Us

When the rain beats onto the street

And seeps down into the gutter

With the street lights glowing yellow

On the black pavement,

You sigh, look up.

Feel the moonless yellow lull you

And your ideal zen senses.

When the rain comes, it's wet.

And I'm a cat with lots of hair.

On her tiptoes, hunched over.

Look down,

Worms swimming in the water.

Didn't you see them?

I'm worried.

You would run naked through forest rain.

I...

Wouldn't.

So when it's cold at night and the rain

Beats unevenly against the windows

You and I

Smile in bed.

You and your happiness,

Me, being dry.

It's precisely the contrast

In our rainy sensations--

Your cooling, my coldness

Your exhilaration, my fear--

That makes this moment--

The jagged rain, the soft sheets--

Us.

In This Stupid Moment.

You know, it's offensive when
22 year old smokers breathe putrid sarcasm into my face
About how they'll die early when really
They don't know who they're talking to
Or understand how embers suffocate
Or what it feels like to not be able to recreate a flame
By pressing a button on a magic lighter
Or the knowledge that in real life
You can't just borrow someone else's match if yours goes out.

I honestly feel I've miscommunicated something to the universe.
I'm on thin ice with my body, like we had a fight and I never apologized.
It's infected me with a phantom lovesickness
Where that's all I can think of.
At work, at meals. In bed.
And I slip from myself when, without warning, it comes around.
Deeper, sicker.
I put so much love and attention into our relationship
Except I never thought it would turn toxic.
Those smokers know all along.
Well I never asked to be perpetually sick.
I never asked for a burnout in my pancreas but I
Thought that if I lived for my body I'd at least have
The two-thirds life expectancy about which the doctors told me
When I was twelve.

This is only the beginning, I think.
I know we're trying hard but with all the soul I invested--
With those countless inseparable hours--
Why impregnate me with such pain?
It's just--
I don't think I deserve this ghostly devil.

And there are others who beg for this shit.

Just a little one I jotted down today

Rain.
With the back porch door open.
And all the windows welcoming
The fresh, cool breeze the thunder brings.
Me.
At the kitchen table reading.
The potatoes boiling on the stove.
And the leftover vegetables for my stock
Make the rain smell like
Basil, red and green peppers, scallions.
The plop-plop-plop sound of boiling water.
And the click-clack-clack of heavy rain.
A boom of thunder.
This is a hearty, warm home.

A friend-inspired this Haiku by writing his own.

Tonight I fear yet
Thrill all the more as thunder
And lightning meet earth

Summer soon: The Esplanade on May 26

I lay contented as
The breeze flits through the trees,
The muggy air,
My pulled back hair.

In the afternoon shade, my skin is dry
Though the hazy sun still winks her eye.

A bird hops by.

Even the people stuck in traffic seem happy, lazy.

A little boy plucks up a daisy
Then looks at the train headed to MGH-- chucka chucka chucka chuck.
He gives the daisy to a duck.

Peace floats through Boston on the wings of weather.
In the quiet atmosphere above,
It gathers happiness
And sprinkles it down the Charles in golden flecks
That rest on the crests of the water.

And the ducks are baptized.

And all barren winter land becomes holy once again.
And the spirit of happiness becomes mighty,
Even in watching a sparrow rinse himself off in the dust.

While the haze of the day begins to fade,
The ants are finishing up work and weeding their way home
Through my blanket.
The green oak leaves turn over to sleep
As the golden eye drops behind the sky.

Then the wind whispers, hush...
And twilight approaches.

Hands

My hands have become a New Englander's.
They match my soul, my birthplace, my feet.
Cracked, hardened, and dry.
My hands are only 22 years old, but they are working hard:
One fissure on my index knuckle from a jacket which I
Zip up, zip down, zip up.
My hands look like they were wet and I dipped them in flour
Yet are brown from the sun, even in winter.

My hands hurt all the time:
To make a fist, to wash, to moisturize.
They are prideful and hardening
Like the oak tree's root under the snow.
They stand for my recent past.
My lack of sleep, my sore back, my saved money.

My hands are not as beautiful as the old woman's hands
That give me change for her coffee every morning:
Her hands feel like hard plastic
Swollen with blood,
Like 70 years in New England.
Her hands are my weeping willow, which,
Knotted and sagging,
Still grandly lives.

I want to tell you what I'm like, really,
Through my poetry.
How cooking dinner makes me rhyme
And drinking wine makes me sad
How my reflection rarely drives me to write
But the feeling of my own soft skin
Makes me realize how soothing it is: a pen rolling on paper
How, if I come back to this poem, I'll hate it.
How sometimes I say things cryptically
Because it makes me more interesting to myself

I want to tell you how self-injurous my behavior is--
How inward I am,
And how I talk as not to hear myself.

Here is something about crying:
Silent, deep sorrowful cries are the best
Because you feel them in your heart to start
Because the tears spill over, hot, soothing
When they touch your yearning face.

I don't have time to explain it all, though.