"Photographs"

There are no posed portraits with your
real family. They are the ones
who can sit down to Thanksgiving dinner without
breaking out the camera. It's also
okay if you hold your plate
on your lap. And drink wine from a plastic
goblet. It's the Saturday
beforehand, a friend is over, playing 90s
pop songs on his broken guitar.

There are no limousines driving up to your house
at age eight, to take you away to
your real family, who will let you eat
three bowls of Captain Crunch for breakfast.
Your real family are the ones
who catch you as a grown adult and just
roll their eyes, sit down, ask you for
a spoon. Even as they
remind you of your diabetic aunt.

When you go back for the fourth
they remind you louder.
You weren't so hungry after all.

I read once that to some Hispanic Catholics
being a godparent was like
Platonic marriage, a covenant to raise
a child not your own, to tie all your lives together
into a four-stranded braid. I thought
how beautiful, to have
so precise a word, such a carefully
measured picture frame.

We come full circle now
back to the pictures of us I don't have
and the ones I do, your hair
static electric, your eyes tired. Nobody
is perfect here. Except when we all are
suddenly, almost accidental,
half of us just waking up and unaware
of quite what's happening at all.

"Poem Poured from a Bottle of Pomegranate Wine"

When I woke this morning at an hour
I normally sleep through
there was an aurora borealis on my wall. The shadow
of my body in bed, rippled, reflecting.
I was not drunk anymore. I promise you
this. I was not
hauling words out of my body on a slow
chain, rusted over. I was not
crying onto your shoulder. And still
there was a glow, and a bird drawn
on my door, and new clothing
and a record I love but not a player for it.

The next time I lock my door
tell me, stop leading yourself up a cliff
that isn't there. Stop
pretending to throw yourself off. Even having it
sandpapered into your skin
isn't always enough a reminder. I am always sorry
for being myself, a cryptographer,
a composer in the waltz time of Enigma rotors.
I am sorry for an hour spent convincing me
that it was all right to speak. If I put
myself back in your hands, let me rest for a moment
before I begin the work of telling you
what a miracle it is to be here.

"Skin"

Measure your sadness by its wounds. By the
valleys. Measure your misery by their depth
and breadth, their length. By the oozing
volcanoes of cigarette burns. Anything
can be a wound if you want it to be. When I was
small, I made do with
mosquito bites that I scratched
into festering sores. After reopening
often enough, they became
impact craters. Your world is large or small
as its topography. You can count your worries out on it
like on a chain of beads.
Measure your sadness by the rivers
that flow out of you, never
to be replenished again.

"A Poem For People Who Hold On Tight While Riding Rollercoasters"

"Scared" is not why. Not those of us
who walk away with hands stinking of hot
metal, our fists having spent the past
three minutes balled around a steel bar.
It is worst being a woman on a Ferris wheel. Your purse
is suddenly your firstborn child, or
your camera bag, or backpack. But it is not

because we're scared. Up there
we're the ones who realized pretty fast
that if we let go, nothing
would really bother to keep
the whole damn thing held together.
It is a lot to fit in your hands. So
we bite you unfortunate
fellow riders, our nails working as well
as teeth in your palm. Forgive us.
It would just hurt so desperately to see it all
spread out dollhouse tiny and precious
and be still. To see it and not
try to hold it tighter.

"portraits of some people i have loved"

if you walk around inside the big sprawling
mansion of my brain, there is a room
called "the museum of people i have loved".
the curator is fairly specific. so far
she has only allowed
six or seven pieces. aren't they
intricate though, their collage of snapshots and
inked words, and scribbled hearts, and colored
lighting. i still picture one girl
always in golden light, another in harsh fluorescent
high-school halways, one boy
with even his white-blonde hair shaded by nighttime.

underneath each piece is a list.
there are things i will cry over later that are
too mundane to describe. there are code words.
one girl who never committed
to loving me back: mushrooms, bumblebees, carbonated
fruit juice, all kinds of
hats, mailboxes. a certain brand of
clove cigarette. hairbrushes small enough to fit
in your purse.

one girl that loves me equally much
as i love her: a series
of children's books, the microbiology of
a cell, hot-chocolate-style "cappucinos" at seven am.
skittles candy. peregrine falcons.
is it wrong that i believe
i can paint portraits best this way of all?
you are who i love best seen through
a kaleidoscope of particles that orbit us
alone. this is how i go about
the terrifying act of loving someone enough
to tie them down to the particulars of my life.

this curator meddles, too. she thinks she knows best
when the artwork needs a certain
editorial eye. once upon a time, a girl told me
she prayed whenever she heard
an ambulance, and it stitched itself on my atheistic heart.
in her hands i was a sofa cushion. a ratty old thing.
what i am saying is that walking home tonight
i heard another of the night's siren sounds
and thought new thoughts.

i suspect that curator pulls from old lists sometimes
to create the fabric of the new
but then again i love cover songs, i love artists
riffing on themes, i don't think it's plagiarizing
if you get it better the next time around.

"a story to pass on"

i walk so much faster than you
and somehow it seems that overnight
it has become natural to
slow my
pace if i am
near you, and yet walking alone
at odd hours of the night, i still
charge through the grid of the city

what i am trying to say is
i realized this tonight and it was
the first time i'd thought in weeks, "this
will make a lovely poem.
this is something to write down."

"excerpt from a list of reasons why"

because there's a pile of jewels on my desk
nestled in gold chains
and i wasn't wearing lipstick so instead i wanted to
wrap them around your neck and leave
some signature

because after all we are both writers
so i think you'll get it when i say
something is born each night of the world
that people drink, and laugh, and spit at
danger, them with their knives & us
tying our fingers together into ropes

because you talked about our two cigarettes like eyes
glowing, watching; i pictured a demon hovering
four stories up, and wanted to snatch its eyes
and not let them go as they seared
at my palm, and wait for them to turn into
crabapples, one for you and one
for me to eat

but mostly because later my hair smelled of incense
and you wrote a poem first
and i don't want to use punctuation at the end of this
poem, when i would rather imply
something without a definitive ending in sight

"(Another Poem That Uses) Pomegranates as a Metaphor for Love"

The first time I felt like I belonged to you
we were walking home on back streets, the same
as we did tonight. Looking at the houses
and pointing out balconies and balustrades.
Flowers in all the yards (wet
tonight with rain) and a single willow tree
with its branches arcing like latitudes
across the universe. Tonight

I rebounded my cigarette butt still-lit
against an iron fencepost
and it turned into a baby meteor.
You forget sometimes that not every night
is the one you see the Pleiades, the transformer fire,
the red moon that fades to orange
before dissolving to end as glitter on your cheekbones.
You forget that even from the bruised pomegranate
you can extract enough whole seeds
to feed the souls of your entire family.

"Elegy for Fall Semester 2008"

On the first cold night of the year
my ribcage locks itself shut again.

School started a month ago
but I only go walking at night. Empty playgrounds
pass in the night, abandoned
tiny cities, me the ghost with her bangs
fluttering in still air.

Some days I think that a year ago
when I first wore my red winter coat and smoked
on the El platform, maybe the wind
did knock some piece of me onto the tracks.

Whatever was pulled under the wheels,
I hope the bitch stays there.
I hope this November chokes her
so her nails never stitch my ribs shut again.
This year my lighter glows over my chest like a heart
and if she tries coming back
I'll burn her city. I live somewhere different now.

"The Closest I Will Ever Get To A Truly Serious Marriage Proposal"

The only time you tried to kiss me, I
laughed and told you, "I love you too much
to let you do that." You bought me fast food when I drank
a bottle and a half of wine; I was seventeen
and you had to drive me everywhere.
I walked through a field of locusts for you. You
wore yourself out to bring me
garnets and tourmaline from the mountains.
We love each other like a Neruda sonnet stripped
of its fire and air, reduced down
to the earth, the red dirt that bleeds through
the surface of the Black Hills. I went to South Dakota for you
with your unkempt hair and bare feet.
You are coming to Chicago for me
with my poetry readings and brand-new dresses.
You are the only man alive
that truly forgives; me, I'm the one
who somehow learned to see the walls of your heart
translucent and luminescent.
I have not written you many poems, I didn't
split my veins like vanilla pods, pour out words with each
beat of my heart. Some part of me has always known
that if I want to tell you this, I have
the rest of my life to do it.

"adopted"
for the ones who should continue to recognize themselves

i can lace my combat boots tight
or cry on the couch in my ex-boyfriend's jacket
and either way you comb my hair
and i come away looking prettier.
i can write all my poems lowercase, sing
sometimes in tune, and with you on the shore i swim
like the mermaid inked on my leg.

we were: not pretty. not
graceful. we called ourselves
trash, we wrote misery across our slumped
shoulders, once upon a time. sleeping beauties
in over-the-counter comas. you woke up
kissing in an art museum and learned
how to repurpose, turn
shattered stained glass to mosaics.
found me sleeping in the lake and drowning
in our bathtub, put a paintbrush in my hand,
put speakers in the soles of my heels.

i called myself a superhero the other day after saving
another life. wasn't serious. comic books pretend
it's the girl in the cape
who deserves the headlines. breathing 3D people know
it's the ones stitching up the seams, waiting
with a warm cup of tea, waking you up
when there's a light in the sky and you're needed out there
or just when you've been having bad dreams.

"Autumn As the City"

Last year I knew it by the sand that no longer
collected beneath my toenails, the cold I got
that choked my throat and strangely
sweetened my cigarette smoke. I knew it by aches in my shins
when I lay out in the damp grass
lighting piles of dead leaves on fire. Phone calls
and love letters, pollution-streaked sunsets. I used to live
seventeen stories up, ethereal floating
on a caravan of lights, a parade float of crushed
maple leaves. Picture me
a distant goddess with glazed eyes
and whiskey-varnished breath. Picture me crying
so distant from the city
that my tears had time to freeze on the way down
and turn into snowflakes that ended that autumn.

Today I stepped outside, pulled my sweater sleeves
over my wrists, lit a cigarette. Strange how I knew
after that single first drag
that fall had come. Though of course now I live
just above the pavement, ambulances
as ambient noise to lull me to sleep. A spider
tried to spin its web onto me the other day.
I would not be surprised to find my skin had turned metal
and my hair the texture and color of bricks
because after all I've always loved the city
but never, until now, has the city loved me back.
I don't make it snow anymore
but when the leaves begin to kiss the sidewalk
you'll know it's because I woke up affectionate that day.

"Three Distinctive Dreams Reach Their Approximations of Reality (1997-2009)"
for the four girls who ought to recognize themselves.

I.
I had known her since second grade, and our mothers
were always crazy. We were loners
together and wrote poems on the sidewalk
in chalk that eroded with rain. We grew up wishing
to be beautiful, and not being, and then suddenly someday

we were driving down the road by the beaches
and it was like a movie scene. Two girls,
wind in our hair, mascara undernearth our
sunglasses. Summer heat and flip-flops and bare
shoulders. Music loud enough
to shake the roots of the trees. And then, without even
noticing, we'd become all we dreamed about
when we first heard pop-queen songs
lying starry-eyed in bed in the late afternoon.

II.
We loved each other for the first
two years and hated
for those two as well, plus another three.
Then we realized how small we were
in old photos, how fragile
our bones. And six years on, we're solid
and real, girls with hips and flasks
attached to them. Girls who smoke in parking lots
at one AM, radio
playing all our old favorites, with heavy boots
on our feet and leather jackets
barely blocking the cold. We wore men's dress shirts to work
and mascara afterwards. Sometimes a little girl
with a pointed hat on Halloween
develops this grown-up dream of being a witch
and rocketing black and glittering through the night.

III.
There is no way to begin this with backstory
because I'd stitched shut all my dreams of a life like this
but these days I sleep
sporadically, bruise frequently, wear prom dresses
on the subway and drink coffee
at midnight. Late-night breakfasts out celebrating
the arrival of money though it's still
not quite enough for rent, walking a mile home
in heels. A tattoo on my wrist and scissor marks in my hair.

Drumbeats on the bus windows and diner tables;
camera flashes going quick
and unpredictable as meteors. The ink from my pen
bleeding into cement and metal. Everything
cinematic beautiful, the soundtrack always playing

something perfect for the moment, each sunset
waiting patiently to be painted by a master
or seared into my mind as a memory of home.

"No Matter How Old You Get You'll Always Be My Little Sister"
(for Kelli, of course)

All night you do things unpoetic as
watching bad TV or texting
some new boy you've met, while out there
the world goes on pleased that you
are simply existing, happy just
to know you are laughing hysterically or
flipping back your lovely hair

to reveal another piece of pale skin
that no boy loves
half as much as I do, knowing what
resides beneath the tautness
of your skull, knowing exactly what lullabies
will put you back into your sweet dreams

and which will turn you into the spark
of the first meteor shower of the night
that ricochets down the suburban streets

to light gold and pink on the rooftops
and turn the rain to spun sugar
that collects, sticks, aches at our teeth
yet always leaves us hungry for more summer nights.

"spring forward/fall back down"

you're the version of me that wakes up
in sunlight each morning, puts on
her glitter, your footsteps in winter
kick up jewelry-box music
instead of snow, if i put myself through a prism

and tried to shape the rainbow
that came out the other side, she'd look
like you. in the spring
chicago puts on her green dress
and goes dancing. we got here for

the afterparty, the long slow drive
along lake shore, red convertible silver heels
and legs slung out the side
crossed at the ankle. champagne after vodka
and moonlight on the lake
while all along the water, we're laughing
and half-dreaming from the sleepy buzz
of bumblebees in the lavender.

and when fall comes
i won't mind so much, having
to put on my homemade scarf and stitched-up coat.
the orange glow of a cigarette, leaves
pulpy in the rain-filled gutters, chicago
will get home and strip off her makeup

and i feel like this year maybe winter
won't be a collapse, except
into the safety of blankets and home.

"Why I Like It When You Sit With Me While I Smoke"

Because these days, it seems like
for every hour spent sobbing on a park swing
with screams and drumbeats shredding my
eardrums, there is a moment when

I am lying on the playground bridge swaying
slightly in the wind, the moon
hazed over and the clouds sweet-dream pink.
And right then I hear a line that sounds cautiously
optimistic, and I think maybe
it would make a nice tattoo spiraling deep purple
around my wrist, and I think right away
that I would want it to be in your handwriting.

And for each phone call unanswered
there is a morning like this, where I watch
my cigarette smoke drifting up in ribbons
of steel blue so deep it's almost
indigo, and I would like you awake and here
so you could see it with me

because after all you've always loved what I've
loved, and I can't figure out the color
of your eyes exactly, but I bet
someday I'll catch the smoke in the perfect light
and then we'll both know for sure.

"The Book of Love #2 (Excerpts)"

I.
After August we sat in the
trunk of my dad's car at Maplewood Park
and when I sang at you, your eyes
were big and still and you said "I never
liked that song before now."

After October it was too cold for parks.

After February when I backed the car into
a mailbox and tore a hole in
the metal and couldn't drive anywhere
anymore, I stopped
singing. For your part, you
got sick of all the old songs.

II.
I would like to write you a new book
full of all the things I said that meant, you're
leaving and all the things
you said that meant I won't

and all the things I said sobbing drunk
on the bathroom floor and all the dreams
you put your hands inside of.

III.
What I'm trying to tell you
is that you pulled apart my head
and even asleep I can recognize your handwriting

but you typed up your poems for me
and once they burned away
I couldn't remember where to place
the still-legible, grayed fragments
that crumbled in my hands.

"Last Cigarettes"

you were right about the stars
each one is a setting sun - "jesus etc.", wilco

For all the days you spent curled
fetal in bed, or missed the bus
because you were staring at the ceiling hoping
today was the day
your cells divided wrongly and marked
the first slow march step towards death

or the thousand cigarettes you smoked
(each one lit from the previous embers)
praying you would never wake to light another -

for all this there are still people
who were smiling at the sight of daylilies
or tipping their head back to catch
spring wind in their hair

and for all the times someone out there
was giddy stupid in love

there you were, hair unwashed, hands
rancid with smoke, alone in a boarded-up room
lacking even the strength to throw yourself
against its walls until your bones
splintered and crumbled like your heart.

"everything all at once"

like bracelets and bruises on my legs
or the way you wear sundresses with your
combat boots, like that, i want
to put pop songs next to my poetry
and wrap it all in
ribbon and splash it with vodka

and mail it to you. which is perhaps not the nicest
way to tell you this.
let's try again: we both like thunderstorms and i
cry at chick flicks but you like
soap operas, you love your family like i
love my city, i bet when we finally
eat breakfast at midnight together, we'll order the same
thing exactly, you're beautiful and i
chain-smoke too often and we both
bite our nails. which is still

not quite it. perhaps this is all
a roundabout way of explaining
that i drank too much that night but still
somehow remember you saying

"no one's ever written a poem about me"

which must be true, as i
would never have thought that independently,
but also can't be true since after all
even your bones are iridescent
and shine through your skin so that all night
you glow like the north star
and even here, back in the daytime, if i squint
i can still see you enough to steer by.

and perhaps this isn't the poem you've wanted
or expected, but then again i've got
four years to start making up for,

what i'm trying to say is even if it takes awhile
we will always get it right in time.