orange crush

Wanna get tangled up
In a spaghetti nor’easter
Noodles wound around my ankles
Strangling my shins
Til i'm tripping
Head over heels into
the soft landing of that dimple
To the left of your mouth

Press raspberries
from my fingertips
into golden pancakes
Stacked on a royal blue plate
in front of your altar
Where starlings peck
at the little luxury
While syrup
Runs down your cheeks
spilling over your chin

Burn orange peels
on dancing flame
And throw them like confetti
over your silk pillow
Pithy citrine dander
adhering to your cheek’s sap tracks
Glinting subtly
Sloppy and sweet as
an elementary
valentine

the light

I can see myself

projected out

    Here 

as the shadow

    there

as a finger.

Point as it may

I can't seem 

to capture it all in myself,

but with no pointing

there would be no object.

Electric Blanket

The story was my grandmother just got too curious 

Took the elevator down to the basement of her assisted living facility for the first time

And began to wander in search of the box her electric blanket arrived in

Looking for the instruction manual.

But there was no box

Never was

And though she had brought her walker along for the mission 

It couldn’t stop her from pushing it off a step.

Brittle skin is brittle

So following the normal routine

The doctors patched her up and she rode home in an ambulance

Arriving back in good spirits.

To an electric blanket 

With no manual

Only warmth

Hidden in a socket.

 

I wear my coat all day
I only hear my heartbeat

Clean Slate

My morning alarm
goes off in the kitchen
so that I don't hit snooze
roll over, and go back to sleep
for nine minutes at a time

New year, new me
now I toss my blankets aside
walk through two rooms
reset it for an even thirty
and return to bed

submission to ________ 

is eating a jar of peanut butter 

without a glass of water. 

is freedom those breaths 

between bites that enable

the jar of peanut butter's final victory. 

there are too many jars

of peanut butter on this aisle,

all filled with the same thing. 

do I have to buy them all. 

If I want peanut butter,

I absolutely must.