Pluia

with my mother's camera i take pictures of you. clutching to each other, lazy like children. bright and loud against the light - a smile and a nod - one, three, four and i'm counting your two sets of teeth, bare and white. you're so eager when you smile - and today, so very real - so quick to say, "oh, god, can we please try this again?"

I stretch my hands out to tomorrow on Thursday nights, and rub last week's worries out of my eyes.  it's half easier to pretend that the fringe ends of yesterday aren't still clawing off my skin, but tomorrow is promising a prettier tattoo to cover up the mistake on my right shoulder, and I am placing all my trust in her wispy fingers. I've been told to look through the hospital window at tomorrow, my newborn child, but the glass is fogged and I can't tell whether it's a greenhouse or a lover's car; either way, tomorrow will grow up without me, now, and I'll be left behind here, fingerprints making ovals on the windowpanes, try

fish song sounds between the crash plastic fire a sweet wild crowd. mostly you are lost inside this sea of rolling arms and washing words. you look for her ankles like shells in rough shoeshined sand. your eyes are restless seagulls. remember her against color girl like water clean & calm & alone an always ache you almost want to call when it is late.

i used to build last-chance bridges that would crumble with the touch of a wish hanging onto your little sister's fallen eyelash like a shivering mountain climber. and as peace shook itself down around my shoulders i wondered if you've ever wondered why when, at night, when you stare out at the trees that sway, serene and alone - why you, with all your charm and awkward grace lie by yourself lit up by moonlight hands behind your head in the shape of a diamond with the knowledge that if the rest of you does not interfere too much, you might become a kite and fly away into the thin atmosphere, loose and free. and i know that i us

In Heleni Hamalka, the clouds are blindingly white and so thick that tiny sea dragons live in them, sparkles of silver.  The clouds look as if they were woven with silver thread when the creatures poke their heads out at night, when the sky is a deep purple. Right off Belle Plaine Avenue ther eis  apond, not big but in the middle of a rock bed.  The water is cold cold cold and fresh and so clear you can see every bright-red fish brushing your ankles.  They are dressed so gaudily.  They are brave, they stole their colors from Queen Elizabeth's handmaidens. Willow trees here have leaves that look like Indian scarves cut into strips, but softe

           Our house used to have carpet all through the downstairs rooms.  It was brown and ugly, it left trails when I dragged my small feet across it.  My brother and I used to do forward rolls and cartwheels on it, easier because of this cushion of bristly brown fuzz.  You couldn't roll it up.  It was stuck forever to the floor.            Except it wasn't, because when I was in fourth grade my parents set out in a feverous rush to redo the kitchen, the office, the floors.  For a

When she fell jerkily into her father's arms I knew it was time to leave, but she was gracious through her tears.  I ran my hands along the rough white rain-soaked stucco and stepped indelicately straight down the middle of a parking lot.  The air pulled grey silk sheets over its face as it went to sleep and I held myself closer in my mother's velvet shirt.  The yellow dotted lines had faded after an onslaught of water, I have found that sneakers on cement make more of a tired hum than you would think.  I passed the flower plots planted under first grade supervision, secluded in case they tur

1. two nights later and still there is glitter on my chest, a speck of shining green in harsh bedroom light. and in a cheap mirror, my eyes have connotations of defiance that I never could have read there two years ago. I feel like a dictionary revised in lipstick, or in a child's messy crayon, old fears still visible through bright new color. 2. light slid onto your face, and for that brief illumination, three quarters of a moment, you looked like a firefly. it would be so hard to chase and catch you and hold you in my humid hands, you disappear too quickly in the rain-softened dusk. 3. I can hear you singing perfectly ou

great wide oceans left my skin tasting of salt in a vivid memory called upon every so often in the face of false treasures brimming over with a killing courtesy. tipping back your sunglasses with a squint and a smile, you rebuild summer day by day in my outstretched hands.

in a world of locks and a world of children, we have all learned to listen at doors. the every-same overheard question leaving its footprint on a dirty bedroom floor: how many rebirths are we made of? i refused to answer when an eye met mine at the keyhole and fled to scratch out revelations in the dust. and each new word was another plea for each old word to mean something more. cold water splashed on my face, city sun crashing its earthquake way along an unlined eyelash. liberation. for every spark of july that drifted 'cross your hands, a corresponding puzzle made itself known in blanketed goosebumps on my arms. "goodn