in being wary of self-mythologizing

i have become suspicious of my own pain

although i don't think this stops me

telling tall tales at night

the squinting scrutiny simply

makes the truth appear

smaller in the rearview mirror

truth shrinks

stories spin

Salt

no use laying down salt

when ghosts live 

inside the body

can no more protect

lungs from heart

than can contain

ravaging spirits

from wild hunt within

I am

the territory

what hungry death resides

better to lay salt

across threshold 

so neither I nor my ghosts

may pass

bidden and biting

into ignorant daylight

Blueberries in January

the blueberries are good for 

January, I'll admit

piled on your plate watching 

with baited breath pancakes 

as a form of prayer

I did drag you out of bed for this mass

didn't I 

as if scrambled eggs

could make any difference

I am wrong to mock breakfast 

as salvation on this morning 

of the third day you 

rose again proclaimed the gospel

                                                        I remember there is warmth in the world

asking

again this time not

for another plate of communion

but for methadone.

I would have brought you the moon if you had asked.

Waking Times

we strap on our boots and walk

I,

and my mother

mud is too eager these days

should still be in winter slumber

but we live in waking times

I,

and my mother

we walk as all our mothers have taught us

close to water

speaking of the day's worries

so that others may rest easy

there's not much light left today

careful and our boots in the mud

I, 

and my mother

revenge poem

according to somebody

I have stayed up late in vengeance

for all the day's time

dictated, transcribed, filed somewhere 

out of reach

for all the tasks done that would rather be non-done

for all the tasks added that are very much un-done

for all the tethers to self

jostled loose and limp

not worth ratcheting tight again not today

for all the little things--

    absurd grief

    the weight you didn't lose

    the joys you rushed on from

    not chewing enough to truly taste

    maddening crushing despair

    sleep paralysis demon for waking life

--every little thing

for these--vengeance.

dull and aching into the night

blue-lit, numb, stale

and then this poem

the revenge on my revenge

exacting one final kick

of aliveness

dim-lit, livid, free

love poem for a downfall

is the descent yours or mine, love?

on the surface

you are the freshly fallen

but perhaps

I am the one coming

quietly undone

and you are

exactly as you please

musn't be too hasty

with these things

I sit watching snow drift

spelling down demise

we talk of our daughters' futures

rice wine and rain

concrete steps and your garden

cigarettes and contradictions

the night air is thick with our talk

limbs languishing

bean vines sprawling

summer is kind

amidst a sky ever darkening

we take refuge in one another's fears

we poke little lights in the dark

with cigarettes and contradictions