Grave Diggers

For Richard Siken

When we met I became aware of the hole I’d been

digging for decades, a ditch of sorts, a burial plot for my

feelings, my secrets, all the ugly bits. Twenty four hours

later I stood in the shower thinking of you, the way your

left hand gripped your coffee cup, how your eyes looked

quickly at me before they nervously looked away. You

said, in other words, you said, you don’t want this, I’m

flawed, I wear my mistakes around my neck, a tie pulled

too tight, a noose. Two shells, the undead, going through

the motions among the living. You climbed down into my

pit, held the shards of glass to the light, cut your finger on

my edges to show me how you still bleed. Come lay in

this grave with me, I beckon, imagine in this darkness the

dirt they’d throw on our bodies if they knew how our

hands held each other. Feel how alive you feel as the

earth fills in around us. Wanting life will be our death.

Love, our resurrection.

June

Rolls in all sweet and salty. Our twin seductress,

her early morning gloom gives way to afternoons

that scorch the most foolish of earthworms; waiting

soil but inches from their drying bodies. Kids stay up

late, giggles echoing down the hall; live the waking

hours with popsicle stains across the front of every shirt.

Filling driveways with pastel castles and hopscotch mazes,

begging for snacks, begging for an end to their boredom.

I, too, become entrenched with thoughts of rebirth, of

unbecoming the self I’ve been since last September,

living day to day by calendar reminders and routine rituals.

Our reward for enduring is the fullest moon on the longest

day of sunshine. Everything illuminated. Asking us to

see ourselves in a new light. Asking us to shed the skin

we’ve been carrying through the darkness of winter.

Grab a nectarine hanging from the bountiful branches

and bite in hard to the flesh – let the joy overwhelm you.

Feel the gravity swelling inside you, pulling the tide closer.

Allow yourself to be carried away by the burgeoning waves.

Love’s Teeth

Sink in soft to the flesh,

incisors through fresh baked

marshmallow. Always biting off

more than can be chewed

at once — an enduring bifurcation

of foolish optimism and a

voracious appetite to be

continually consumed.

The feast begins

at the mouth, delighting first

in the sweetest of pleasures.

Then working their way down

to the bones, to the tender marrow,

to the beating heart, until nothing

is left but fragmented remnants

of the people we were

before the first

delicious

bite.

Curiosity

May have killed the cat

but it was only one of his

lives, so I’d argue the juice

may have been worth the

squeeze. After all, what is there

to live for if not the wonder of

discovery — the jolt of acidic

tartness on a willing tongue;

toes on the ledge, dipping

themselves toward infinity

as a heart pounds against

its slender ribcage; eyes

meeting eyes for the first

time, wondering what secrets

may be revealed if both

are brave enough to

not look away.

Observing Atoms

Writing from sadness is easy. It’s catharsis, a leavening of self.

Writing from joy is far more complicated. The writer is not seeking alleviation and so the act of writing it, in all its transient splendor, becomes ominous.

Do I dare speak of the way her body nestles neatly as she sneaks under my covers, her flesh born from inside mine — or of my soul’s wholeness upon her existence?

The moments swell in my chest, tidal waves

of emotion so large they may carry me

for decades down the shore, or drown me

slowly, as I cling to the white wash.

Women Friends

Are so much easier to find when you can pass

them notes in the hallway about boys you’re

obsessing over, and when sleepovers are

commonplace for lady bonding. But as they marry

and move away, you are forced to cry into a cell phone

on your hardest days, instead of cuddling on the

couch, intermittently berating your boyfriends between

commercials of The Hills.

In the longing void of their presence, you find

loneliness deeper than any from a man. An ache

of kinship still alive from afar; asking you to nurture

it, as your arms long to hold the newborn resting

on his mother in an alternate time zone. Offering

anecdotes via meme way passed midnight. Little

reminders that love isn’t lost with girlish innocence.

Then one day, by chance, you meet another and you

watch as she tends to her son in a way you recognize.

You'll never know fully the things that shaped her as a

girl — those slumber party times have passed. But you

eat together and realize that it’s never too late to ask

for belonging. Like coats, collected through the years,

they keep us warm on days we need them most.

A Secret Garden

For Rainer Maria Rilke

How many lives did we almost lead

before the ones we’re living found us.

How many loves were lost in the chaos

of the growing of ourselves, holes forming

in the toes of socks we once danced

together down the hallway in. A constant

knitting together and pulling apart

of the tiniest details of our daily rituals.

It hurts to be alive as the seasons change —

remembering our faces as they once were,

the foolish little sins, our disbelief in tomorrow

reaching us during the darkest nights.

The key turns to unlock a thought,

once buried, and we move now through

the threshold as translators of a foreign

tongue. To feel alive is the best reason

for living, so we keep going; pressing

our fingers deep into the soil, the ache

of mortality at our back and the possibility

of it all, budding right before us.

The Suncatcher’s Sonata

We’re all born to this earth, sturdy prisms

of possibility. Unaware of ourselves,

our facets unencumbered by pretense.

Then we meet people. We meet love

and want, heartache and harmony.

Each a beam of light, bending

as it encounters our edges, dispersing

truths in vivid arrays of varying hues.

Every soul a different wavelength,

allowing an alternate aspect of our identity

to be revealed. The gift of being known,

given to us in rainbows of revelations.

Little mysteries, once transparent,

now alive in splendorous technicolor.

Kids

No one told me how funny it would be to have

them point at my freshly showered body parts

and repeat “what’s that?” as their dad gives each

part a silly name and we all laugh uncontrollably.

Or how suddenly the topic of how babies are

born can come up, and how easy it would be to

tell the plain truth, only to have her shrug and

move on to a new topic. No one told me how

frustrating it is to sing the same nursery rhyme

seven times in one night, or how scary it feels to

catch glimpses of their face in the morning light

where at just the right angle they look mature

beyond their age. No one prepared me for the

months when one drives you nuts and the other

seems easy, and the months after that where it’s

the other way around. If only they’d told me how

her skin would feel on mine while we spun in

circles — the gravity of her little body pulling

away from me as her arms wrap tighter on my

neck. Wispy hair floating mid spin. Hot breath

exhaling laughter deep from within her belly.

Second hand stopping on the clocks for just a

moment, only to quickly begin again.

Time is Not a Thief

Stop saying that.

It’s not a clock with hands

ticktocking away as it

steals your freedom.

It doesn’t come at night to

gather your valuables

and vanish into the darkness.

Time is now. It says I guarantee

you this moment, and nothing more.

While you toil over sins and

sadness of the past, or longings

for the future,

I’m here. Offering you

something you won’t ever find

elsewhere.