snatch it.

I’ve heard that each passing thought,
the ones you forget,
upon realizing that they have no home in your head
begin slowly to wiggle out of your ears,
and poke their noses into the air.

they do not have wings—
you never gave them any.

but sometimes, the brave ones,
the ones that perhaps you should have more fully known,
begin to hum slightly,
vibrating with their tiny inner force.

(that is what makes your ears ring.)

and even more rarely,
this vibration becomes powerful enough that they grow tiny wings
for themselves.

then, they soar, tentatively at first
up into the ether.

they pass by planes,
have sympathy for falling stars,
and walk the tightropes of constellations.

grown-ups cannot see them—but children can.

sometimes they mistake them for rocket ships or
superheroes
or prehistoric birds.

I bet you remember,
lucky child that you were,
knowing that you had caught magic in your butterfly net.

Bella Luna

Justice Marshall McComb, 82, did not contest his wife’s petition to be named conservator of his estate after she told the court her husband is “obsessed with the moon. He gets quite excited about it…. he enjoys it but it’s not a normal enjoyment of the moon.”

She makes me want to bang a hole right in my
ceiling,
or go out to the lake
and look quietly at her broken reflection in the dark water
or strip naked and run my tired feet through the late night dew, arms open and
laughing—

Oh, I’m certain it’s no
man up there—
she’s a Lady.
A Lady, certainly.

It’s obvious, isn’t it? In the way she moves,
steady and silent,
and the slight shadow around her yawning gray eyes
(she wears too much makeup, I think)
and her monthly rage—
the slow fury as she hides her face and turns away into the night

many ignore her absence, don’t even notice—

not me.

I wait for her, every night on the little balcony I made for us
watching for her to slowly turn back,
showing a soft cheekbone first,
then an eye, and then a
corner of her smile—
gentle and open again.

She is an old woman,
but I don’t mind.

I am caught completely
in the fever of her—

It’s all I can do to stop myself
from raising my arms with a
shout,
as she dusts her pale light across my naked legs, the tired skin
and my thin lips and too-dry tongue slowly awaken,

singing in a quiet, poorly accented tremor—


when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie,
that’s amore.

Minneapolis, 2010

disappear to Beginning–
that place that can be very easy or very difficult to find
among the heaps of tears and greetings breathless, apologies after,
late dinners and early push to morning
the tangle of days and Memory that any train of thought
must somehow shovel through.

for us, steps retrace to
a finding of Afraid, the slow breath and rushing push
of knowing Vulnerable at once and together
but that wasn’t all, dear.
no– not nearly all of it
because the tracing also leads to

our discovery Joy,
holding fierce to a large black umbrella,
keeping ourselves safe from the
us-imagined storm and us-imagined cloud
as passerby on the busy street hurried along,
casting back looks of snob,
and you took my fingers in your fingers and said in a voice
puffed and pompous and barely your own,
best are the rainy days, don’t you think?
barely hiding a smile,
and I put a hand against your
face and move your mouth -all heat and wet- to mine but
before I do, respond
indubitably, my dear

and we stood
open to the great laugh of the sky,
looking, slowly, down to the knees you seldom knew
outlines vague through the haze of our buzzing thoughts
and roaming hands

before the watches in their constant twirling moved me
Fast and Far,
you still on the street,
peaceful with smile, though incomplete (I know because my smile is not against it–)
and I beat on through the days,
adding more strings and knots to the always-looping Memory

on my knees, and trading joy for sawdust.

a.j.f. pt. 2

this feeling
new, but not exactly sudden
informs each of my movements
(attempting to carve out a little space for myself
and the You I carry with me in the air)

the broadened sway of my hips
and the arc of my arm, grasping at the itch
between my shoulder blades--
the new easiness of my smile, at
strangers, dogs, the lampposts dogs know well, kites, and shapes
in clouds (slowly fading into the ether, trailing behind them all the world's lost thoughts and unremembered dreams of the day before--)

each moment in my too-long/too-short days
remembers your thick, calloused hands and the shocking
softness of your lips

you must understand, it is entirely
your fault--

this becoming, undoing, floating or whatever
the post-coital strut that will not leave my step
that I can't focus on anything at all for more than about
two and a half minutes,
my propensity to touch my own breasts
when I hope no one is looking

this air of you
coursing through my veins
the rest running through my body--

and in my walk,
the quiet pulse between each shifting of my feet--
I love you, I love you, I love you.

shapes and water

tiny beads of water beat slowly
down from the ash-gray canopy
above our heads—
quiet beneath the darkened, dampened trees

lost in dreams of italian coffee shops
and the smell of the northwoods.

your hands push to me
like the muzzle of a new lamb
and though a comedy plays across your mouth
your eyes like plump grapes turn
to me—

full of nothing but the desperate need of close
and want.


I’d call you beloved, darling, but
that’s not quite it.
no, not quite.

I only know that beneath our blanket of sky
disappearing into the ether,
being with you is easier than being
alone

watching the rain come quickly to you like stars
and the moon slowly, shyly,
inch her way

from behind the curtain.

how words are like blowjobs

here’s to the words ugly and
necessary–
they are the janitors of the english language,
the illegal workers grasping at some
task or utility, taking what they can,
bitter, perhaps, but resigned.

because, really, where is there a good synonym for
‘Twelfth’?

I would first like to welcome
Moist
the herald of heat and bringer of
mild discomfort,
an irritation but not a pest–
a perfect word
the discomfort of the vowels in your mouth
match the sensation of skin
just a little too wet and
just a little too sticky.

and then there is
Melt
as in “I’d like a tuna–”
or “it’s so hot I’m going to–”

and all the Rural Gals caught up in a
Leech-infested Pond

the Goiter, the
Phlegm and the Squat

they are the heroes, the martyrs
and every excellent girlfriend

accepting an unpleasant sensation in the mouth
to perform what they must.

equinox

as our year pulls toward equal night and day
my aching brain is halved and ripped in two--
which is the only nature of late september, isn't it?

[the slant of your nose
and look of sleeping
the feet and hands quiet
the touch of your knees my knees--]

the trees flush in cool air--
the type to make your skin rise and gasp in tiny goosebumps--
spilling fire into the leaves and bursting
to an eventual cascade
as pollen begins to churn somewhere inside,
preparing for solstice

[your torso pushed to mine and dancing
all lips and lush and gentle lapping
subtle and unapologetic as your
fingers weave in my hair, pull and--]

it is autumn
the man in the moon has taken to blushing.

[thoughts of you warm like sunbathing
naked--
my loneliness has not changed, darling.
you only christened it.]

(minneapolis)throb

breathe me
up
and set me lightly
with hot whispers and the
smell of your swelling thought,
pressed beneath heaps of secret and unsure--

lead me down and
hold onetwothreefourfive
as you grasp me sudden--
-quiet.-

*

air pours slowly through
the city-square window
in its split-parts

the tremor of arguments
in spanish trumpeted
and the fuckyou bleating of car horns

and somewhere
coon topples
garbage can

it all shrieks with the apathy
of city folk--
-do what you will, we don't give a flying fuck.-

*

so darling run me
through--
feel my arching pulse releaseandgasp

to reach the thought-ghost
swirling around and through my
temples

land lightly
speak softly
(andthewhole big stick
thing)

place fingers on
complete me it's
all it's nothing is all

but a final
yes.

-------

A note: I've been experimenting lately with trying to make less sense in my writing. I think I tend to be very overt with what I want to say. It's a nice style, and I like it very much, but I figured I'd try on a different hat for this one.

The composition of this was very much inspired by the writing on this site. It's put together by an extremely talented writer and very dear friend, and I have imitated her style poorly.

splat.

his little beak
slightly ajar on its rusty hinge--
wings splayed as though the victim
of the tiniest crucifixion

barely-clawed bird toes curled and
withering
like the striped stocking-feet
of the witch of the east.

amazed,
my eyes lurch slightly from their sockets

the impossibly small body intact
(aside from the snapped spine
and thin threads of blood)

still pressed
--held there by the congealing
of his own caked blood--
to the grill
of your rust-worn truck.

he has been there for two weeks.

open minded

I like to unscrew my crown,
ease it off slowly, small fingers grip
just above my ears
and unravel the looping gray tendrils
of my brain
casting them out like a
slightly spongy
lasso.

sometimes the strands catch
wandering thoughts
hanging lightly in the air--

other times they slap the unsuspecting
birds in their trajectories
with a mighty th-whock! and knock them
clean out of the sky

occasionally they come between lovers lipping goodbye--
those are the nights I dream of sex.

mostly I just like to let them sit
and soak in the smells and sound
of the softly throbbing ground-beat--

which is the only how
on the way to know,

isn't it?

a.j.f.

because i am in
(irreversibly) love with you

every arc of movement
or whispering gesture demands of my body
new consciousness

because beforeyou and afteryou
are rooms that don't quite touch,
and no matter how wide or far I cast
the unraveling ash-gray tendrils of my brain

my earth is not the same
and I cannot touch the other

labor

Every morning at 6am
as my feet slip snug into my steel-toed boots

my ankles shout which sort of day it will be

On a good one I am resigned
to my hands and feet and back
muscles will ache
bones may bend
as the sun beats and beats and beats into our brains--

Worse are the days that drag.
On those I consider adopting religion simply to pray for rain

or perhaps and accident.
A minor one.

A broken wrist so they can't
make me hammer make me
pull make me
lift anymore.

One day it comes.

as I heave over the ladder's crown
something shifts
anditjolts anditslips andifall--
limbs a tangle in the rungs and the
breathless feeling of flight, impossible to discern from the
breathless feeling of falling

and I, my sack of flesh and sticks, hit.

Stand slowly, unharmed
though blood churns beneath the skin and colors much of me
purple

back to it, now

and out we march
to the seeping of sweat
and rank slap of setting tar.

I say "yes"

and all at once
he breaks over me like
a wave--
all rush and wet and gentle lapping,
the slight saltiness, too
when I miss and my tongue catches
the whisper of dried sweat on
the soft skin surrounding

the muscle also finds the milky wall of teeth
and lopes softly across it,
unsure technique
and chin pushes tiny needle-hairs against
my chin and cheeks

and he arches back
my mouth still full of his feeling,
craning for the rest and he says
try this.

with the deft movement of a snake through water
one arm around my waist, hand inches past spine,
other arm between us, hand snug just beneath my breasts and cupping
my rib cage

and silently, the soft press of the velvet of lips to
my mouth,

and he breathes into me--
exhaling
long
and
slow

guiding my ribcage with his mute hands
to take in the heat

through the delirium of lips and teeth he smiles
now a part of my body and

coursing through my blood