pull

The plaid woman picking oranges
smells like dinner for her husband.
I wonder if I smell like selfishness,
or mushrooms.
Nutmeg, parsley, paper towels, garlic press—
the plaid woman probably remembered her list.
She probably knows how to make biscuits from scratch,
and has more than one use for her almond extract.

This is the way, this is the way, this is the way
of wedded things. This is how we come to be
lasciviously eyeing the cheese graters. This is how
we come to be wrestling with plastic wrap,
trying to save the leftovers. This is how we become
eternities of Teflon queens, lovingly filling the ice trays.

smart girl

I have more wit
than I have tit.

I have more quip
than hip.

I have more crass
than I have ass,

and more blunt
than I have wunt
or need of.

penguin dreams

Because he wanted to fly, the little penguin fashioned himself some wings.

He gathered twigs, some downy moss, and string, and whatever else he saw that he thought might make a wing. That he had been cold for a very long time was enough to make him believe that a penguin could fly. He spent endless hours watching the way the wind moved the clouds across the sky and he thought, Why can’t I?

While the dawn was just beginning to loose fiery tendrils streaming through the air, the little penguin trekked up to the top of a snow peak, and stood there. He put his wings on, those made from the scantest of things, and he thought, I don’t’ know if they’ll work, but I’ll try.

Hope is the dream of a flightless bird whose only wish is to fly.

podrías decirme otra vez

Amado mio ¿podrías decirme otra vez
Que seamos dos personas que
Van a enamorarse?

Deseo oír la historia antes del
Viento frío entre por la
Ventana y apaga nuestra vela.

Quiero escucharla como si
Yo fuera una semillita que no sabe
Los tormentos o las estaciones.



My love, could you tell me again
That we are two people
Who are going to fall in love?

I wish to hear the story before the
Cold wind comes in through the
Window and blows out our candle.

I want to listen as if I were
A tiny seed that does not know about
Storms or seasons.

pretty porcupine

Chris said I was pretty like a bowl of granola,
and I never quite knew what that meant.

David said I looked pretty with make-up on,
but don’t think it was a compliment.

André called me mon petit chou,
which, I think, is French for “my little cabbage.”

And I thought that Kevin thought I was beautiful,
but one night he told me that I was just average.

Brian said I was pretty even with a mop on my head.
The mop, however, was my new hair cut.

Justin told me I was absolutely gorgeous,
but he was a notorious, conniving male slut.

Juan Carlos told me I had beautiful blue monkey eggs,
so I said maybe we should just speak Spanish instead.

Paul said I had unusually small nostrils,
but who really cares what Paul said?

Kyle told me I was the prettiest older woman
he had ever seen in his young life.

But Jason said I was his smallest porcupine,
and now I am his wife.

cookie poem

There is no thing
so painfully sweet
as the taste of a cookie
you cannot eat.

in the beginning: a study in grammatical time

Part One: The Long Version

This is the story about the beginning of the stars, except there really was no beginning so to speak, at least not in the way that we say beginning, because that would imply that time existed before time existed, which it could have, semantically speaking—I mean, we could ask, “What was there before time began?” but this logical lexography just can’t hold up to empirical evidence, which is to say, it was more like a non-beginning with a lot of stuff going on all at once, but the stuff wasn’t there before in the same way that it was there after the big non-beginning of the beginning of the stars and then stars were born, and from star dust, on a molecular level, your hands, my eyes, this page, these words.

Part Two: The Short Version

This is the story about the beginning of the stars. There really was no beginning, so to speak. At least not in the way we say beginning. That would imply that time existed before time existed. It could have existed, semantically speaking. We can ask, “What was there before time began?” But this logical lexography leads nowhere. It just can’t hold up to empirical evidence. In other words, it was more like a non-beginning. But there was a lot of stuff going on. And everything was happening at one time. But the stuff before was different from the stuff after. After the big non-beginning of the beginning, stars were born. And from star dust came hands, eyes, words, this page.