Roke is Here (1)
typhoon hits.
thought. wind.
thought. rain.
small things
lose control.
emergency
spins around
like a boy on
a tire swing.
if a window
breaks–
thought.
hymen washed
away too young.
thought.
too scary for
girls to play.
mended heart.
when the typhoon
hits thought.
can you stay–
put together.
if you can
withstand
beating rain
in the middle of
palms
like the
second grade
gym rope
you couldn’t climb.
when the
typhoon hits
all the sounds
tea kettle
cracked birds eggs
& jazz. favorite things.
sing–find shelter.
wonder where your
place is in the
land of now.
root for tree barely
standing
wind remembering
voice?
should you shake with
fear at the thought
of being swept
up, up & away.
should you shake
your groove thing
for the last time.
should you revel
in awe of
beautiful destruction.
when the typhoon
hits thought. about
dinner. what is
the perfect meal
calamari & soggy socks.
wonder if homework
is still important
if there is
nothing standing
no lessons
to be taught.
Train Station Ramblings in Japan
1.
the hand holdy thingies look like stirrups, like plastic handcuffs, like sad triangles
really wanting to be circles. today they are life savers. hold all the people up when
it feels like the world is moving too fast. too slow. running late. screeching. the hand
holdy thingies bring it all in perspective: if you don’t hold on to something, you will fall.
the train has its own sound
2.
my son says to me, “i could definitely see wd40 being a rappers name.” we make a rap about things that are rusty. machines that need oil. about things that get stuck. stiff. we keep this as silent as possible. when he realizes he is cold he slips his hoodie on. we pause.
no one snores on the train
3.
i envy people who can sleep on the train.
how much trust it must take
to know you will wake at just the right moment.
to know someone could be taking your picture.
to let your defenses down among strangers—& those you love.
big eyed babies eat crunchy snacks on the sly
4.
children under 3 on the train can’t help but stare at me. what on earth is a brown
woman doing here? where did she come from? where is her papa? & why on earth is she smiling at me? oohhh i like her earrings. how the shell dangles every time she breathes.
the next stop is m a c h i d a
5.
every stop is announced in japanese then english. a monotone voice preparing you for what’s ahead. how i wish this could happen outside of the train. the monotone voice preparing me for my next stop. a big map to show me all the different ways i can get there
Tokyo Tower Visit
1.
we shrink ourselves behind elevator doors
our voices held over
our eyes moving a million miles per second up
a small giggle hides in the corner
her body encased in an orange snuggie & awe
2.
up here
all the world is a board game
all the men buying up property
& begging to be banker
3.
two small branches
spread out on the look down window
no need for the base
no need to be rooted in fear
the layered shirts saying
i’m not afraid to see the world as it is are you?
4.
something about lady gaga
her face plastered on the walls
her video the wax museums national anthem
what would happen
if i walked through tokyo in gaga form
all the people wondering
if i was born this way
we love gaga because she is not afraid of earthquakes
she doesn’t treat us like the country with a plague or
talk to us as if we have no core.
5.
the sign says in case of an earthquake—
& yet here i am
up high & wobbly
could it be i cast fear off
personifying fuck you in my blink of tourist rage
after all we are not in love anymore
terrors pleasure a knotted stomach
sweaty palms melded in denim pockets
6.
we shrink ourselves behind elevator doors
our voices held over
our eyes moving a million miles per second down
a small giggle hides in the corner
her body encased in an orange snuggie & awe
Deployments End
the daddy soldiers inhale leave time
uniformed asthmatics
huff for hot water
for home cooked meals
for gun-less snoring
for a nerf ball game with a newly potty trained son
& shopping with a daughter masturbating for justin bieber
the base is founded on imprints
all the stars & stripes bleeding
simultaneously singing the blues
prostrating to an uncle-god
photo album or chief
understand when the daddies come home
an offering had to be made
leave your soul at boot camp
hide your skin in a bottle
or fertile womb
Beginning at the End
.
when you tell people you are getting a divorce first the look. the poker face look. the look saying “what should i be looking like look,” a person has to first wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing and is divorce in and of itself a good thing. it’s kinda like when you tell someone you had surgery. surgery itself is not a good thing but if the person needed surgery like let’s say to remove a huge boulder from your heart then yay. the person should give the look of yay. but lets say you’ve been married for 18-years and it’s a huge investment and you have children and you still love the person but they are an ax murderer. jeffery dahmer in a way, going around taking your body parts and eating them in front of you while you suggest other dinner options. then yay. give me the look of yay. yay to divorce. and this is when people tell you things like “let’s have drinks to celebrate your divorce” and you don’t really know what to say—yay—is good but your heart, body, mind and spirit aren’t exactly feeling yay-ish so you say “cool!” and you mean cool, like you mean it’s cool that someone wants to celebrate your new freedom but you feel guilty that you are celebrating the end of a thing which you still can’t quite process is ending because you are just beginning to understand the end. yay. but then if you tell someone you are getting a divorce and they give you the look of “ohh”. the “ohh how sad for you look,” you don’t know how to react to that either because if they only knew the hell you’ve been through perhaps they wouldn’t be sad but feeling all yay for you. and this is the issue. what are you supposed to feel when it’s over. when this is no intermission or pit stop. when this is the end god damn it to hell and all sales final and shit. yay.
. 1/2
when your sons( the ones you and he made) hybrid teenage friends go 4-year-old and favorite blankie on you and ask you about the other half they especially like…the other half who interrogates them barney rubble style while drinking oreo cookie milk and plopping adult buns in the center of abercrombie and fitch and urban outfitter territory you might do the oh shit i have to tell them squirm dance: left hand hugs the right hand, lips lean on teeth and eye lids continue to try and focus. refocus. focus. refocus. blink. wink. you say something like—17-year old bullshit wrapped in but he will be here for your graduation. and they all say in unison yay then after a bit of post standardize test inference-ing say, ohh. and you pull it together like michelle obama on christmas break and promise to make chai rice crispy treats. promise to still be the hang out house. promise to burp and fart and quote the latest jokes from family guy. as best you can. yay.
________________________________________________________________________________
dear sirs,
hide this letter. not like proverbs you hide in your heart. not like the tennis balls you hide from the family pet. not like you hide the rocky road ice cream in the back of the fridge next to her ice cream sandwiches. not like that. hide this letter in your folder of fabrications. family friendly. falsehoods.
if your mistress gets all weepy-woeful about your wife, comfort her. hold her close to your other heart. tell her your wife is a stripped dish towel but she on the other hand is a bounty picker-upper—scented floral print. passion pink.
if your mistress throws her one of a kind whatever’s at your face she’s insanely upset. because you block called at midnight & not 7 like you pinky promised in the service elevator—tell her you were playing daddy: daddy making pancakes, daddy at the movies extra butter & gobstoppbers, daddy dinner at that one place daddy, daddy read a story daddy. daddy.
if your mistress is sorta-kinda distracted while you makesex to her in your wife’s bed tell her you love it when she closes her eyes. when she blocks out everything. when she acts as if your wife & children do not exist. like poof. like never. like nothing. like nobody.
Do Not Die
how queen amina you are to still post-surgery post flesh debauchery
& beginning endings
to have the ovaries to feel love & compassion
after all the bludgeoning you’ve been through:
- first make the heart feel safe
- gently take the heart & cuddle it
- tell it words it needs to hear
- display some actions which point to the words & some which do not so as to confuse dear heart
- once dear heart is relaxed & safe find a large ax & cut it into tiny pieces
- take the pieces one by one & sometimes put them back together so as to confuse dear heart
- while dear heart is bleeding find 7 other dear hearts & treat them well: keep them refrigerated so that they will continue to beat
- return back to dear heart & slowly over a course of 18 years feed it to rats, cockroaches & snakes.
- Pretend it was a total accident
- Tell dear heart you are sorry & you wish you could put her back together still
after you’ve been murdered massacred mutilated & motherfucked
dear heart
& even if your beat is low
dear heart
you are still pulsating
& even if the pulsating is a metronome-ed scream
dear heart
no band aid or shea butter can slick away what you’ve seen
no retail therapy could ever skinny jean your scars
super star lady goddess
i’m sorry your love has been reduced to oatmeal
& the ________ you thought you had
is a b-rated movie where all the fairytale characters
are sleeping in each other’s beds
& all the happy endings
various characters being punked
how brave you are still
to have the ovaries to feel love & compassion
after all the lies you’ve taken inside your vagina
held them there as if you could stop them from coming
dear heart & even if your beat is low dear heart
do not die do not die do not die
Just Like That
we’ll just take the right fallopian tube &
fold the left one down—you know the part that looks like baby fingers wiggling
so this kinda thing
won’t happen again
such a fluke an anomaly crazy medical mystery
now isn’t it
to have this happen
to you
now when you are 40
& your tubes were tied in 1998
before you know it
you will be your old self
in a jiffy
& you won’t even remember
for five months
_________________
& those skinny jeans
will just button right up
to where they should be
won’t that be good ?
Orphan (1)
when the body decides it doesn’t want a baby
makes her an outsider on the inside
makes her blood bebe beg
for life inside the throne sorry but…the uterus says you can’t
makes her miniscule drop of blood in a jar of jam come in
a biodegradable sack of would have been
in a world of is
when the body decides it doesn’t want a baby
doctors label her can you fuckin’ believe it
a medical anomaly to chat about over carrot sticks & hummus
summons each other behind expensive glasses
& stiff egg shell coats barely legal voices say things like you didn’t want a baby
. anyway right
. your tubes were tied long ago
_________________________________________________________________________________
egg ectopic the topic egg a topic ectopic the topic egg
egg ectopic the topic egg a topic ectopic the topic egg
egg ectopic the topic egg a topic ectopic the topic egg
egg ectopic the topic egg a topic ectopic the topic egg
Orphan (2)
when you get out of the shower
your nipples still the size of silver dollars
your glow now a black light
you try to dab
just dab they tell you
do not rub the incisions
do not irritate the little lines
do not make the little lines remind you
your house is wrapped in caution tape
your tenant died inside
when you get out of the shower
sobbing/snotting why & how come
& no one is there
& you try to dab
just dab they tell you
you imagine the conversation
muffled. static with blood & pink cigars in between
________________________________________________________________
you- why didn’t you stay for 5 more months
dead baby- i changed my mind or your house was inhabitable or too much caution tape stuck to my eyes or your relationship wasn’t steady or you didn’t need any more kids or your zen was all fucked up or i’m expensive or i changed my mind or gas is too expensive or my father has 12 mistresses or you were going to be in a car accident or the world might end in 2012 or i have bornophobia or i changed my mind
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