Sonnet.

in bed after
eating popcorn
and drinking
orange soda,

your breath
tastes like warm,
soft pretzels dipped
in melted cheese;

our open mouths
breathing,
your wet lips
sliding down

my wet lips,
kissing.

Your Poem

I will write
you a poem
when the nights
stop dawning cold
without you here
in my halved bed.

computer-glaze buzzes,
empty pages blinking blank,
swallowed yawns from typists.

swallowed coputer-glaze pages,
empty yawn buzzes,
blank blinking from typists.

typists swallowed blinking buzzes,
blank empty pages,
yawn from computer-glaze.

buzzes from typists,
blinking pages yawn blank,
swallowed empty computer-glaze.

buzzes empty blinking,
computer-glaze blank,
from swallowed pages typists yawn.

swallowed buzzes empty blank,
typist computer-glaze pages,
yawn from blinking.

I.
grind-growls of a leaf blower
yeilding to the hisses of busses
or soft cellular conversations

II.
old automatic doors jarring
open to the rumble-hum grind
of a gasoline lawn mower

III.
cut grass sprinkling onto sidewalks
where busy black shower shoes grind
pebbles into concrete dust

IV.
pregnant belly swells bouncing
in wobbling walking-rythmns
and the whispy grind of thighs

Shosanna at the End

Dying, Shosanna thinks,
'Mother rubbed our rough backs'
thinking Death and living
and air are the permanent things

Bleeding on the floor,
Shosanna counts: her dragging breaths,
daydreams under seagull songs,
the yellow shores stored in childhood,

thinking Death and living
and air and memories
are the permanent things
Shosanna thinks, Dying,

'Mother rubbed our rough backs
smooth with lotion, our patent skin
glowing in the failing daylight'
thinking Death and living

and air and memories
Bleeding on the floor,
Shosanna counts: her purging breath,
the panic-gasps of drowning.

The Nightly Mentioning

when I mention: sitting alone
in a night-dark closet dragging
my eyes down thin florescent slits
peaking around door edges

when I mention: meditative sleep
rapt with fledgling dreams stitched
rough against waking-world flashes

when I mention: thumbprint stained faces
in sepia photographs piled on the floor
as bait for wandering dream-ghosts

when I mention: drawn shades
dangling in muggy-thick window glass

when I mention: headaches and dizzy swirls
from nightlong open eyes saved from blinking

when I mention: cracks in floor tiles
scurrying away in peripherals but remaining
cracks in floor tiles in full focus

When I mention: these things,
I hear you, curled in a blue mink blanket, laughing at black and
white movies; the memories
of sharp nights tucked under your down pillows and happy head.