A less than triumphant return

But a return nonetheless. Let us see if this piece of silliness nudges open the floodgates more healthfully than last winter’s deluge.

Oh, seductive sloth
Too far up the tree to reach.
I, too, am slothy.

Finding humor only in the irony that “ill” and “sick” have become synonymous with “good” in our vernacular.

image via ill-literacy.com

Raging with fever
and barely a will to live
let alone to blog.

On guises

There’s a reflective half-block
on my walk to work.
I stare at myself
shamelessly
knowing that one day soon
I’ll trip
or bump someone holding hot coffee.

Sometimes I wonder if you’d recognize
the person I see on that block–
I barely do.
She’s all lean skirts
and stiff collars
and patent heels,
but you’ve only seen me in a rumpled t-shirt
or less.

“What can I get you?” asked the man behind the counter.

“Hey, how’s it goin’,” I asked
without waiting for a reply.
“I’ll have a triple decker Reuben
hair like curly fries
skin like a mocha shake.”

“For here or to go?”

“For here.”

Warm and overcast

At the marina
Shrimp juice splatters, crisp white shirt
The sun’s behind clouds.

Lust, handmade.

Ports 1961 FW09

The dress you can keep
but fuchsia palms on gloved hands—
irresistible.

Haitwo

I always thank you
(when you tell me I’m pretty)
one time too many

and sometimes I wince
(when you don’t say you love me)
a moment too long

In our skin

so at ease in your own skin
we have that in common
your tension, oozing, wears me thin
quashing precious caution

when our arms touch, implosion.

Add attachment.

With your wrist flung over my hip
long legs never seemed awkward
cold feet were made for warming.

I wasn’t concerned with
too-soft curves,
too-sharp elbows.
Thank you for that poise, at least.
I spent enough time in your bed
worrying about being too
dull
or inane
or eager.

It’s funny, though.
(Not like something
that would make you laugh, but
the other sort.)

I never felt held by you
while other bodies I knew less
clung to me.

Rochester (or, An Ode to Homonyms)

You are my pail
I like to put sand in you.
The day goes pale
when I take my hands off you.

The feelings you elicit
make my neck flush.
Our nights become illicit:
warm pillows make me blush.

You smell like the sea
gritty with appeal.
Without my glasses I can see
why I feel how I feel.

My pail is full of sighs
there’s no more room for sand.
A presence your size
is more than one bucket can stand.

For Ashley, for letting me borrow her accent.