(untitled for now)

My chapped lips. The cold, windless hours.
The stars are no consolation because they're feeble and far in the city light
and I get angry at their not even trying to reach me.
The cycle of years and the one pain that comes back, predictable,
like a scratch on a record, though I've never owned one.
My father was a bad man. I dream of his hands which are my hands,
big and clumsy, though I used to play cello.
At least I could play cello with his hands.
My chapped lips. My slippery feet and the one knee that breaks the fall.
It'll ache some day and from then on, and I'll call it my bad knee.
In the winter I am dark and seeking darkness and I remember
being very young and small and burrowing inside the folded-up
fold-out sofa bed. I feel better when I can't breathe.
The snow that falls, that melts, that freezes again and no traction.
The bad man in my dreams and the loss and the trauma I will write about
always because I can never get it right.
I lost the glove for my left hand but I still wear the other one.
I stretch my coat sleeve to protect my bare hand and I become less dangerous
in the vulnerability of a lost glove and a lost father
who was a bad man.
Each winter reminds me of myself. I look for something in plain sight
and I can see it. There must be somewhere deeper and darker
where I can test your love, where you'll really have to look and maybe
feel around with a naked hand and a gloved one.
My past is sitting beside me. It wants to give me flowers.

the little orange ones

Sore throat.
Headache.
Nausea.
Irritability.

Tingling, burning, or prickly sensations.
Increased sense of hearing.
Increased sensitivity to touch and pain.
Increased watering of mouth.

Feelings of suspicion or distrust.
Aggressive or bizarre behavior.
Delusions and hallucinations.
Loss of sense of reality.

Irregular heartbeat.
Uncontrolled body or eye movement.
Severe drowsiness or coma.
False sense of well-being.

(Note: The side effects in this poem are all taken from an official list for ONE medication. It's a frequently-prescribed anti-anxiety pill/sleep aide. I take 1.5 mg per day.)

i remember (joe brainard)

I remember my grandfather buying me Hamantashen cookies at Bagel World at Purim. I didn't like the filling (blackberry or lemon), but he said it was a treat, so I ate them.

I remember a cat that would let you do anything to him. He had long white fur.

I remember big kids playing capture the flag in the forest by my school. I was supposed to play but I was afraid I'd get lost. Years later, a friend of mine told me that she had sprained her groin muscles playing capture the flag once.

I remember scratch 'n sniff Kool-Aid stickers.

I remember everyone in my family standing around my bed asking how I feel. I remember thinking it was strange that they were there then, because I had felt much sicker before.

I remember spider-plants and picking off the brown tips.

I remember eating the box of bridge mix in the downstairs drawer. My grandmother asked me if I had seen it and I lied. I felt bad later because my grandfather yelled at her for forgetting to buy it in the first place.

I remember seeing a movie with my aunt and reaching into the popcorn while her hand was still in there. She told me it was rude and I was too embarrassed to try again.

I remember winning a spelling bee at a mall and bringing the red ribbon to school to impress my friends. I don't know why I thought they would be impressed, but they were. It may have just been the ribbon.

I remember doing cartwheels off the diving board into the pool.

I remember my friend Jennifer Lake and that she was a "bad influence". One day she was wearing one of my necklaces and I told her I had one just like it.

I remember Jennifer Lake taking me up a very high bridge over some train tracks. You had to walk up lots of stairs to get to the bridge, which was covered like a tunnel. You could still fall over the stairs part though, even at the very top. I never told my mother we were there.

I remember how Jennifer was allowed to use the stove at her apartment. The only thing she knew how to make was melted chocolate with shredded coconut. I didn't like coconut, and I remember thinking how much of a wasted opportunity it was for me.

I remember mixing the cleaning supplies under the bathroom sink to make "potions."

I remember naming my goldfish Freda and Fedel after the goldfish on Polka Dot Door. I found out later that the boy fish on the show was actually named Fennel and that I had been hearing it wrong. I didn't know that fennel was an actual thing.

I remember my older cousin saying that, when she grew up, instead of signing her name on things she'd just draw a heart. I pretended I didn't hear her, hoping she'd forget about it until when we were grown up and I could use a heart as my signature.

After Joe Brainard

this bag is my bag

Really, they're Ringolos
and i am not eating wedding bands because
really, it's too soon and anyway
I don't even remember the name of that tea you like
that John brings back from Spain.
Still, I place each barbecue-flavoured ring
on my tongue (which I imagine to be a small cushion
of sky-blue satin with white
lace fringes)
and pose like some dark-haired little cousin
of yours who would be more interested in
where the dog has wiggled off to than ringbearing.
And my mind wanders, like the cousin's mind
that wiggles after the dog,
to you and your unshaven face and the white roses and
each Ringolo crunch is your salty kiss,
your Listerine kiss, your cigarette kiss,
your poutine and Red Bull kiss.
It's Sunday afternoon and I'm hungry.

goo goo eyes

I swim in primordial gunk

with you, and I make gunk-balls

to throw at you.

I pummel you with

genesis stew,

I pummel you

with genesis stew.

And this one is enzymes,

this one is glue.

Smack you, baby,

and this one too.

Now you are spattered

with bubbling glop, and I

am breaststroking through.

.

I love you in a snarling way;

We need to grow a lung

or two.

flipping rocks

This ugly thing, this wrecked animal,
I found it underground.
Fur, like dark veins or eyelashes,
abandons the body at my preening hands
and in my hands, it breathes.

This has become a story I don't want to finish.
This is my father, a hammer, a lung.
I worry about my hands.

august

I would smother you in white face cream,
and anti-age you into a baby again.
Your mouth hangs open when you sleep
and when you sleep i can really look at you.
I would make you a baby
with clenched fists and a wail like mine,
then i'd smother you in white cream
and watch you sleep and curl
like the strand of hair that clings
to the white ceramic bowl of the sink.