You
Invade my dreams, make me think
Suicidal thoughts
And things
Like butterflies eclipse
My sun
We
Escape from silence
Eradicate as you masturbate and fondly wait
For you to dream
As someone stands
The guardians of world time
And order expanding, exploding
Someone so much more and less
Enchanted
You
Invade the timeless
Energy
Masochistic tendencies
As we
Make thoughts like rainbow canopies
And spin cotton candy sunsets
Below the raindrops
That land, freeform, on unopened
Umbrellas
As you
Invade my dreams,
Make me think
Suicidal thoughts
And things
The butterfly eclipse
Of sunlit
Memories

We hear fragments
Information in puzzle pieces and placing it together
Like there are things (other things, different things) we should know,
We don’t know
And you are the edge of consciousness, the someone else on the other side
Of reality
The mirror image, funhouse remainder of me
Conversations picked apart and placed on the edge of railroad tracks
You are skipping along
Waiting for the wind to blow the lace on your skirt
You were espresso
When everyone was drinking tea
And now
Remixed, dancing to something outside the lines
You trace in harsh black, the eyeliner I forgot
Skipping beats on records I never saw
And we are cozy in our two bedroom,
The kids asleep
And somewhere in the silence
I can hear you curse us out
Long after
We’ve drifted off, clouds of sleep
And forgotten to forget
About you

We are tripping over syllables that should not be spoken, cigarette smoke and coffee grounds empty on the sidewalk and remembering the emphasis on her syllables. The resonance of space between words and the way she lingers with me, questing for moments lost as though stillness is a price we pay for too much laughter nights and midnights previous. She offers me a cigarette and I feel the weight thrown, my old life for a song – like nothing has changed and she will revive me, recreate me, mold me into the image of who she has intensified and glorified in her mind. But I am no longer the child she knew and there is something slippery here, I taste it in the stillness. Something acrid. Something not worthy of the person I want to be. I shake my head. I do not want this here. It is already the mess it was and nothing has happened.
First this, then harmless phone calls, then the solidity of steel and she is blackmail, the egocentric grip against my soul
And I will not have it marking me again
Denial moving me,
And I am rising, thinking of the space between beats, the stillness of a night too far from me,
Too close to not recall
Call it last
And he lying still in sleep, his eyes with laughter, heart a piece of mind tucked deep inside
And I am shaking at how close she came to thinking of stealing a piece of that
And I am shaking at how close she came to wanting to even come near to a piece of me . . . of this life we have and lead together
And I wonder
What possessed me to say yes
To this
Sitting in this booth,
This innocent sitting and talking
This invocation of friendship
And knowledge that I have friends, this knowledge that I do not need this in me
And I turn and move away
And in the silence of my car I sit and wait, pick up the phone
Voice mail
His voice in the silent darkness but therein the relief . . .
He and I
And no other

Turn the key and press the car into gear . . . go home
Where he waits just for me
As I have been waiting just for him

Sometimes i don't even have to go . . . the truth is there if i seek
. . . . . i just have to seek

There is a translucence to it
The quality of air
And rare
The genius of your moment
As breathless you encompass me,
Creating in your silence my reality
Moment to moment
And we are
The sisterhood here
You and I of the secret rooms
When we held each other
Against lightening
The arguments, words like daggers
Yours to me and theirs, one to another
How childlike we were, as children
Fearing for what we did not understand
And tears we held in
Afraid of what might come
If release we allowed
Even once
And you encased
In stereotypical precision
Ivory piano keys, you roll your manicure across the silent
Landscape of them,
Mock the clumsiness of bitten nails,
My hard worn artists hands
And wonder as the silvered speech flows from my
Mouth
How I can still find the lies
That fall so well
But I wonder how you look so, the cotton candy
Confection of your perfection . . .
When we are together, you a half, I the other
It is no wonder
We were melded, you and i
And now we’ve only to find the lightening bolt to draw
Us back
To where we first began

We count raindrops on petals,
Kiss rays of each day
And forgive the debts of tomorrow

Admire the moonbeams
And capture the night
We press tomorrow into service today

There is love in the hearts of the people who live
For the moments lost in the night
And something about the laughter we’ve gained
By living
The days we’ve forgot

Oh god that I never drop the awareness
This little girl case of the giggles
The moments of heartbreak
The sorrow, the pain
The joy that outdoes both of those

I kiss roses,
make love in the rainstorms,
Worship heaven, expect ecstasy, and see nothing less
There is something, my dear
To be said for living here
On the edge of a cloud
In the time of the saved
To be born in this moment of bliss


( it is not merely gratitude that drives us,
But the absolute abandonment to the
Love of one’s life)

Capture you in photographs
The lonely flash
You beside a carousel horse
And the hours we spent
Wiling time and days away
Never thought there’d be this second wishing them back,
When we were there
Just waiting
Your fingers on the leather of my steering wheel
Ever so impatient
As snow flakes
Weighted me heavy to the earth and ground
And you alone
Sat in your house
Minutes and yet forever from me,
Cozy as hot chocolate before the fire
In your earthenware hole in the ground
You stayed, straying in your mind from me,
Hiding in the secret places
I capture you
Framing long thoughts and winter afternoons
As we sat
Losing precious time
When we thought we’d last
And be forever parts of one another lives
But forlorn and always passing
Sun is gone
Too soon the rainbow in her carefree gaze
Has lit upon my shoulder,
Spring has sprung
And alone I awaken,
Bubbling brooks and you escape,
My wintertime solace,
Cup of tea
And curled where I left you
Riding sidekick to my evil desperation
Capture you in digital photography
You are just the latest experiment
I photoshopped
One brilliant
One winter afternoon

I remembered her birthday as I drove, demanding the fog lift and starlight direct me. rummaging behind me in the thick fog of my disease and curious as always, how do I forget things like this, when so many pieces of information can at any moment, be found – so much debris – in the wasteland of my mind.

I find the history of Egypt tucked neatly beneath ann boylen’s execution and wander with tom sawyer, but my sister’s birthday card is lost, and I tug again at the scarf around my kneck, made nervous again by the faint imagery floating in my mind. Outside the night is opalescent. One of those Chicago Octobers, all rain heavy and thick with the damp that does not eviscerate. I picture her, child born of impossible sun, and feel somehow warmed that the weather at least, is of my temperament. Driving and pounding, the thunder rolling across sky lights, like zeus is waiting for me, and I hear my own father questioning again, the digital display tapping fingernails on my brain and I am claustrophobic as the light turns red. I shrug off my coat, turn down the heat, release the windows to let in the rain and wonder again, scanning the back seat, the street signs. What is available, what can I use – to give her? what gift?

My little sister, this child woman with piercing eyes and darting tongue who seems to me at once my best friend and worst enemy. I hear the honking and press the gas, skidding through puddles and raindrops, feeling the tightening in my skin, the world creating darkness of darkness and somehow knowing, she will know – of course – I have forgotten.
The bad sister, to never remember.
Hers and my aunts
And every year, the same celebration, and empty handed I am removed from it, rebellious and pretending disillusionment I withdraw, hiding with my books in the corner, reciting the names of ancient places, times, dates no one else would know.

I call the names of silent gods and withdraw as the car splashes sidewalks, wait a beat through lights and move to the silvery sirens, police and then I am moving again. Each minute of red glowing distraction another nail in the coffin.

I will be ebuillant. I promise myself as I move. I will be gracious and wondrous. I will be . . .
Parking I sigh,
Move in the silence and dream of excuses,
Or the plain wonder of truth – I forgot. I mouth the words around the lie evoked on contact “it’s on the kitchen table” she smiles and nods, my mother handing me her card to sign,
And soaking, I sit in the armchair, counting in greek the names of the books they keep on the shelf,
The numbers of clocks
The time on the walls
I count and I wait
Until I can go home.

And once again I am the lie I have told myself.