yk

you’ll miss riding an escalator,
someone told me just days
before my first breath of subarctic air
and bright winter light.
he was right.

who knew what a tippy canoe
this town would be -
what i’d walk right into,
all these stairs to climb
and wheels to spin.

sometimes i dream of the
subway doors closing,
office towers like tall giants
lined up in tight rows,
honking and smog and
a place i’d never met the
worst and the best
all tangled up in a sliver
carved into the shield,
built in rock and stunted pine and
summer midnights of crinkled twilight.

one town,
one man with two sad eyes,
one long endless walk down the
frozen dart of franklin.

tantrum.

sometimes in the grocery store
you will see a mother with her angry toddler
stomping his feet, clenching his little fists
tears seeping from eyes squeezed shut
and he’s screaming, and she’s wrong
and there’s nothing she can do, no magic
words, nothing to convince him that
it’s alright, that mommy loves him,
that this is a safe world to live in.

his sad little face
recalls a man who once shared my bed.

cpl.

i can now pinpoint
exactly the moment
i became that woman
who throws a string of pearls
into the dumpster,
passes diamond rings
on to her mother,
sweeps in with a giant
eraser in one hand
stiff drink in the other
and makes it so
he was never there.

coffee break

every morning
i wander down 48th
to buy a cup of
pissy overpriced
organic mexican coffee.

around the corner
and down the stairs
the reason has thick blond hair,
wears black glasses
and has misplaced
a whole front tooth.

he fixes his hair
and says howwasyourweekend
in one short breath
then finds something
enthralling
to stare at on the floor.

when he dares to
look me in the face
(usually on tuesdays)
i catch his eyeball
and hold it with mine
and those are the days
that i win our
little game.

skip chase.

what use we’d make of small rooms.
what command you had of a dialect
i never knew i ached to learn.

i met him when your tide receded
skim milk gloves and impeccable grammar,
passionate as bran.
bring wine, i’d always say.

and i’d lay my head on his silent chest
in that spot where all winter
we’d watch the north dance -
greens, whites and goodnights.
when his sleepy hands found me
your name would fill my mouth,
my teeth would bite it in half.

a friend said sweetheart you’ve lost your puppy,
go on and put him down,
and my father said write what you know.

well i knew this and i knew you,
my sweet young professor -
shut the door behind you
when you go.

haiku

i asked you to leave,
i meant it once and should have.
still i’d take it back.

/

don’t you remember
the way you’d make things happen
like no one before?

/

isolated post:
this town too small for us both
you’ve still got me, love.

/

here you are again
showing up to my places
black marks on them all.

/

watch the news, i’d say
you’d shrug, trying on a smirk
and then you’d kiss me.

/

well, you never cared
you’d say matter-of-factly.
wrong as wrong, and still.

/

sometimes in the night
you’d press your palm to my mouth
because you had to.

two songs you loved

a decade now sits there
like a slab of concrete,
obvious and ugly.

the sound of our sadness
persisted for weeks
like two songs you loved
crashing into each other.

the years since you left
now quietly exist,
a tidy pile, indisputable.

through each grey year
your songs still play.
a symphony in autumn,
low hum at first frost.

punchline

like a deer in the headlights
as you slammed on the brakes
i stood there dumbfounded
and earnestly stupid.

if you’re pregnant
you once said,
i will throw you down the stairs;
a joke befitting a woman
no more than your punchline.

impasse

the song you played escapes me
but not your puzzled face
in your midnight apartment
on your tiny couch
as you pondered my buttons,
and the folds of my clothes
while every taxi drifted by
and your breath caught in my teeth.

you capture the city
the soft way i remember it,
so every time i look my heart jumps -

the sharpened pencil of winter nights
the lights that never rest
summer sidewalks hot in the dark
and dawn breaking cautiously
like she’s late for a meeting
while garbage trucks hiss to a stop
while sleepy eyes open
while coffee is poured,
and hurried in rushed palms
down old stairs of old apartment buildings
where old stories wait to be told.

you had me and i had you,
and shit
you still do
and so on, so forth–
time marches on.

wish list

these are the things
i wish for when i pause.

your slanted glance
dirty boots and gentle hands

the weight of your feet
at my new front door

your good morning grey eyes
to make me forget him,
and that light he threw into my new life
and the bulb he then callously unscrewed
from the only lamp i owned,
leaving me fumbling in the dark
in this strange new tundra.