up late

I like your head & its hair:
how it's brown, long
black & clipped
rusty & wiry 
past your shoulders & tied back

I like that cap you wear:
it's red & knit
grey & billed
furred with flaps

I think about your hands:
rough & lined
wide, small
clasping mine

I'd like to see you look:
at a half moon
for something in a drawer
squinting 

I feel your face near mine:
it's talking junk
it's sipping a cup
it's near mine.

because it rained today

and I wondered what we would do together on a rainy day.

you would take a picture of me and keep it to yourself, 

like the collection of thoughts I’ve gathered and kept about you.

thoughts imagined, built & stacked. 

I think I could play a song I was embarrassed to like with you around. 
If you hated it, you’d let me know 
(with a groan) 
but you’d let it play 
(because you like it too).

I think I could get you to stay in bed past 9, a few times. Maybe skip a morning cup. 

You’d be reading, me too, but I’d be looking over at you
guilty glances—in the spaces when you weren’t doing to same. 
until our looking lined up
with a grin, ‘jinx’. 
grin jinx--my cheeks would always go rosy at that. 

I laugh & scowl at the same time,
you’d know why. 

it’s easy for me to close my eyes—but I don't think I could help keeping them open 

to look at you leaning over a counter, 

to look at you across the room, 

to look at you sipping a cup, 

to look at you through the window walking away,

to look at you from the car pumping gas, 

to look at you when you’re not there. 

and it's supposed to rain tomorrow too. 

because it's black and the counter is black.

there is a feeling that circles my neck

across the ridge on the back, tight under my chin

another that circles the circumference near the top, where a crown would rest snug. 

like a crown is resting snug, warm. 

the space between these invisible rings is hollow

the space between these rings is full. 

the ridge that extends down my nape is taught with the stuff. 

I feel the stuff crunching as I move my head; up and around and to the sides. 

it's empty under my eyes & cheeks

it makes my lids close

it makes my forehead crinkle. 

trying to get it out through my ears,  those openings are too small. 

it presses--expanding, it shrinks--narrowing. 

periphery and pinpoint won't see you anything. 

I know what I want to do today. 

I don't know what I want to do today.  

how could you find the one thing, if you threw it away. 

if it's thrown away, if the trash's gone out.

if it fell accidentally in, it still got in. 

for wanting ones

wanting something beautiful is easy. loving something beautiful is hard. seeing you in a hat or with long hair. it's long and the strands clump together with the end of the day. 

I've heard that I am beautiful. easy to want, that's hard to love. 

maybe if I really knew you it wouldn't be easy to love you. maybe I wouldn't love you. wanting your beauty is all & enough. I'd rather not know. 

but seeing me--calls me 'beautiful' and calls me 'i love you'. 
he isn't beauty, and he is easy to love. 

I wonder if I could love the beauty (of you) that wanting is easy

and I'd rather have paper flowers, it's too hard--loving the ones that wilt on the sill. 

and loving is too hard. wanting is easy. 

for N

I don't want to read

I want to lay in bed

and think about you

and he holds me tight

holds my hand

and I don't mind

untitled untitled

untitled is
vacant & waiting
scratching & biting
chatting & staring
flecks in resin

untitled can
chat & ignore
stand & hang
inhale & exhale
wait for awhile

untitled will
squint & scrunch
sigh & go
hear & say
forget something

untitled has
walked & looked
closed & locked
held too long 

pocket

I remember how you
held that glass of water
in your right hand
unfolding a bill from
the collection of cards & bits
folded & clipped, then
 stuck into a back pocket

a favorite feeling is that
the crispy dollar bill 
fold-&-shove
into a back pocket feel