little fin.

He takes a few tentative steps. Turns. "Bye-bye, kay-dee!"
"Bye-bye, Fin."
Two more. A small stumble. He turns, smiles. "Bye-bye, kay-dee!"
"Bye-bye, Fin."
The call and response delights him. His small shoes move him away, but after only a few more wiggles towards his front door, "Bye-bye, kay-dee!"
"Bye-bye, Fin."
And I know he's going to get big, learn how to have conversations, have moments of sadness, terror, angst, and (particularly when he hits puberty) experience painful awkwardness, but in these moments, he is a simple fellow. He knows what makes him happy, and he goes for it-- again and again.
"Bye-bye, kay-dee!"
"Bye-bye, Fin."

wheat

the calm green velvet of the fields of wheat
stretches out to the horizon from the tips of my toes
silently swaying
announcing that there is nothing
to worry over
or to hate

everything is
quiet.

everything is
in the exact right nook of the universe
at this exact moment.

and that's all.

minneapolis skyline

the city
can't possibly be real--
the impossible immensity of it

it's a cardboard backdrop, certainly--
and the pigeons flying innocuously overhead
will take it in their filthy little toes,
and lift it away

vicodin

vicodin
is like a
calm dream, that lulls me to sleep,
over the moon and
diverts my attention from poetry,
innocuous, but it forces my
neglect.

(hopefully I'll be back to 100% soon)

sleep

it's heavy--
a little like dreaming,
and a little like death.

but it's warm
as tiny little cats
curling up and
falling asleep
on my eyelids.

and it's slow.
slow as molasses running
down my body
from my head to my shoulders
and along every limb
until

I am engulfed by it.

Well...

I got a concussion last night.
I'm going to retroactively give myself a night off for then, and add another one tonight.

-Katie

what I wondered today, pt. 1

what if the stars were actually
LED backlit watches,
suspended in the sky,
trying to give us the time
several billion years late?

like billy pilgrim,
we could be unstuck in time
looking increasingly farther back into the past
for the stars that get further and further away.

that would mean that the watch I saw
broken, and lying limp in the street
was not a lost watch

but a meteorite.

elms

today, I saw a tree
shatter.

we slung the noose around it's neck
as gently as you please,
and after a gouge or two,
pulled it to the ground.

the thwack was tremendous.
each bough shuddered with the rebound,
and the smaller branches broke

scattering like birds
into the clean blue air.

the tree was as old as I am.

delinquency=two poems

ella

today, she took
everything that I've worked for
and made it smaller--
she looked at me
from her very minimal height,
and with grave eyes, asked:

"do they still let you
color
in college?"


daisies

from the lemon drop of a center,
the petals reach out
as if to embrace one another--

dew clings to some

within each one is an entire world--
channels and filtration systems and
reproductive organs
(though I would argue that ours are
more fun)

it is this pot of individual,
intermingling little worlds
that greets my waking eyes
every morning.

it prepares me
for my own.

the singer

I watched you tonight,
you know.

your hands were wrapped around
the microphone
as if in prayer,

then, a momentary connection--
your eyes like heat
like passages to a dark place, surrounded by white light--

and your neck craned up in pleasure
lips parting slightly

and now, I'm searching for the poetic moment
the meaning of the words rushing out,

but truly, I think it is only
you.

bonfire

the smoke spins away from the flame
like a dervish--
frantically, desperately,
finally

but notice-- as it
arcs away from the immediate
dome of heat,
it slows.

the further it sails away, the
longer it takes to go
until the moment when it begins
to fade from sight

and it appears to be straining
to go backwards.

goodnight moon

the black ink of night
creeps in through my window,
staining and dampening
the drywall--

the loonsong makes its way in also.
it punches little holes in the screen
and loops over itself
and spins silently on the floor.

my bed is nothing but a boat--
carrying me through the liquid night
that is slowly collecting
on my carpeting.

thc

I will remember sitting on the lake
suspended in it by the little boat
with his hot fingers just inside me and
his arm against my throat and thinking
this is not how I'm supposed to feel.

all things go

driving this fast,
I imagine what it would look like if the vehicle were invisible—
just our bodies in a seated position,
propped against nothing,
streaking through the night.

the moon’s great laugh surfaces on the horizon
beneath the stars,
her closest (albeit very far away) friends,
those messengers
several billion years late

and we make our way
home—
snaking through the silent animals of the trees
and driving through clouds

summertime

I remember
lying with you
our bodies carving a space for themselves
in the summer air
the sun that pressed into our skin

I almost felt I could see
the grass growing--
straining upwards
to touch you

I remember
the narrow strip of your already-tanned flesh
emerging between your blue jeans and
white t-shirt
and the closeness of our hands--

how we mirrored each other's movements--
I shift to my side, you
face me
you turn to give your pale green eyes to the sun, I
echo your motion

but like mirrored images,
we cannot, do not, and
never touch

fat cats

whoever came up with the term
clearly has not met mine.

she waddles about
somewhat helplessly on
impossibly tiny feet--
feet the women of ancient china
would go bonkers for.

her belly sways to the off-beat
of her body's motion
and pulls at her spine
in the middle,
bending it down
into a permanent arch.

she is not "cool."

the only influence she exerts
is over me,
when her pathetic mews
and the relentless butting of her head
finally move me
to scratch just under
her little chin.

this cat is proof
of the lack of trust
you can place in idiom.