Urbanite-Celina

Toys in shadows, piercing eyes emerging
Through the narrow veins of city, we
Have always lived like this. The city is
Our concrete amazon to prowl unseen
in tangled chaos; nighttime mothers us
as we are children of the underworld.
The foreigners step quick, look past me while
I watch them hard. I watch them shamelessly
With nothing else to be but raw like dogs
That weave within our pack, but even dogs
Can understand their worth. She held me dirty,
Wired and eased me to my peak and fell with me
Beyond this world. She fed me mangoes bare
And coke from bottle bottoms, bagel crusts
And lugged my weight through subway stairwells, sought
A bed in wrapper-softened dumpster trunks.
Like pirates, conquering brick and grainy ships
Like castles from my infant dreams, my eyes
Are neither open nor do they resist
I sensed my vision tilted when she said—
Is that not how we are to them?—the rest,
The foreign city dwellers tramp our streets
But I just need to smell the putrid air
And know they’re leaving soon. I suck in all
The city sits in, splendor, terror, truth,
Until I’m bursting with my home’s torment
And blow the dandelions scattering hands.

They Drank the Midnight Oil

He stopped just short of total commitment.
She stunk like wine and Marlboros and love.
They drank the midnight oil; it burnt their guts.

Bent on a sweet if foolish plot, to live
as animals. She felt down; beat by youth.
He often heard how old he looked and felt.

Running with Gazelle, breaking free from age,
They bounded over mossy rocks and time.

He became fast and young at once. She felt
her hair fade quick. She felt too tired to run

or leap. A stag began to run and leap
in the wallpaper plastering her mind.

He took no notice, flying fast by her;

His feet were hooves; they trimmed the grass he flew
over. Her feet were mossy boulders; stuck

In time or realizations, coldly watching
his flight from age which plagued his life before;
an afterthought, now burnt her thoroughly.


She aged without a sound, fell quiet like
a tree. Her roots became a shriveled cage.


He bounded like a river, cutting rocks
and beating time. A life refreshed with youth

Sweetheart

I pull my knees in close to my body

Remembering how you once use to feel.

Smell of vanilla coke, burning my nose,

You were here last night I want to believe.

The white sheets pulled tightly around the bed.

A piece of your hair lies on the corner,

Obsessed, gently I put it to my lips,

I suck it till I taste your spearmint smile.

Then the familiar feel, of a cold glass

Bottle, washing you down into the past.

You always pinched my ass before we ate

Breakfast down stairs with toast and black coffee.

I take my coffee like my women, straight!

You loved that joke your nose would crinkle up,

That one time OJ came running out too.

Falling on the floor, kitty licked it up.

Tiger Lilly, grey fur all so shaggy,

Your freckles danced and blurred across your face.

My hands longing to love your waist again,

Or feel your sweetened Splenda coated tongue.

I suck on sugar packets to remember,

The days we spent sun bathing in the front

Yard, naked, the neighbors left us alone.

Those scandalous summer Sundays, no God.

A piece of your hair tastes a great story,

I'll forget by the end of the night.

The List

His walls were lined with gifts from patients that
had passed – a painted mug that
read “catch a big one,” with a purple fish
along the side; a hand-sewn
doll that had blood-red pigtails made of yarn
and wore a dress made from the
maker’s hospital gown.
He said I had, at best, a few more years
before the cancer worked its
way past my breasts and into other organs.
He started listing drugs and
procedures, but my only thoughts were on
my list and items from it
that would have to go un-done.

I wrote the list before my diagnosis,
an exercise to help me
find some direction in my life, some kind
of order. Sitting in this
bar I think back – I wrote the list in that
left corner of the room, a
lit cigarette between my lips and beer
that I had not paid for, that
was always “on the house.” The bartender,
Ritchie, was always sweet to me.
I wonder if he’ll miss me when I’m gone,
I wonder if he'd notice.