled full-length in the grass, feeding the puppy from her cupped hands, & demanding, scratch my back too! then down her sides & over the ripples of her ribcage, her leaping heart & tummy, still baby-soft, until the shadows reach us & I must give her back, inch by inch, a long, twirling hug my mother will echo with sad arms, murmuring, you look really good,

I have cleaned even the stem of the pipe                                         crystal clear twisting it frantically for the last                                                     wisp before you take it gently from my hands the wheel of the lighter has burned my thumb                the tv chatters softly to itself                                                             as we float down through layers             of chemical insubstance desire                                     (panic) breathless teethgrippingfleshtobone the salt of blood and tears in my trembling mouth                      I hum to myself and      

Grateful to have not shown my school spirit by wearing The Chief at a Martin Espada reading, I wrap sunburned arms around long jeaned legs, a modern hippie swept away in the powerful, musical, rhythm peaceful & political - this is not me and yet I'm enthralled. I walk home in a daze, barefoot in the warm summer air, sandals dangling from one hand and a autographed book in the other. We are dreaming the same dreams a world apart.

you haven't eaten in days, I hold your hand like it is a dying bird, hollow boned. I want to tell you you are beautiful, but there are never enough words, and we haven't spoken the same language in years, so I watch you carefully turning yourself inside out, the lists begin to cover the walls, the things you can't afford to let slide, the things you refuse to forget.

Without a voice to speak the world is suddenly strange. My memory closes over me like a wave, merciful darkness, and this time no one to tell me the story of pain. The next time I surface I am on the 3rd floor of the local hospital and I am home, here the nurses are both kind and fierce and if you choose a therapist, they unlock one of the many rooms to trees or rivers or dim silence and here there are no clocks to watch and no one disputes my vow of silence, until Polly brings me a slip of paper with the name Rhiannon, and I love you and I realize then there are more important things than words, there is a phone number waiting befo

After the longest Friday at work I come home, get a little drunk on honey whiskey, make lemonade from scratch, cello on the speakers. I get high & rock Lindsay Sterling. My friend’s fiancé hung himself: a good man, videotaping his death, somewhere; a failed conversation, a wealth of unsaid words, my voice is useless. Tonight doing dishes becomes a poem; wearing a dress, back exposed, skin still          hot from loving, I purple passion paint my toes. I like cooking with you, that sneaky, subtle dance, the way you taste my finger- hold the whisk, turn, & spill spices in my palm, drifting into warm haze, rising

 D, If I die you will still have my heart to keep in a box under the bed, oh I ache for you. Writing my will becomes a love story, a need to find my voice again, to tell you not to forget the songs we sang, the poems, the laughter, how sometimes my breath hitches when I fall asleep and I still think it's you, tumbling restless through your dreams. The oxygen makes me giddy but for a few hours I can sing, deeply, hiking up the long hill towards home.

In dog years my Husky is older than I, I miss the teenage years, wild hunts, the way her slender body pressed against mine in sleep. Now a mother, she lies awake next to our daughter, curled into her blankets, protecting the most precious thing we've known.

I remembered the afternoon I called you, curled on my bed with someone's good book in my palm, nestled softly in the waning light and under my gently roaming fingers the baby moved – not to my hand-touch, but inside, an insistent flutter, not like the swiftly beating heart on the doctor's monitor, not like the slow appearance of a plus-sign on a drugstore test. I called you, my gently rolling daughter's mother's mother. I called you like the woman standing at my back while I held the kite string on a pushy spring day, the diagonal shape so far above us I could only feel the jerk of the cord around my fingers, holding us t