for quiet streets,
where the only sound is
the wind blowing and
the leaves crunching underneath

my feet? Where I can hear
the robin's song and the doves
splashing in the bird bath
all day long. Or the scraping of

the squirrel's nails climbing
up the old oak tree chasing his
tail? I say the solution is
ridding this earth of people

pollution. I like the little cottontail
wiggling his nose and flapping his ears
back and forth as I peer at him, grazing on
my sweet green grass, that needs

a trim! This is how I'd like time to pass,
in quiet reverie, swinging in my hammock
under a canopy of leaves, as a butterfly
winks at me in a billowing cornflower sky.

in bed, with the covers up to
his head. It was a drowning
accident. His parents were distracted,
now they are impacted. She screams

sitting in her wheelchair pulling
out chunks of her hair. She'll not
walk again. And she'll not remember
when she did. There's another

kid in the next room wearing
a breathing tube. He grunts just
like a pig. His father doesn’t give
a fig. He never visits him. His mother,

frail and thin. My son looks the same. But
he doesn’t remember his name. He lost
a big part of his brain. This is how it
is. None of them asked for it.

my street on four wheels
where they don't move
their feet. And screaming like
a banshee, howl. I sit on

my deck and scowl at
the silence they stole. Ugly
trolls at it again just when
I'm billowing in my reverie. They

massacre a memory. I can
not hear the robin sing over their yelling
and bantering. So, I make my way
inside. But I'm still attacked on

all four sides by little people
amplified. I'm a bird in a cage. It just
gets worse with age and spring. I can
not escape the hollering. This was a quiet

street. Now it's a riot of little feet shouting
inanities, calling it play. It's a black cloud
on a sunny day. There's not enough
chardonnay to make the noise go away.

is what we
were. She held up
her end. And I held
up mine all in a straight

line. Talking on
the phone till ten
about music, school
and men. Our

mother's yelling for us
to stop. Was close to
eleven when we got
off. Then life got in

the way. I got married. She
move away. And the books
all tumbled. Guess that’s
the way the cookie crumbles.

ride. All the people outside are
ants. She loses ground in this
dance. Looking through a thick plated
hole at swirls of cotton candy clouds

she bumps around. ****** forward and back,
up and down, side to side, like a roller-
coaster ride. Her quarters are tight and
cramped, strapped like sardines

in boot camp. The food is bland as
the women. And that's all that she is
given. She cannot move; she cannot tweet,
for she is fastened to her seat. All the doors

are closed. The seat-belt sign imposed. She
cannot leave. But she cannot stay. The air
pushed out like Aerosol spray. Her feet swell
like balloons. Her skin is dried up like a prune.

with legs of caterpillar
tracks. She rolls forward and
she rolls back. She's dark
and cramped and armed

to the teeth. She travels
the roads and the streets, plowing
down everything as she goes. She hums
and she zims. Her arm is a turret,

a long, pointed limb. And she'll
aim it at you with a blood cherry
grin. She peeks out at the world
with two slots she calls

eyes and wears her armor
under grey covered skies. No one
comes near her. And no one gets
in. As far as I know, that's how it's been.

are pithy, one word
dangling on the page,
dripping with sweet
intention. In sunlight we

don't engage. And she's
been with me in Paris, in cafes
and museums, though she's not
left her zip code. And I read

her memes, watercolors running
down my screen. I haven't seen
the sun on her face. But I've seen
her children growing up on my

page. And I cannot erase
years of plastered smiles
like cut out paper dolls. I pasted
on my walls. I stich all

her words together and write
'a poem. But I cannot hear
sounds of laughter or bouncing
echoes after, teetering from

her cherry lips. I trip on my
phone, sitting dark and cold
in my purse, as I nurse my lime
and *****. I'll type her another

line, to tell her all is fine. Inside
I'm breaking in shards of splintered
conversation and plastered smiles,
a bookmark of a life wrapped in pixels tight.

and striped shirts.  No dresses
or skirts. Her mother cut her
chestnut hair all off till it
fell on floor in a pixie cut at the

age of four. Girls called her him. She was
short and slim, no curves. They only
had one, no more. Her parents split
up before she turned two. She didn't

wear ribbons or bows in pink. She wore
black and blue in a purple hue.  She did not
laugh and she didn't play. She stayed in her
room till Groundhog's Day. She didn't have a

shadow. She followed in her mother's
wake.  Every night she'd stuff her mouth
full of chocolate cake, curled up in a ball
under the covers. She wasn't invited to parties

and had no friends. She'd write on her hands
and arms with markers and pens. She didn't
bathe. So, the words stayed etched in her
skin. She learned how to walk on needles and pins.

is a cluttered drawer
filled with tickets torn
in half and colored *****
that fizzle in the

bath. Stained cards and
ripped old photos, drummed
up dreams and wrinkled
bedclothes. Spilled perfume

and fire engine red nail
polish, letters that she'll not
demolish. An army knife that
carved his initials, a document

that stated it's official. It's so
stuffed she cannot close it. Today's
the day she'll recompose it line
by line, wrapping it up in poly twine.

started out the size of
a dime. I couldn't stick
my finger into it. When I lost
time it grew into the size

of my shoe. I'd walk around
for miles this way, carrying
the weight till it was as large as
my waist. I was stuck in quick

sand. Going down slowly no one
lent me their hand. The hole turned
into a stone pit that men did
cartwheels and even a

split. Over the years it expanded
as the ocean and sky. Sun and moon
cried into the abyss. I told them
I found the lost continent.

that fan the sky then
what am I? A black insect with
antennae, that can walk,
but cannot fly. Like an eagle

caged with a broken
wing I'm outraged when
my writing hands in a high
arm sling. They say a caged

bird still can sing. But who
will listen to my song when
there's no wind carrying my
notes? When my throat's sore

from breathing stale air? When
the sun is lost on the easy
chair. This patch I land on is so
small. Not room here for an evening

crawl. I'd be someone as a feather
duster, sweeping ceiling fans till
they luster. Gliding and dipping like
a gull at sunset! Just to get my wings wet.

up or push it
down. Put it aside
or bury it with frosted
cream donuts and

chocolate. Drown it
in one-hundred proof. Cover
it like the weathered
shingles on your

roof. Patch it like your
ripped denim jeans. Iron it
out so no one sees
the seams. Pull the splinters

one by one and stick
them in the corkboard with
your black push pins. It's deep
and dark like the sea and bleeding

like a sonnet. Wrap it up and
tie it like a bonnet under your
chin. Now head held high. Fool
them with that wide-tooth grin.

robins splashing
in the white porcelain
bath as I laugh at
two tangled squirrels

tugging at the same
nut. Rolling ***** of fluffy
grey like a ball of yarn they
make their way to a bare

patch of grass with a little
hook and sass. I spy a cornflower
sky with a julep smile as a sunflower
shakes her golden head in a raised

garden bed. A cottontail
nibbles on clover as I roll
over in my knitted hammock among
the trees, living life at ease.

into stone that she's thrown
into a lake. They skip and bounce
like an earthquake. They're so
cold they froze into icicles

on her face. She ties them up
in a bow like a shoelace. She shoots
daggers from her eyes, like lightning
bolts from the skies that take

a man by surprise. Once they
were a river that overflowed into
the land, the city streets like a brass
band. But after years of the flood

the flow had stopped like
clotted blood. She cannot shed
no more. They're all dried up like a
corpse's pore.

with yellow teeth. I hang
the pieces on my door
gathered in a wreath. If you
touch me, my jagged edges

will cut your hand. Some
days I strand fragments of the
glass when I've time to pass. I wear
the reflection around my neck

in quartered sections like
Aztecs. A jeweled medallion
tattooed on my breast, burning me
in the sunlight, in flames upon

my nest. The whole me distorted
in the fractured glass. I'm manufactured,
not built to last. A young girl becomes
a prisoner of her past.

on his arms and shoulders,
weighting him like sandstone
boulders, from someone larger
than him, with mountain

hands that knock down
trees, limb to limb. It hurts!
It hurts! The boy said. His eyes,
swimming pools of ******

red. Bad boy! Bad boy! Sit in your
chair. He'll slap your face and
pull your hair. His mother cannot
eat or sleep, to see her son

bruised and beat. This is
a wicked world, men punching
boys and ****** girls. I have no
will to live in it. A black eye,

a split lip. Hands around
his neck, in a tight death
grip. Nothing here changes.
We are all strangers.

For Alex

you've been sobbing for
years. Collect them in a paper
cup till they fill up the rivers
surrounding the mountains. Eagles

will drink from fountains
you weep. Water the grass and
your garden with them. Build up
a forest from a thin little stem. Collect

them all in a pool. So, on a hot
summer day the neighborhood kids
can swim and stay cool. Splash in the
puddles they make. Fill up the oceans and

lakes. Don't be so quick to dry them
off of your face. Wash your clothes. Make
a bowl of soup with the salty brine. Drink
them. They're cherry wine.

before age two,
before she walked or wore
her first pair of shoes. She
held down the fort when

daddy left home. He was
the type of man, that liked to
roam. She soldiered on through
her mother's drunken nights,

when dear old mom knocked
out her lights. Mopped up her
***** on the kitchen floor. Home
was a place she called

war. She didn’t have ribbons
and satin dresses. Her mouth,
filled with abscesses. She wore
thrift-shop clothes, moth-eaten

ones, with quarter-sized
holes. She dropped out of
school to get a job. Not a day
goes by that she doesn't

sob. But she holds her
head up high because she
has a new home made of
paper. She calls a poem.

like a ball of yarn
the cat pounced on and
swatted at. Every strike of
his paw I grew small

till I was not at all. I unwind
like a spool of fishing line cast
by a silhouette drinking *****,
smoking cigarettes. He spun

a web of lies like a spider
trapping the fly. I was unstrung
like a harp. He couldn't pluck me
with his fingers. The music

died. The wooden frame
all now in splinters. A rope will fray
when cut. I hung on till my edges
grew threadbare. Now I'm dust in the air.

gold was rust the day
this turned to dust. All
the bouncing dots
flatlined. Swans in the lake

turn swine. When did
the sunflowers drop their
heads? Their bright yellow
petals shed like cat hair

on the stripe upholstered
chair. When did the cornflower
sky sigh with the wind and turn
charcoal? How did the moon

break into pieces when once
whole? The sun's rays douses
its light? What cut the string
of the high-flying kite? Why

July, did you turn frost? Blades
in the yard from standing
now moss. The diamond ring
is glass. Inside of it, many cracks.

infesting my floors
and walls. Eating through
the cherry wood till there's a
hole where my house once

stood. He's a pathogen
invading my body with his,
injecting the poison in a shot
of release like a pent up

sneeze. He's smog, polluting
the air I breathe, blocking
my lungs till I wheeze. He's
a bacterial infection spreading

into my tissue. Knocking down
cells, making my brain swell. He's a
malignant tumor growing every day,
till I putrefy in a pool of his lies.

a little black dot that marks
the end. That's my lot. A speck
no bigger than the head of
a pin. There is no way for me

to win. I build a nest on strings
of words that stood before. My life  
is nothing but a bore. I am not
read. And I sit low. People pass

me as they go. And if there's
a question do I get hooked?
Like a wire hanger in a closet
full of clothes or the curl of

a cat's tail above my nose. And if
they make a point they throw me
a line in the shape of a joint! Some
men throw another dot above

my rounded head: So, there’s two
of us, not one instead. My twin is not
fine company. She's just a copy of me. Men
pause; I jump on top bearing my claws.

like a dream,
but chases me around
like a speeding car down
the boulevard.  It dropped

like a burnt souffle'. But
I wake to it every day, smoky
and grey. It's finished like
a line somebody crossed. I was

tossed in the air like
a coin. Landed on heads.  Cut like
threads after stitching. It was
bewitching! It stopped

like a broken clock. Only kept
time twice a day. But in the rhyme,
it sliced my lines.  Expired
like curdled milk from sitting

too long on the shelf. It closed like
a slamming door in my face. I banged
on the wood till my knuckles turned
red. But I haven't in years put it to bed.

like a piece of old silk cloth
bought at the fabric store. And
stitched me into a pair of pants
a moth ate holes in and

danced. Sliced me like a loaf
of bread. Throwing away
the crust and ends. Sandwiching
me with a ****** between a rock

and a hard place with boyish
lust. He shaved me. And I grew
back as new stubble, short and
hard, till I scratch everything

that touches my skin. He axed
me like a maple tree. And I
fell hard, covering his whole
front yard. Then he took my limbs

and shredded them into his
woodchipper. I was broken into
a thousand pieces. My release is
spreading them as mulch in my garden.

like the seasons
from the full bloom of lilac spring
till his room was billowy grey clouds
snowing in shrouds. He was

a ripe banana left in the noonday
sun, turning from bright yellow
to pitch tar, my Freud smoking
cigar. A caterpillar

morphs into a butterfly. But I
died in his cocoon in late
June. Like a blood orange sunset
at night, down went my light. I was

a silhouette hung on his wall. He
dressed from green to red like colors
in the fall. And then stood bare like
the trees. Empty branches

scratching the windowpane
through the howls. The lakes are
sheets of ice that I don't walk
on. The moon will change by dawn.

off some sea-beaten shore,
riding crestfallen waves
propelling a long wooden
oar. His back is slumped right

here in his rollerblade chair. But
his body is limp as his stringy
grey hair. And when I talk it's
like talking to air. His cheeks,

sunken valleys, pale as the noon
day moon. His face wrinkled and
dried like a prune. His lips hard, and
closed tight as a clam. His belly

is soft as strawberry jam. And
to think I was his doxy back in
the day, when I was young and had
moxie, and his legs were a sleigh.

like a watercolor in a wooden
frame standing in the rain. Reds
bled with the blues to create
a purple hue. She wore it as

a brass weathervane high
in a cornflower sky blowing in
the wind, spinning in every direction
till the **** broke off

like a piece of poptart. She
wore it like a river running into
the valley. There was erosion from
all her emotion. She slapped

it on like thunder clouds
clapping out loud. Lightning
striking down a cherry tree. Swimming
in shards of jubilee.

of orange butterflies
that lies hidden in the depths
of her dress. They cannot flap
their wings. They hang loose

as strings, unraveling. They built
a nest in her breast. She has a
pocket of tears that she airs in
the dark morning before the sun

rises. Before she paints her
eyes in black she puts them back in,
like pencils in a tin. She has
a pocket of smiles she takes out

once in a while so folks do not
ask. It's part of her mask. She has
a pocket of dreams no one has seen
stitched in her favorite color of red

that she wears every night to
bed. It's only a pocket, and a pocket
is small. She scrawls out her dreams on
a napkin. Folds the paper to look at later.

a garden with golden strand
pearls of dewdrops. Even if
the rain stops not a day
go by where a flower

wilt and dry. She’d fill
the rivers and seas so they'd
spill into the land. Every town
build a dam to hold it all in. She's a

tsunami that drowns a whole
army with her water bucket showering.
Like a running faucet that rips in-
between skips of heartbeats and

butterflies. She'd implode
the tallest building from her dripping
into ceilings. Shatter all the glass
in one fell pass. I remember the cold

December when her eyes froze as
lakes. Right there on her face
I could skate a figure eight. It’s been
the longest winter. Tears are

splinters that cut across my skin, like
peeling an onion, layer after layer. Now
her eyes are flames. A crimson rose
buried under the April snow.

is what he gave. Crumbs of
cake, ice shaved. Bits
and pieces are all he
conjured. Can you fault a girl

if she wandered? Odds and
ends thrown in a drawer. So many
times she walked out the door, to
only crawl back and beg

for more. Bric-a-brac placed
on the shelves. These are things
in themselves. A smidgen here,
a smidgen there. That is all

he had to share. Is she just a speck,
flecks of lint brushed off in the wave of
his hand? A grain of sand on the
shore? Sebum sitting in his pore?

like a tall glass of steamed
hot milk. And he spilled it
on the floor. And left it there
to sour. I poured my fervor

like a rain shower
in a grey cloudy sky
till his backyard was flooded
by a full-blooded woman's

sigh. I poured my fervor
on my angel sleeves. And he
lopped it off in one fell
chop like a branch on a tree. I

poured my fervor like cremated
ashes over the ocean. All this
emotion was carried off in a wave,
that became my watery grave.

sponge, turning and
twisting like an otter till
every ounce of water is a rolling
bead on her. She's dropping mold

from the ceiling. Peeling back
layers of paint over the rot. No one
can cover the ugly black spot. A musty
smell of old books and wet

socks. She's a spiked slice of
ice weeping from the eaves into
a deep freeze. She's hot candle
wax trickling down the side,

rough as rawhide. Running rain
in the sewer. Plopping like stones
heavy and wet. Another day lets out
the same as it rose in – draining

she keeps in a drawer
with her socks. Sprinkled with
dewdrops in lemon and
sage. And strings them together

on a long goose feather slowly
turning the page. Her pupils
are a tunnel of deep-fried funnel
cakes. And she blinks like

a lightning bug when she's
wearing a mug of strawberry
wine and buttered sunshine after
a long hard day. Her iris is shamrock

green that falls between a whisper and
a sliver. She's riding the river of dreams.
There's a hint of starlight that she holds to
tight. It peppers her lens with cream.

beaming down on me
with a cheesy wheel smile,
cold as ceramic tile. I'm a smoky
silhouette in a licorice sky,

tracing stars like a mad
magpie. A breezy wind is playing
hide and seek slapping pearls
of dewdrops skipping down

my cheek. Rhythmic chirping of
crickets singing leaves me
prancing in pain. Spinning my arms
around, I'm an arrow on

a weathervane. Drunk on lilac’s
flowering perfume. My head's spread
like a plume. Morning sun pops kernels
in the pan, cooking me up like a flan.

I saw his face I was
deep in the ocean without
a gill. On a treadmill burning
my energy chasing a dream

westerly through scorching
sun, icy rain blinding snow
and gale. Like a dog chasing
his tail only for it to be cut off

and fed to him. The last time
I heard his voice was on a cellular
screen, cold as a steel canteen. I froze
like snow melting on the eaves, as I

rolled up my long cuffed
sleeves. The last time was the first
time I walked. I blocked out years
of pain and held all the rain

in a ceramic vase with holes. And grew ugly
as a ******* mole. He stuck like chewing
gum, in a hard ***. Hadn't thawed even in
mid-July. Faded out in a nod and sigh.

on her little shoulders,
the planets, the stars, sun
and the moon. The countries
and continents. She's a walking

cartoon. She's bent over
from the weight. They loaded
her small paper plate. And she
stumbles and trips because

it's easy to slip wearing
the world across her back like
a gunny sack. She was born
carrying the cross. Her mother

nailed her umbilical cord
to it. Every day she walked
toward the door her mother pulled it
like a dentist does to a decayed

tooth. Batting her around like she
was Babe Ruth. When she dies she'll
be buried in a coffin with a wide berth,
laying her load down in the earth.

that porcelain face with spider
legs in black mascara they'd dance
like Mati Hari wearing a crimson
sari. Hazel colored iris scream

from all they've seen. They've held
back a river with honey glazed
ham. Stuck to their shell like a razor-
shell clam. Frosted cornflower

shadow is painted over the
lid. Curtained in bangs of ink pasta
squid swishing back and
forth like windshield wipers. Nose

blowing gunk out like winded
bagpipers. Or if they were sewn
tight with needle and thread she'd lay
them to rest like an indigo spread.

off like a barbie doll
and don another, a sister
or a long-lost brother to fit
the scene I'd make

the silver screen. But My head's
so tight, wearing the bathroom
towel.  I cannot rotate it like
an old barn owl. If I spin it

like a weathervane, it’d
spill out all this pain. My head's
a stuffed Thanksgiving
turkey. But I'm not swimming

in the gravy. It's so heavy
sitting on my neck. I putter
around like 65 Chevy car
wreck. My head's a fishbowl

filled with dead fish. When I walk
I swish. Or I'll get it chopped
off like Anne Boleyn. Place it
on a dish served to the king.

speeding on the track. Once
it starts there's no turning
back. It's a kettle of
bubbling screams. It whistles

pain in sweating hot
steam. It’s lightning hurling
its bolts between clouds
and ground. But today

it didn't make a sound. It pitter
pattered like toddler feet, stumbling
between fits of sleep. Drinking it
down with moonshine last night,

till the throat was burning and
chest tight. It's a warrior badge
pinned to the breast. A scrawny
lion that feeds without rest.

lie. They curl up like
a sleeping cat into a smile
when she's sad. She speaks
like she's not had a broken

heart. She colors them cherry
blossom. But when she’s with me
she plays possum. Her eyes drip
in crimson watercolors, a bleeding

sky, running into the river. She's a
splinter, a sliver of the woman
she was.  Painting starry nights
blazing through a violet sealed

off maze. And when I kiss her
she’s not kissing me. Her lips are
like rubbing up against the bark
of a tree. And there's no heat.

are fickle. They tickle
my mind. They're cornflower
blue. Running like a watercolor
in the rain, then connecting

together like links
on a chain. They bring me
back to strawberry fields
where life isn't real. And they

steal my hours picking
them like flowers for my dining
room table.  I bunch them
all together like a painting

of a sunset. And they collect,
a debt I haven't paid. They keep
growing. I'm living in the shade of
them. Sewn onto the edge,

my hem. Pebbles in my shoes I can’t
shake loose. I walk at night. Floorboards
creek and the moon speaks to turn
off the gaslight.

past the nose and
lips? Jump down
to my ******* and
hips? Marvel at

my long legs? Am I
a projection, like an image
on a movie screen lying
flat in ripped blue jeans? I'm a

matchbox cover, a work of
art with a striking surface,
a pin-up doll that can light
a furnace. But so small  

I get lost when you
toss me in your drawer
with notebooks, gadgets
and receipts from the store.

in the mirror? She walks
nearer to the glass. But doesn't
look. In fear she'll pass. Wrinkles
replace the pimples on her face. Hair,

gray as a squirrel. She can’t get up
fast, like she’s had an epidural. Her waist
is spread like a jellyroll or a loaf of
bread. Her *******, flat as crepes. What

happened to her milky *****,
the one that fed both her children? Lips
are thin and pale. Nails are short and
cracked. She’s packed on the pounds over

the years. Her eyes are water wells
collecting her tears. The circles under them
are dark as moons. Her stomach is a hot air
balloon on fire making sounds like a screeching tire.

So you want me to quit?
Say I'm too old.
Throw in the towel.
Let my cards fold.
I've been told that before by another -
she went by the name -darling mother
So you want me to give up just like that?
a wrinkled old woman, ugly and fat.
I've been told that before by another-
he lived with me, was just like a brother.
So you want me stop doing what I love
want me to shut up
put out my light
or all the above
I've been told that before by another -
oh ya, let me think....it was my grandmother
So you want to pretend I don't exist-
wipe me off the face of the earth
make me regret my birth
I've been told that before by a friend.
Will you finally be happy when I reach
my end?

he wore
hollowed me out
as an apple core. Pushing
and twisting, leaving

a hole in the middle,
like an enigma, a puzzle
or riddle. The color chestnut
turning to ash. I rise to the sky,

fall and crash.  I cannot
sleep with stranger eyes
in my bed. The body dance
is flat and dead. The pitch is low

and sunk. Who is the man with
stranger eyes I married? The one
who carried me over the threshold
of our home.  Bands of

gold now tarnished black. Sitting
like a sack of potatoes. Should I smash
him or cook him alfredo? The mirror
hanging over the dresser is in pieces

of broken glass. When I pass
the shards still glued to the frame
the woman I see is not the same. She
wears stranger eyes too, in cobalt blue.

and where he lives
his favorite color cobalt
blue, the bars he'd visited,
and the few women he went

there with. I know his breathing
when he sleeps is uneven and
the secrets that he keeps. Because
he talks in his sleep. I know

the musk he wears, and
that he hasn't underwear in his
bedroom drawers, just a bunch of
mismatched socks. I know the

pounds he can bench, his favorite
food, Indian. And who he voted for
president. I know his name. But today
as he walked by he didn't stop or say hi.

before you say something that’ll hurt.
Don’t blurt it out in insults
that cannot be taken away
even with an apology.
People remember their history.
Scars of words past said
have become my suit of armor.
It’s made me hard, not softer.
I cannot hold you close
in a body of chains and metal.
Like a tea kettle letting off steam
I burn you in my every scream.


STOP
and take a breath
before you do something
you’ll regret.
A good night’s sleep will
clear your head.
Take those ugly thoughts
to bed.

STOP
before you do something rash
something that cannot be taken back.
If it cannot be undone
Better that it not begun!!

smiles
than frowns.
A little more
Building me up
than putting me down.
A little more listening
than offering advice.
Wouldn’t **** you
to try to be nice!
A little more gratitude
than complaints.
It’s all in the attitude!
We’re humans not saints.
A little more forgiveness
and holding less grudge.
God, and not you
is the final judge.
A little more love
than hate.
Life is too short.
Why would you wait?

painted black, white and
yellow. In a struggle with
herself. Hunting for her next
meal, scraping by on scraps of

bones and *** appeal. Not a lap to
lay her head or a four-post queen
size bed. Ears sticking out
like pegs, not the type that humps

men's legs. Scouring the scene,
hungry and lean. Living life on
razor's edge. She cannot be
domesticated. Her eyes are wide,

pupils dilated. Likes the chase,
grassland and plains, the open
space. Wind whipping like cream through
tangled hair, danger lurking in the air.

with a stiletto, the **** of her
jokes. And like her cigarette, smashed
into the ground. In a flash, turned to ash
from her smoky breath. Crushed like

a plum tomato in the sauce. I learned
quickly she was boss. Crushed like ice in
her drink, slivers of the rock I was. Melting
in a frosty mug. Like a tin can she

ran over me with an electric mower that had
teeth. I was dented with sharp edges, thrown into
the neighbor's hedges. Like an old car piled high
in the junk yard. Folded up like an accordion

after years of Freudian therapy. My Dreams,
crushed rose petals and scattered  like leaves
in the potpourri. Stuffed inside a bedroom
drawer, lost between the underwear and socks.