Twilight

Red wine

spilled across the painted canvas.

 Periwinkle pillows

were laced with pink ribbons.

The backs of Asian elephants

faded from black to grey,

the further back they nestled.

As the sun said farewell

to the man in the moon,

Twilight flew over the land,

dragging her onyx dress

behind her.

Like a shadow,

it followed her every move.

She had a beauty mark

just above the right corner

of her mouth.

It shined alone

for a moment,

until the sequins on her dress

sparkled so bright

that her perfect freckle

was lost.

I watched the night

like a hawk on a hare.

I studied it’s breed.

Hoping the mermaid of the sky

would show herself

if just for a moment.

Her silver tail

splashing through the starlit sea,

was the last memory

I had of her.

But she didn’t appear this night.

Maybe tomorrow.

Nothing was ever as it seemed

when Twilight came to visit.

Monsters towered over me,

their long wrinkled fingers,

outstretched,

reaching,

as if to take me with them.

They were barren and old,

stripped by October’s vengeful hand.

My Mother's Kitchen

Is a hard bed where his long golden red hair

Lays entangled on the cold linoleum floor.

He is young still, and quick to his feet.

As I curl up beside him I inhale the faint scent

Of earth caked smoothly to the rough pads on his paws.

My Mother’s Kitchen

Is an escape from the wet drops that catch

On the tip of his black nose.

The musk of the winter on his coat

Reeks sweetly like asphalt in a thunder storm.

And we sit listening to the pitter patter on the window sill.

My Mother’s Kitchen

Grows lonely in the years to come.

The honk of the horn in the driveway calls me

Night after night, and with my return I tiptoe

through the darkened kitchen, stepping over him as he lay

The quiet jingle of his collar in the dark tells me hello.

My Mother’s Kitchen

Is a burial ground where time passes,

Aging him more quickly than I can keep pace.

The scent of decaying bones lingers heavily in the air

Like the thick smoke of a wild fire in the summer

He rises slowly now and his appetite wavers.

My Mother’s Kitchen

Is empty with the frozen memory of his face.

The cold linoleum floor rests uncovered.

At night when I tiptoe through the darkness

I step over him, awaiting the gentle jingle that never comes

Only to realize that I am alone in my mother’s kitchen

                                                     

Sprinkled with Love

The oven had preheated, It’s temperature pushing

limits.  Her Vanilla Buttercream thighs spreading

on the floured fondant rolled out along the table.

Each contraction rose and fell like the intricacy

of latticework. The piping around her areolas

browning with each thought of the new child sucking

at her breasts. The doctor pressed his finger inside

like a toothpick, and told her it was time.

Sweat dripped from her overbeat brow like

Dotted swiss.  Each push mixing, boiling, and

Tempering, until the final flood work.

The baby was taken from the heat between

Her legs like pulled sugar, marbling the red

velvet over its skin with hers.

They used the cornelli lace of her battered

Stomach as a cooling rack and wiped the field

of frosting flowers off its sweet buttered back.

Nectar of the Gods

Press your lips against my

mouth, and drink my earthy

spices. Let the warmth tickle your

tongue as I dance down your

throat. Your hands grasp me

tightly, Fingering the sides of my white

body. My brown coat slips

off, leaving me naked and

burning. Too hot to touch my

smooth surfaces, you cover me

again.  When you lick me

up once more, I am cool against

the nodules of your tongue.

The steam off my body is fading

quick, like a sailboat in the far off

horizon. “Fill me up,” I say. 

But you don’t.  You use every last

drop I have inside, and you throw

me away.  Perhaps your sweet lips will

meet mine again in another

life.  But the can you have discarded

me into does not say: recyclables.

-Ode to a Starbucks Junkie

*Published in the Spring 2011 issue of the award winning Northridge Review

The Old Man in the Sea

The old man,

cold,

rocked with the steady

hand of the wakes against

the oars.

We stopped

together,

listening to the rupturing

silence of the mist meeting

the sea.

Nothing was the same

now that it was the same

as before.

I watched the black

widow crawl into the old

man’s beard like

death, time lapsed.

Creeping

slowly,

seeping swiftly.

Fog plumed through

the cracks

in the water wrought wood like

maggots breaking

out of flesh for the first time.

The weight of the old

man sat,

heavy on my shoulders.

His blinding white

irises anchored

to the weight,

to the beard,

To the concrete feet.

My lips twisted

Skyward,

As the water closed upon

the space where I last saw

the white, white, weight.

* This poem is published in the award winning book, Northridge Review Fall 2011

GWB

Dedicated to the lost but never forgotten, Tyler Clementi

The Hudson crashes into my legs,

in the rush hour, in the overnight hours.

Sunshine breaks open the dawn sky,

but the heat doesn’t heal the frost-wounded violets

nor does it spare the clock-faced passion flower

or the golden chrysanthemum.

I stretch bi-state, one hand holding

the borough, the other clutching Fort Lee.

Standing this way for so long, wide arms, outstretched,

has taken a toll on my posture.

He would be disappointed,

the man who’s name I take as my own.

The one who deterred the British,

and I the one who can’t even deter the falling.

A boy walking along the free foot traffic

tightens his white knuckles onto my side.

His tears taste like the spraying mist

of the river below when they fall

on my face, and I know this one is different.

Fourteen lanes grumble in my belly,

but I push that all aside to be with him.

He’s unsure, undecided.  Hesitation in

his steps tell me this isn’t suppose to be.

It’s sudden, spontaneous, a solution

to something that can be simply solved.

I push against the soles of his shoes

to let him know I am here, listening.

He was not holding onto me, but his shadow was.

“Are you with me on this one?”

The music in his voice is a bow dancing

sweetly across a four stringed instrument.

I carry the weight of his pain on my back

so it won’t follow him to the bottom.

It’s the least I can do.  My arms don’t reach.

He’s flying now, his body secretly

Kissing the Manhattan skyline,

Do I blame our country? Another Country?

James Baldwin? Or Rufus Scott?

Would it happen if it never said it happened?

            Somewhere the sky is falling

            Somewhere else it gets back up.

* This poem was published in the award winning Northridge Review, Fall 2011