Eyes full of splinter sun, tripping over the same roots protruding from the breathing moist

Origin that I never bend down quite far enough to touch, and crouching, with my

Temple to the throbbing baker's yeast, the farmer's gold, I listen for the rush of sea below the

Meadow on my chest, midday and cricket-scented eveningtimes with straw that brushes collarbone

And leads me by the hand around my torso's sundial, I return your gravity with surging silence

Souls touch like lightning rods,

we look down at the very last

crumbs in the broken chimney.

light them up like memories dropped.

The track marks on windows, stained with

fumes of our distilled fantasies

and umbrella scars.

and the satellite eye hangs sideways, away

from the silverlined tickertape forecast.

We know when the rain will come.

Dear universe:

I have finally succumbed to the realization that I do not understand how your absurd pieces come together, and it is more than exhilarating. I stand corrected. I really had no idea.

Love, (love?)

Playground in front, and I am swinging between glitches of sunlight, feeding off the smiling corners of my sister's mouth -- mid-March Orchard Beach -- when she approached me, her eyes fixed -- inevitable eyes -- Do you remember me, from yesterday?

No, I didn't; she said her name and I recalled the concept of her, ashamed; merged with the inevitable eyes she became clear, adolescent, ageless. Her eyes played, gazed fixed still. YES Do you have time to chat? Let's walk and talk.

That question? What was the answer to my question; my mom had to pick me up early, yesterday, at the shelter; Remember? Oh right, yes... What was your question? Do you get pregnant if you have unprotected sex? Yes, I said. And again I said, Yes; and realized that wasn't the question she was asking at all. Yes, the chances, repeated intercourse, protection, probability; I rambled. My older sister she's 18 she's having sex I tried to tell her about the workshop but she says she already knows what sex is, and how. I convinced, persuaded. She was worried, inevitable, inevitable eyes - What else? Oh nothing. Nothing. Did you like the workshop? Yes. What else would you like to talk about -- you can tell me, really! Oh nothing. Want to meet my sister?

I like your eyes, she said. Thank you. Yours are pretty too. My sister's are blue; we look different. Are you in high school, she asks. Medical school; I get that all the time. You look like you're 18.

Introductions, smiles. She walks away. I felt like I should have let her go, but now I know I was wrong. More walking and talking and asking the same question over and over again and finally the "Okay" -- I wish that were the true story. She was with her sister as we were leaving -- Do you guys want to chat? (Spanish simmers over -- Come on! she says) I don't want to talk, I want to play, says the other young lady. They smile and start to run.

What is all this?

I can't bear to break you in, sea of blue, oh you

I can stifle you only partially, while you

Gag me with simple syllables, nodding silently,

Tie my hands into braids and whistles,

Clattering.

untitled photo narrative

New camera -- how does it work? Time will tell. For now, half-blind squinting views of somethings.

>

Not Ready

Homesick for rest, for space
Throat a raw yolk, clinging
Nerves, nerves, nerves -
A snide diagnosis?
Will they test my temperature for novelty,
Examine my appetite for challenge?
Laugh into a white pocket,
Or plug me into a white sheet,
Immobile,
To treat Not having what it takes?

Nightmares homesick for bedtime,
The time it takes to climb to the top and gag,
Then rest my head back down.

Homesick for speed,
eyes closed by mindless, relentless wind,
For relief,
For breathing in, holding,
Out, and out, and out.

For the moment after.

Travelers

"Thank you. Thank you for profiling me, just like that."

I looked at him quizzically, and he pointed behind me, "No, not you. Her."

He began his heavy descent into the window seat next to my coveted aisle. Holding up a full, heavy-duty garbage bag with his left arm, huge, he fought gravity for the last seat. Sweat stuck to his neck; ice crackled, swooshed inside his fountain drink. "Bedding, linens" he explained. "I'm a truck driver. Only two baggage spots allowed under the bus." I offered to help him push his load through the rope borders of the overhead compartment. "Tried last time. You'd think it be soft, it'd fit..."

"Yeah, you'd think... bedding at all... Are you sure we can't try to put it up there?"

"Nah, I'm all right."

"You're lucky she's small," a stranger remarked to my companion.

"That's what I was thinking when I asked to sit next to you. Last time, I sat next to this young lady, she was even smaller than you are..."

Fragments of conversation stopped and started with traffic. He grew up in South Carolina, and was now traveling from Maine to Ohio, with a two-hour layover in New York. I didn't ask why. "New York, New York, what is it about New York...? Everyone, New York, New York..." He mused. "Where are you going?"

I painted broad strokes about family in Jersey, and No, I'm not married ("Why not?"), I'm working on it I guess, I've been with somebody for a long time, No, I'm between places right now. He nodded, his head a free grappling phantom limb, gasping for air underneath the black claustrophobia, which sealed his white shirt to his sticky chest. I took his drink cup and placed it under my seat. "What would your man think if he saw you right here, next to me?"

Was he talking about his size? His race? Gender? Against whom was he defending himself?("Thank you. Thank you for profiling me...") I felt ashamed... Of what?

"I don't know if he would think anything. It's expected. We know buses get crowded on Friday afternoons."

He shifted his dissatisfied gaze to the stop-starts of the cars outside.

He mumbled to himself some, turned to me occasionally, breaking out in surprisingly spacious laughter about conspiracy theorists in the back of the bus, about the driver's poor choices of driving lane, about "That other girl in the front, look! She is your twin." ("I'll take a look next time she walks back.") He asked me about the language I spoke on my cell phone. "Russian." Pause. "You must have graduated college, huh?" "Yeah."

We drifted through most of Connecticut quietly to ourselves, but I wanted to share with him the energy of New York. Driving through the city, I wanted to narrate streets, places, people... "Have you spent much time in New York?" I asked.

"I've made deliveries to the Bronx, to Long Island, to Staten Island... I've never done.... New York, you know, DOWNtown, like they all do... It's not my kind of place, not at all."

"Too crowded?"

"People walking in the streets, who should be in a cage. All these motherfuckers walkin' around, need to be locked up!"

"Something like that," the most I could do. He continued before I could get my bearings back.

"All these stores... Do you see? The steps -- once, across from the other, right fucking on top of each other."

"...Stores?"

"No, that don't matter, I just mean... These projects, look, all of these projects," he gestured at apartment buildings. "New York State, I bet 90% of all them motherfuckers live to pick up that check three times a month. All they do."

"Whoa, whoa, that's pushing it."

"Maybe I have my percentages off, a little wrong here, but it's the state, the whole fucking state, filled with this trash, motherfuckers... All they want..."

I mumbled something about patterns, entrenched generational poverty, unavailable opportunity... "Yeah, yeah... All they want..." My words were disappearing into his heavy-duty bag, now fuller, sticker by the minute. The bag was so heavy it slowed the bus down. I drew my eyes away, looked at my twin, who was walking again to the back of the bus. "Look, look look! It's her! Do you see her?" Impatience, excitement. "I see her, I see; sure, I guess we look alike, I guess I agree with you."

The bus came to a complete stop, and we both waited silently for human traffic to start moving out. I wished him luck with the last leg of his journey, and we looked at each other smilelessly, emptily, both sitting firm in our own window seats, looking out, mumbling to ourselves.