Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Cats

The boy that hates cats has forgotten how to love.
It’s too easy to believe that our wet mouths can love each other.
Love is not the loneliness of Valentine’s Day, or realizing
you have no one to call on the way home from your grandmother's funeral.
It isn’t writing birthdays on a calendar,
it’s being on an airplane and your ears bursting open,
tears drowning your baby cheeks while you wonder if this is dying.
It’s knowing that you’re not dead because someone is squeezing you,
reminding you to swallow and handing you gum.
It’s standing in front of your front door and seeing a cat
waiting for you to come home, never wondering where you were.
The boy doesn’t want to be loved, the boy doesn’t love himself.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Coffee For Here

Today, I asked you if I could help you.
I smiled like the last two bites of the best
hot fudge sundae that you ever had, and you glared at me
with the eyes of a million overdue library books,
the time you overheard a boy you liked calling you fat,
and the moment you realized you would never have children.
I really wanted to give you the yogurt you walked
all the way from your house in Coolidge Corner for,
but you think I ate all of the yogurt out of spite.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Porch Sitting

People are going off like fireworks in this neighborhood
Little bursts of energy, hissing and lighting up the sky
On Etna Street, the mom is mad at the dad
He's not very good at being one, and she's drinking beer
Two houses down, the Boston natives are in love
Embracing each other by dropping their R's
Talking about baseball, and the rain
My house buzzes with sleep
I know it's really just the sound of the dryer
The fans, the dishwasher, the humming of electricity
I used to hear voices in windshield wipers
Now I know you can turn just about anything into a song.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Monday

Mondays are when you find a pack of cigarettes
in the bottom of your bag when you're broke
but it's empty, or that feeling of hoping
no one you know gets on the bus so you can just sit there
staring and avoiding all of the eyes, but maybe
mostly just the way your cat looks at you
when neither of you can afford to eat dinner, that's Monday.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Attic

Brains are houses, never homes.
Occasionally, eyes project possibility
Something about my eyes being beautiful
and I am tiptoeing back inside,
Thinking about the one eyed cat
Who never knew any other way of seeing.