The Long Face

She gives me three guesses,
and if I'm clever,
she promises to step right off the train.

Now is when lovers kinder then us
kiss through half open windows
and keep the doors clogged for time.
"Everythings faded. You think there is color
in Europe where people all smoke."
She scowls; she thinks that I joke,
but that's number one.

The girl I love begins to drift right.
Goddamn the shoes that I wear.
They'll trip up my feet.
"Are you sure that it's fair
to play this charade?
You think that I slept with the slut."
That's not it, but it's no big surprise.
She gives me the edge of her eye.
Now I've one last try.

Like dreams, but the running is real.
I cling to the door. The station platform is short;
the end is drawing up fast.
The brick here is caked with the vomit of coal.
It seems that shes even got hope:
her foot inches down.
"You want a new room
without a new smell, a place with our sweat
in the grain of the chairs.
Your fetish for birds is unleashed,
you love me too much, you're caught up,
you see me, you see me, you see me
get old."
That must have been it.
She shrugs as the tracks pull her back.
I guessed four and a quarter or more.


Third and Fourth Hands

Window gazing in a train
Some thoughts about the bride
Impaled upon a severed frame
The bicycle she used to ride
Around me, bona fide touch to appease me
(Every night in bed, assured
That I'm the third and fourth hands holding her)
"Send you off to shop. Just get me onions, sour,
And a mound of rye
(Slowly, 'cause I need an hour)"
Italian divorce in films
Without remorse--the way I feel
A bike balanced on both my knees
I shave the joints with metal files
Now all it needs is weight. I wait;
She'll be home in a while
She'll give me onions, then she'll fly on wheels
To court a lawyer by the train tracks
Submit the facts: a young wife dead of broken heart,
Pierced by a wasted steering rod,
Departed with her love of God

Carrion

Two is company
Three was a conspiracy,
And now it's time for chores

Quiet as we find that the
Majority of our possessions
Cover up the floor
Trinkets buried in the rugs
Dangling plugs from gifts requiring light,
and, lately, glue
To spell out who loves me and who is she

She is on the stairs
Picking up the books that landed there
As I set broom to brick

Fireplace we never used
In need of sweeping and a tray
For the ash of crystal cats
Soon as all the portraits have been straightened out,
The figurines afoot, we'll put a bottle in a basket,
Do a picnic, do a park scene,
Take the time to take another vow
One of us apologizes, one of us forgives
But in the meantime we can watch the birds
Carve circles overhead Watch birds close in overhead
Just remember: threes a crowd
Three makes novels hit the walls

You and me with our arms here and there
you and me can carry on carry on carry on

Julianna

Waifish girl with dark, dyed curls
Sniffles under a streetlamp
The red light district is laughing in the distance
Nervous boots against the pavement
She trails her silver breath
And hollow clickings from a dog walking ahead
Alleys lurk and old cars sulk
Hot stares from the stairwell gang
A black opened window whistled when she ran
Ancient, faded yellow tape
Urges her within the night
The cityscape is lost against the lightlessness of the sky
This night, another faceless room will be her hole
Another corner's arms in which she will be consoled
A set of walls, a yawning door, the shame of sleep
The shame of sleep. A moment by herself to coax the pride she keeps

Would it not be better for her to forget who she is?
Maybe then there would be no need
To ask the sweating bodies to forgive

Silent girl steps out again
A needle for the need.
Large brown eyes like glass again,
Too full of what they've seen
In a room, objectified
Hiding on the sheets
Underneath a smirk again, suffering in his heat
Twelve thousand years from Rome gives her a choice
A ball of tinfoil or a basement and a wall of bricks
Of sex and love, respect and love, it's all the same
She pushes at a ruptured vein
She tallies failures on her wrists in red lanes

We waltzed on the tiles in a slick of blood
In a mess of kitchen forks and knives
Is tragedy the beauty of our lives?

Maybe it'd be different,
If I'd tried to save her
Maybe then pigeon feathers below the window
Would be her cure

We Swallow Insects While We Sleep

I can hear her in the cupboards
Turning teacups on eachother
Driving ants from off my counters
To the cracks shes cramming through
Got my fingers in my ribcage
So I dont sink in the bed
Put my elbow in my mouth, not a word
Not a word, not a word

Shouldn't breathe, not a breath until she leaves
Track her progress by the mess in living room
Now shes gotten to the shelves
Touches china where the shivers are,
Teeters on the glass
Sees our photo on its belly;
She sits and stairs--
Stickwalks for the stairs

I'm so sorry I didn't put flowers on your head
They were growing nearby,
As good as any I'd buy
I'm convinced our relationship was dashed
Since you tried to join a tree, stashed yourself
Inside the dashboard

I can hear her in the cupboards,
Deep inside the pots and pans
Pulling back into the antworld
Spitting haunts, wishing harm,
But despite former charm,
I can't bring myself to take that opened face to my lips
To interact with the fractured maw,
With the swiveling parts of jaw
Tongue in ribbons, tunnel vision
Through the sockets of her skull

So don't expect a kiss, stay in the hollows
Of my walls, with the comfort of the rotten wood
And your army of blind ants

The Content

Ugly wallpaper
Yellow, raised with welts
I think of it as Braille
warning us before we
bought the house
and hung our stuff
I'd be lying if I said
I had a dream left
You think it's good
I haven't given up
the paintbrush

Maybe we need a child
It’s been a while since Paris
Now, even the panic is gone
as I lie in darkness
with your shoulder
Oddly enough,
nothing really happened
I never saw our light go out
and just last year
I remembered what it was
about your eyes
that sent me falling
(Younger versions of us
laughing, fucking,
making fun of other people)

Out the screen door—
All I have to do is not return
It scares me, it would be so easy
Easles, wooden color palettes,
Pricey tubes for me, and for you:
jazz collectables, books and rings
Yeah, we do the birthday thing

See my wrinkles on your face
Wear-and-tear along your waist reveals
the place my arms have always been
We aren't so thin anymore
I could have won that scholarship
Instead, I chose to love you,

So hold me in the muted glow of our living room light
Hold me like I’m endearing, like I’m the hard-of-hearing,
stubborn, tunnel-visioned champion of your heart
Your steadfast worker, tinkering in art, in the yard
with the garden shears—your modest man who steals a wink,
makes a pass, weaves your tresses, and quickly forgives
all your trespasses, without even stopping to think

Let's get this last part right
A couple more decades of life,
I can do at least that much with you)

Naturalization

I'm not afraid to use you
The wall clock reiterates
each second of our love life
It's the metronome timing our home
I think it started long ago
Calamity in napkin folds
I hate the way you clutch the phone:
like you're escaping

It feels like counting coins,
like romance forged, but it's on paper
You come home, I come home
to buried desks a little later
We horde around a table, wordless,
put our heads together
Sometimes our fingers touch
Don't need two to turn a page

Sure beats the cordoned lines,
zig-zagging in crowded lobbies
We could be on our own in single homes
with single hobbies
At least we're safe and legal
(paintings of the northeast seagulls
I don't care because I guess
you grew up on the beach)

We're joined with palm pumped staples
It feels like sin, but it's on paper
We've gone eleven months
Visa-vis
keeps our breath warm,
and every now and then they come to check
if we can dress and look impressed
with one another in our home
of coastal decor

This is your side
Let's go to sleep
Whisper all you want,
but that is what you'll keep
Put the ring on
It's good as gold,
and please don't move my things around
We're only getting old
This is your hand,
and this is mine
Intertwined for public view
until we need to sign
I may not know you,
But I've seen you write your name
I will not read between your lines
if you don't do the same

Another nervous dinner on a February night
There's got to be a way to make it out
Clock tick rhetoric
where the strangers share a check
I dream in sound and signatures

There's got to be a way to make it out