You never asked for protection
from love. Not even a formula
for dealing with my bar-stumble 
into the rain—stories about boys
who ground their teeth and smoked,
waiting in a red Cavalier while I sneaked out
back peeling down the wire fence.
This is what I have: the bottle of Heaven Hill
smashed into a foot of rock sugar in our street,
rusty fork from Thanksgiving
when I threw the turkey straight over
the balcony when you said you’d leave—
and the neighbors didn’t say a damn thing
about it, just stepped around the cracked plates
for days. Sometimes I can still feel the heat 
of your hand in the dark, my wanton limb
struggling for some inner step,
wishbone broken somewhere underfoot.

First Two Daily Poems Drafts for April!

Marisol's Tale


In the beginning I was an exhaustion
of split dreams. I was so many women:

the one with the fist of clenched hair, 
woman in the shape of a high leather

boot--the one who forgot the Lord's 
Prayer. What is is that comes after

I shall not want? I remember straying
in the wilderness before love. I remember

the brightness of it, driving me down 
on my knees. How do you get the best of it?

Say no to a man. Learn to be the proud
Virgin-Mary rising on her leaven. 

On the sixth day, I refused heaven.
All my words a spite of black clouds. 

Donestre Cento

Twilight is not good for maidens

Out of this dust they are coming     delicate

as grasshoppers       a light      gathering

              in the skull

Crying is a habit       with me being able

to eat and incorporate        beauty like this

                                                       heaven / bad music

Myself anyhow       maybe as old

as the universe

                                               I remember “remember” means

to put the arms     and legs

back on       and sometimes

the head.