ears to the rails

some ghosts
circle
forever

an entire stretch of history burning
year by year
like fire
eating its way
across clothesline

some ghosts fail navigation
broken oil lamps
misplaced treasure maps
crumb trails
locks glued
razor wire
bridges out

some ghosts
spend years
howling
swimming rivers
hiking highways
falling to knees on pitch and stone
to press their ears to the rails

it was just the other day
i was bringin’ home my pay
when i met an old friend i used to know
said “your mother’s dead an’ gone
an’ your sisters all gone wrong
an’ your daddy needs you home right away”

not a shirt on my back
not a penny on my name
but i can’t go home this way
this way, oh lord, lord this way
and i can’t go home this way

all the falling apart barns in the world
catching fire
one at a time
inside me

dream sequence with freight trains

1. focus is a form of love
text
passed from dorothy allison to
art to
corinne to
me
and hanging
in front of my desk

2. some songs
are for
dusk
where enough light cuts through
allowing us to take on the dark

3. paul
johnny
and i
doing the wave
halfhearted and laughing
behind the counter
where when it’s busy
we spend all day
yelling
order up, david!
or
order up, marea!
or
order up lauren!

4. knowing the layers will keep me warm
is better than
wondering how long it will take for the rain
to soak through my shoes
and how long after that
it will take them to dry

5. in the dream
your hair was cut short
and i was taking photographs
of the same things i photographed the first time around
but it’s from a different angle, this time i said
in the dream
parts of you were just born
unfettered and offering
unlike a bull
unlike hooves dug into ground
nostrils wide
head lowered
but with a gaze
sharp and deep
that never looks away
in the dream
you are writing this with me
and we are glittereyed
and collaborating

a residue of magic
rearranging history
holding the angle of my jaw
in its soft hand
telling me
you are never too much

6. some of us come from a history
of steam trains
(one)
(two)
(three)
rolling through our front yards
we ran out after them
to feel our city transform itself
under a steamcloud
to listen to our city
tell us what the the 19th century
sounded like

whiskey without the whiskey

gurgle
glowing
heartwarm

words insufficient
just like how the photo will
never look as good as the actual thing

but i attempt

macon’s tequila and glass bits on concrete  at
the end of the night
after couch conferencing
about how alike we are
and how much we like
a shame
just before one is leaving town

the resilience of  friends
in fresh breakups
and the deepest appreciation
just for showing up

5 foot 2 crew
gathered by the speakers
i don’t always mean to re live
the trainstation heydays every time i see you,
but i can’t help it
those were goddamn good times
not complete without a donut fest and
tambourine dance

how i lead
and follow
quick quick slow
it is good
to be in so many arms
i vow to come up with words for
the warm glow
i could call it whiskey without the whiskey

every laughing moment
(we’re talking folding at the waist hilarity)
making up for the self-imposed social drought

every dangerous revolution
feet pushing pedals moving chain turning wheels
over moonglittered asphalt frost
is goddamn worth it
and i slow
near home
to take in
windshields
glass mottled by thin ice

a strut
a bike ride with good posture
a debate over navy blue vs. other colors

it could snow tonight and
it wouldn’t gut me
it wouldn’t take me
to a midnight fireplace
11 x 17 sheets of paper, colored pencils
a quilt
a visioning
a sip of dessert wine
a long look into the future
a feast of hearts, not gluttony, but interdependence

what i’m trying to say is
it’s one of those moments
where everything
feels
perfect

the finer points of surrender

1. the church music, again
this time no voices just
sounds from an organ so big
its pipes hang on the wall behind

2. cinnamon mike and ikes
and i am on my knees
picking up quarters
one by one

3. you leave the lights off
as dusk enters
like me

4. realizing
you can only arrive
yourself
there are things
i can no longer ask

5. discussing the finer points of
surrender
versus
giving up

6. several definitions of fierce:
(one)
(two)
(three)

7. famous ways i have completed the line
all i really want
is to come back to the table, night after night sharing food, at least 5 of  us
is to be adored
is to have my hands in the earth
is to create: perform/write/dance/
is ridiculousness that will keep us laughing for the rest of our lives

8. the figurative prisons
of our parents/grandparents
and the shoulds of empathy

9. someone had to press their head against
purple bathroom wall
because they were overtaken by
words in an envelope with pictures and black ink
overtaken by
how good (and when i say good, i mean really good)
amazing
brilliant
onfire
gorgeous
i was
(am)

someone sewed me a hat
from an old hoodie
cursived the words ‘feathers and fists’
in light pink thread

someone drove halfway across the country
blazing through highway
half a day early
fueled by a mixed cd

someone took me with them
to the hungry hungry river

someone handcranked
rose flavored icecream
for my birthday
or was it lavendar

someone called me hibou
someone tripped up the steps
someone pressed their hand to my heart

i should tell you something about sharp bones

1. i had to go to the water
preferably the kind that didn’t have the salt taken out of it
then put in again
but who am i to be picky
when one kind of water is a 15 minute walk away
and the other kind is a two hour drive

i put the wings out in the moonlight
dusted off the borax
too achingly beautiful
to look at
for long periods of time
or even a minute

i should tell you something
about sharp bones
how i earned them
how there are pictures
with arms
nothing but muscle
and angle
on a train bridge that drops
truncated over dirty river

under the influence of sweetie
i might loop out of this house
and back again
hours later under the moonlight
but not like those men did
not laughing on a smoke break during the trial
not pleading panic rather than homophobia
not with a frying pan or any of those other metal things

2. i am still
deconstructing the myth
of incapability

3. a shock
when shannon asks me
about preparing raw pie
and i don’t remember
how

4. we are the champions sing along
dinosaur from land before time
chorusing in
how difficult it is to get out from under
warm covers

2,500 plus 1,500 words

1. no matter how fleeting
it is an arrival
not forgiveness
but surrender

2. how a computer
and 2,500 plus
1,500 words
changed the chemical makeup of me

3. the world is yours baby girl
you can do anything

4. i spent the day
sweating
glaring down
one version
of my future

5. how many times
must you tell me
tiger woods crashed his car
into a fire hydrant
at 2something a.m.

6. and how many times
must you tell me
barack obama
put in an order
for 30,000 more
like one might
put in an order
for french fries
at the drive-through

7. i saw the sun today
wished for 15 more minutes
so i could have spent it just
standing there
sleeveless
squinting

8. saw the moon today
i was on my knees
with silver spilling in

looking 34 right in the eyes

guest post by sweetie o’leary

I.

I will reveal
that I am here,
that I am indeed building
a canoe
out of brown bargain thread
and that I am not
who I used to be.
all the rest,
is not worth
concealing
any longer.

II.

it’s not uncommon,
to live to 68.
this means, I have
34 more years.
I am back
at the beginning
and none of this
has happened.

III.

it will all start
with me
nude
scars
nipples as garnish
the only one
with this kind of crotch
and this kind of life
at a men’s naked yoga retreat
on black sands
with a checklist from my therapist
of possible triggers
and the first thing
I ever wrote
on my 100-things-to-do-before-I-die list
when I was a little girl
back in the bronx:
“dip body in see-through water”.

when you say your name his face will soften

tonight you will go walking

you will stop outside the tall and long church
glowing with yellow light
and you will turn your ear
to listen
it will take a minute
but you will recognize the song
o come o come emmanuel
and ransom captive israel
you will sing along
mumbling the words you can’t remember
thinking of advent wreaths and purple candles
you will remember
how much you liked this song
maybe because it was about a kind of liberation
maybe because it comes from a somber place
but offers hope
at the end of each verse
you will feel pride about knowing this song
about having carried it with you all these years
a sense of history
a sense of ritual
a sense of coming from somewhere
even though you refused to be confirmed
at age 14 and used to show up at mass
every second a protest
lips still when everyone else prayed
lips still when everyone else sang
a refusal to line up for communion

tonight you will go walking

and introduce yourself to the man outside the corner store
when you say your name his face will soften
as if you have just blessed him
his name will be mark
and his son will yell from across the street
about squashing a smelly bug

tonight you will go walking

thankful for what feels like spring in november
your hands bare and not cold
your head under two thin sweater hoods

tonight you will go walking

it will be a sunday
that feels like a friday or saturday
and the dark street under a starless sky
will unwrap itself before you
like someone peeling back their chest skin
cracking open their rib cage
and calling their heart out
like one calls a scared kitten

the precision of landing

1. the circling
like seagulls

concentric
aloft
white on white

the descent
a series of hoops
takes hours

2.iggy pop
on saturday night radio
volume so low
white noise
peppered
with guitar and growl

the heartbreak of bus stops

everyday
a hurdle of sadness

we muscle ourselves over it
deepbreathing
fierce-eyed
flexed
determination hijacking our bones
tenacity holding our hopelessness for ransom

though it is the same ache
the specifics differ

it may appear first thing
while sharp bright lines
slice through the dark meat of night

it may live in the warm light of a pizza joint
at 8th and dekum
golden glow that recalls snow
solstice
and the gloveless man at the bus stop who made you cry
not because he did anything violent or angering
but because his hands and head
must have been
so cold
and it hurt you
to think about
how long he had been waiting
not to mention
the heartbreak of bus stops
in general

it may surface in a song
one you thought you could play again or
never realized was on your don’t play list
in the first place
until it enters your gut
with the weight of lead
lyrics about
being nineteen
or
pups in the pantry
or
love in this club

it may embed itself in back porch concrete
radiant with combustion of summer sun
or in a bike lane on the way home
the one where you said
hey wanna go on a date in november?
you might discover
no geography or season is safe