we stand in the middle of the valley
and wait for the water
because what else can we do
but throw our arms up in the sky
drink our fill
and hold on tight
to the hands we choose.

in the morning
we wake with pillows over our heads
and listen for the sounds:
birds
the settling of the house
higher up, airplanes and higher still
maybe god
but best of all
each other breathing
in the moment of confusion
about being awake
until the familiar patterns
on the ceiling
call our names
and we rise
with sleep in our eyes.

breccia

she said she'd give him everything,
but all that he wanted was
to stop running for a minute
to rest in the shade.

do you remember our version of the alamo? we were trapped inside, and we could have sworn that there were fires burning all around us, and muskets and cannons, and the entire mexican army had disguised itself as the wisconsin night. do you remember if i comforted you, if i tried to speak eloquently, or if i was as quiet and scared as you were? if i was, i apologize. i should have done more to help you survive. our hair darkened as we grew up, as we absorbed the soil through our bare feet, as we swam in the river with the tannins from the trees up north. i know that you remember the gardens, and all of the things that grew in them. watermelons. cucumbers. rows of raspberries and strawberries. rhubarb. carrots. the magic of pulling on the green stems, and eating them straight from the ground, dirt and all. we dug earthworms, nightcrawlers, on the mornings after thunderstorms and sold them at the end of the driveway, but you kept sneaking them back into the ground.

she was like sledding into a barbed-wire fence.
(that sounds terrible.)
she was like getting lock-jaw.
(that's a brave metaphor, my love.)
we didn't talk for years. did not talk. did not meet for breakfast. did not run into each other at fucking trivia nights, did not attend the same gallery openings-
(but you slept together?)
sometimes. when one of us was awake, the other was usually asleep.
(did you like anything about her?)
yes.
(what did you like about her?)
her shoulder blades.
(that's a good one. that's a trump card. shoulder blades do not tell lies.)
and they would either give in to me, or pull away from me, or sigh with indifference.
(you paid attention to her shoulder blades. that's impressive. i don't think anyone has ever noticed my shoulder blades.)
that's not fair, and probably not true.
(not since high school, at least. i remember dancing with this boy, and i had begged my mom to make me a dress with a spaghetti straps and a scoop in the back. he was afraid to touch my skin, but he was also afraid to put his hands around my waist. so he tried to keep them entirely on the spaghetti straps. it didn't work. we couldn't dance. so i told him, "on my back. put. your. hands. on. my. back." he was terrified, and he decided to grip by shoulder blades like handles. his hands were sweating, and he stared at my forehead. but i have to give him credit, he did not let go.)

after she told her story, it settled like lazy organic sediment to the bottom of the evening. he imagined dancing with her in her spaghetti straps scoop back. she was imagining him, as well, with his hands on her waist, then shoulder blades, then waist. they didn't talk much, but adjusted and re-adjusted the incredible sentences inside of their heads, wanting to say things like:

if we had met in high school, i would have slept in your single bed. your parents would have gotten sick of me hanging around. they would have worried about us having sex, but they didn't need to, because we were very patient teenagers. we were going to wait until we could drive across the border into some sleepy canadian town where we could rent a cabin and cover ourselves in quilts, light a fire, and forget everything about being kids, everything about being americans, and focus on un-learning all of the history we had ever been taught.

we're all barbed-wire, sometimes.

i drank another cup of coffee. my stomach growled.
here is what is.

our town

the best our town
in the history of our towns
was when i played george
and sarah marie thompson
played emily
in ms. piotrowski's tenth grade english class.

we had recently broken up
after a steamy 6-month freshman romance
(or was it 7, i can never remember)
and we had barely made eye contact
and had not spoken
since.

the tension was palpable.
i was thrilled.
sarah might have been, too,
but she did a good job
hiding it.

friends now
who were classmates then
still talk about
the scene
over
the ice cream soda.

george's lines
were my lines
and
emily was
alive
until
she
wasn't.

deoxyribonucleic acid

a poem about love
without metaphors
is just an empty mailbox
at the end of a long driveway
that hasn't been opened
in a very long time.
inside of that mailbox
is a very long letter
describing the advancements
in the discovery of
the structure of
everything.
also inside the mailbox
past the letter
and past a spidery web
littered with exoskeletons
is the portal to
another universe.

rosalind closed her eyes
for once to black and not to molecular models.
it was all that she could say,
quietly and without
judgement or reservation,
"the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid."

between blades of grass
sky-scraper sheets of waxy green
ants march in line
clearing house
cleaning up
don't they know
that they should unionize?

you roll over onto your back
breathe deep
and keep up with
the current economic crisis
while i count ants
and encourage them
to read marx & trotsky
you hit me with the new york times
and bring me back to
rising gas prices
and interest rates

an hour went by
we fell asleep
beneath the big old tree
in central park
you dreamed of type-writer sounds
and i dreamed of
martin luther king
on the balcony of
the lorraine motel
where i had just been
with my father
our dreams together:
type-writer gunshots
revolutions
stamped on paper
rolling through the presses
stopping by the editor's desk
for coffee and a bite of cake
trying to solve
crossword puzzles
(who gives a fuck about crossword puzzles, really?)
impressive on the train
she was
and the way she left the
subway
the time that i saw
natalie portman
on the a-train
(why the fuck would natalie portman ride the a-train? was she slumming it on her way up-town?)
maybe she just missed
being beneath the city
being tuned to sleep
by the smell of the rails
and the plastic seats
carefully curved
holding commuters
like orphaned children
(you tell me to shut up about natalie portman,
that it wasn't her,
that even if it was-)
maybe i just missed
getting her number
pretending that i didn't know
who she was
rinsing all recognition from my eyes
with my flannel sleeves
and impressing her
with my knowledge of
abandoned subterranean spaces

here is a secret:
i love you
because i know that
you don't really give a fuck
about frictional unemployment or gross domestic product or slip/strike economies
(there is no such thing, you made that up)
or anything except
sleeping
on
the
fire escape-

he was there fighting for workers' rights
i tell the ants
horrified by their indifference
towards dr. king
towards you
and towards me-

later in the day,
i say:
i never really gave a fuck about natalie portman anyway,
and you:
she'd break too easily
and she'd never pull you through
the window on the 14th floor
with two pillows
and a torn quilt-

the economics of
midnight
play
above 45th street
where the supply is
the history of new york city
and the demand
is fucking history for just a moment-

your back is bruised
wrought iron bruised
by your love of
making love
on the
fire escape.

girl arrested, 1920's

don't let her fool you.
she's a criminal.
she's undone the button on her blouse,
and she'll undo you the same.
it's a shame.

she smells like sage.
it's an old trick.
no, i don't think that it is, i think that she's a cook-
boy, no, she's a crook-
and i've seen her down the street-
she's a mage-
she was buying a leg of lamb, wearing an apron, smelling like sage-
she's good with a knife.
-i'd bet my life she's a sweet girl.
you'd risk your life.
for a wife.

but she holds inside her pocket
within a secret locket
the photo of a boy
who always brings her joy
she'll show you if you ask
but no one ever does-