the fact that we cry is proof enough for me that our bodies are full of magic

hens and chicks (old)

I’m done with loving
I’m done with eviscerating myself,
gut to spine,
tired of bleeding under my clutched fingers
as I wait in line
to buy the bread I
stuff in the hole
like a pullet.

I’m done with mourning
I’m done with tattooing your name
in memory across my arm,
tired of telling people
that, when written, the letters in “me”
only matter in “mine.”

I’m done with loss
I’m done with this un-animal solitude,
tired of crying alone in the library,
the last chick in the henhouse,
when all the others have been yanked out
and with a whine,
branded.

fruitseed

My mother has had her last child—
that must be very strange to bear.

Meanwhile, I am so full of life,

/belligerent seeds of child/

kicking and crying
to be born out of the little grapefruit
of my womb.

But there’s no one I want
to raise them with.
There’s no one who I want to let
harvest my small, sour fruit
and kiss the bitterness left there
by ancient fear.

So, the fruitseed babies lie heavy
within me, coagulating over time
into stones. Burnishing, they settle
over even more of a while
into pearls, so that on the day
when I die,
whole yards of beauty will be able
to be drawn out of me,
white, balled, and whole
with a knife.







(sometime in Nov.?)

Alone in the Kissing Breeze (ver. II)

Through I see myself grey-faced like a statue
of a maritime saint, any grimness is betrayed
by the laxity of my pushed-up dress
in the face of the stalwart sea.
Pink and fleshy,
I shuttle my ankles closed together,
a skip-and-a-jump motion
that makes all my halfhearted attempts
at modesty even more childlike;

by myself, beside myself,
alone on the waterfront
I am tactile and sensory
for the first time/ &

to keep my legs closed
and folded
on such a beautiful day
on this old pier
in the kissing breeze
will always be a halfhearted game
of hopscotch
with my impish and reluctant self.

the Future

some thoughts:

get out of school around May 18th
stay in and PDX and work until around July 1
come home to Brooklyn from July 1 to August 1
return to PDX around August 1 and prepare for burning man and hopefully work some more
leave for burning man somewhere around August 25 (?)
attend burning man from Aug. 29 - Sept. 9
return to PDX briefly (until Sept 15?)
WWOOF/ranch/explore/tour from Sept. 15 - Nov. 15
return to either PDX or Brooklyn
be in Brooklyn for Christmas
return to PDX on the early side (Jan 1?) in case I need to house-hunt again/make other preparations
Jan. 31 re-enroll at Reed

hooray!