Evolution

March 9, 2014

Evolution

I never want to stop

noticing the intricacies of life.

If I ever start to, I must tell myself

to bite into a grape, then look at its insides,

the tiny, complex striations, microscopic sections

of fruit, fractally structured; or I’ll go

outside and examine a bird’s feather or beak,

wonder how its body creates such different pieces,

some dense and hard, others fit for flight;

or I’ll go to the aquarium and try to count

how many scales a fish has, looking at how they attach

to its skin so cleanly and precisely, how each

muscular swimming creature has adapted

to just a slightly different environment,

together forming an entire, self-contained system;

or I’ll go to the zoo to watch the incredible,

unthinkable dexterity of the elephants’ trunks,

the giraffes’ tongues, the snow-leopards’ tails.

I look at a child’s hands.

I look at my own hands, notice

each of the bones and tendons,

fitting together so perfectly.

I notice the fine lines across the palm.

I stretch out my arm and marvel

at how far it reaches, and then

how far it has yet to go.

It's 1 AM and there are ghosts in my head

May 31, 2012

It’s 1 AM and there are ghosts in my head

My ears echo – scattered

laughter and other sounds that belong

to sitcom reruns – faint

whispers above the soft rushing

of the ceiling fan. 

Under my eyelids crawl

harmless bits of movie trailers, dissolving

into the smooth darkness that surrounds everything. 

This darkness, this

secret place under my skin,

behind my bones,

where I imagine

the shining yet-to-be,

the bright-blinding

firework future:

white feathers, white

petals, white gown,

white fading

into everything, everything

fading into white. 

But perhaps these are only advertisements

and job descriptions,

magazine clippings

and music videos replaying and

playing and playing

as if they comprised the quiet

inner-workings of my brain.

Maybe,

I think as I drift off to sleep. 

Maybe tonight I’ll have dreams of my own.  

epithelia

December 10, 2011

epithelia

my hands, you could never be strangers –

more familiar are you to me

than the beating of my own heart.

rough as burlap or smooth as eggshells,

how is it that your calloused palms spell out fate

when every day you work to carve out

a future of your own? 

you might open like lotus blossoms

to hold another hand, or

a gun, or

the world as you would a child.

every wrinkle and crease of yours

tells a history I can only dream

of remembering, but then,

quick and wise as you are, your pale

half-moons fumble in the cold

not with ancient questions

of right and wrong, but only

black buttons

and ruby scarves.

when the night sky

is just an inky reflection of earth,

you reach up to send ripples

through all of the stars;

the few golden leaves left

on the late-autumn trees

are planets on an infant’s mobile, suspended

just above the cradle,

and when you set them in motion,

each independent part spins

in harmony with all the rest.

the heavens go round and round;

the newborn falls fast asleep.

paper dreams

March 4, 2011

paper dreams

when I think of what might become of us later, my mouth takes on the ashtray taste of probability, a dark coffee that sweetens slightly at the thought of you, staining and becoming the gold rings that sometimes appear in your blue eyes, as bright as the sun that shone above us ages ago when we laid on our stomachs in soft grass, with friends, laughing, not knowing what was in store for us in the future, just like

I don’t know now.

my words, they live in the palaces I built for them in the rich deserts of my imagination, with the air stirring around them filled with the scents of spices; in skyscrapers I constructed among the vivid city streets of my past, all thronged with pigeons and raw beauty; on midnight lakes under the golden august moons of my memory, the seagulls nesting quietly on the shore; but my words, the poor orphans, will never know

who their author is. 

we are swept inexorably onward by some dark, ancient wind, caught at the moment in the slow death throes of snow and ice; as this bitter breeze bites at my back and at my heels, I begin to shiver from damp and cold, from longing and regret, but then, as always, you, with your isinglass gaze and lion’s heart, remind me of cherry stems and seashells and pennies face-up.  you hold me close and reassure me,

summer will change that, too.

it feels like december already

October 16, 2010

it feels like december already

while nearly falling asleep on

the bus this morning, I

ponder words and the future

and other difficult things.

I look up to the

early morning stars, or

maybe to God,

but all I see are

the red taillights

of the car in front of us

and the cameras they install

on buses like these. 

the leftover rain

on all of the dim windows

causes visions of streetlights

to refract like fire.