_______

second pen explosion in two weeks commenced
on shuttlebus hurtling north

_______

things with screens i own:
digital camera
cell phone
laptop
ipod
scanner/printer
i take stock in the wake of vicente’s screenpage
(how now we write on the screen
how because of that
we are under the illusion
of writing a final draft)

_______

it all clicks (our disjuncture) when he says
i wish i could just hook up to an i.v.
so i wouldn’t have to bother with food

_______

8pm headed south
i am looking for something:
a train whistle
a streak of light
someone asking for directions

_______

unable to write/think/work
i bring my body to woodfloor
and ask the earth to hold me up

_______

i go to the needle
the sheeny elastic
the 1 cm seam allowance

the presser foot
the tension dial
the zig zag stitch

_______

how
for the first time in a year and a half
i institute a go-around over dinner
how i wanted coming home
to feel like home
so i built it
with words and wedges to prop the heartdoor open
how i said
one good thing about my day was liz’s voicemail
in spanish
plus skyping with vicente luis mora
(live and direct from morroco
midnight there, three pm here
filtering through spanish and french
to his unused english)
in our seven person translation salon
awaring me of language
how i said
one bad thing about my day was
how sometimes being in school is feeling so much like a
foreigner that after navigating 8 hours of hard edges with this
softer body
i come home headached and unable
and young matt said
it’s gotta be good for your ego
and i agreed
and laughed
about the year and a half of ego conditioning
(and counting)
and how if i certain kinds of failings weren’t consistently
spooled around the thoughtwaves
i might allow myself
a cheering squad
a line of hi-fivers
writing across san diego sunsky

_______

the desire
to press pause
for thinking time

_______

today the raw sandwich man
charges me $5
instead of $6
thanking me for always bringing my container
which means
i have become one more regular
at the farmers market
which hasn’t been the same
without mango mango man
for weeks now

_______

fastening elastic to
light blue stretch fabric
zigzag stitch along the edge
if you could see how the maroon/red elastic shines

_______

for the rainforest moss summonings
the setting sun summonings
the silver crescent summonings
in conversation with
dressup documentation

_______

a four year old pointing skywards
compares the moonshape
to a banana

_______

kaya and i
blanketwrapped in
brook and doris’s back yard
last time i was here
so was gaston
and even though there was no chimichurri sauce
or sangria
your spirit
woven through the xmas lights and
gold and red lunar new year lanterns

_______

in the onesie decoration contest
i scribble an earth and write:
world’s most
fabulous kid

_______

i think your name was sasha
and your dog: nika
and i can’t remember your partner’s name
but you were sortof intriguing
perhaps even hot in a san diego dyke kind of way
until you used the word retard
as an insult

_______

kaya and i laughing the cold off our bones
past the guava tree dropping fruit
fried rice and noodle leftovers
plus new years red bean pie
in my hands

saturday morning dress up
in rectangles of sun

forefinger pressing bean seeds into earth
1 inch deep
1-2 inches apart
3-4 feet between rows

text from the neicephew

pinning cut fabric
right sides together
on a 2+ year old sewing project

one of the several soundtracks

heidi’s wisconsin-mom’s recipe
(substitute dumpstered apples/pears for rhubarb
cut the sugar by half if you can
1 tb molasses +1 cup sugar = brown sugar)
inventory laid out on table

the coin told me to stay home tonight

in a 15 student class
stuck like a record skip
the only forward movement comes after
i assert that whore is a derogatory word for a
sex worker
so when the word midget arises
i’ve already warmed up my batting muscles and
knock it out into the stands
_______

when don mee choi says
empire arrived before me
i imagine a train pulling into the station

_______

in the second classroom live video chat this week
román luján talks to us about many things
one of them being questions
how they are half-statements
how they have already completed at least half of the answerer’s response

_______

12:27
64 degrees
reads red bank sign
on the side of the brick building
between the roost and the yoga studio
which is 61 degrees warmer than it was
a few mornings ago
in new berlin wisconsin
where my mom’s employer told her
not to come in because
there was too much unmeltable ice on the uphill driveway

_______

red plastic watering can
manufacturing rain for
the arugula patch
the climbing peas
the green garlic shoots
the chard tree that i’m pretty sure has been growing
since i moved in over a year ago

_______

red lentils in the sprouting jar
turning water cloudy
while stem tails
unfurl

_______

unfurl might be
one of my most
favorite words

_______

might there be a name
for the act of writing letters (or for the letters themselves)
to those who no longer inhabit
this earth / world/ their bodies as they once did

_______

how the rain unearths rocks from
sandy trail soil
and how i wonder about my running shoes
if they have started squeaking as a warning sign
(like the toothbrush with the blue stripe in it
that eventually fades
to tell you its time to buy a new one
which i am definitely going to add to the profane list)

_______

two women so immersed in their french
and their strollers
that even when they do see me running
on the same sidewalk towards them
they do not shift their configuration from side by side to
single file
and normally
i respect the mama’s
but today i lifted my hand in a
what the fuck fashion
as i continued towards
and even though this could happen anywhere
this is the undoing of the forgiveness
yesterdays’ rain brought
san diego
i will never forgive you
and it’s not because of these two women
it’s because of how i’m always fighting
here
how even a crosswalk
a biker
a pedestrian
has somehow been translated by your residents
as something to accelerate towards
before the safe crossing has been completed
which might have to do with
how this city was built
spread and wide
for the blood (oil) powered automobile
which might help explain my
fuck you, san diego
for the struggle of
crosswalks
lack of bike lanes
french speaking mothers doublewide strollers unbudging on sidewalks
five years ago i thought i was done
fighting that way
infuriating could be the word for it
part of me wants to get zen and let it roll off
but another part of me understands
that san diego hates me (in a generic way:
the biker, the pedestrian…)
and would be less inconvenienced
if i wasn’t here
and the last thing i’m going to do
in a case like that
is roll over

________

the swish
of my raincoat arm accidentally brushing
my busmate’s raincoat arm
10:41 am
shuttling north

________

return to a reclaimed library
lights half off
community agreements posters
remain on round beams near the door

________

umbrella colors/shapes on campus
(often open even when several degrees less than drizzling)
as if a theater prop
as if synchronized dance and song
is about to flashmob itself on library walk
at the old student center
in the revelle courtyard

________

how the rain
feels like god/dess / superpower magical force
forgiving san diego
which inspires me to give it a try too

________

the nurse with her stethascope to my tshirt
plotting points on my chest, rib-sides, back
says i must have the slowest heartbeat of all the people she’s seen today
packed waiting room outside
3ish pm

________

some kind of smugness in
knowing how to dress for this
wet cool weather
and by cool i mean
when the wind picks up
throws eucalyptus bark at my booted feet
i wouldn’t hesitate to call it tropical

________

liz, i don’t understand why i just talked
about mango sweet sticky rice
when it was within our reach
(actually, i do know
the sweet is sometimes too sweet
and in this unknown health moment
it seems most wise
not to feed my immune capabilities
to the sugar monster,
otherwise i would have)

________

l l tells the packed lecture hall how she
tells her students to
send me a postcard from somewhere interesting
and the corresponding photo of a bulletin board
crammed with cards and postcards

________

sweet sauted onion taste test at the kitchen table
before i pass around farmers market kimchee
orange and spicy

________

last song of the eve before powering down

_______

justice cascade
is what the guest speaker calls it
when justice is served
(in other words:
the narrative of what really happened
has been exposed and admitted to)
and how it sometimes chainreactions
setting off other justices around the world

_______

how yesterday
the guy at the coffeeshop said
don’t worry, it’s biodegradable
when i asked for a for here cup for the iced tea
what he doesn’t understand is that first of all:
nothing biodegrades when there’s no oxygen flow
which is what usually happens in a landfill
and secondly: plastic single-use things (biodegradable or not)
are on my profane list
and not profane in the punk rock way
but profane as in opposite of sacred

_______

speaking of profane
the fancy footwork of guatemala’s army and national police in 1983:
slicing ears off
pulling nails out of fingers
slashing throats of
‘the subversives’
(those who wanted to be treated as equals
those who had been pushed down the furthest
including one man whose ‘subversiveness’ was
to gather funeral money from his community
when on of the members died or
his energizing and organizing to bring plumbing into
the shack-town his community lived in)
what strikes me
is how much closer
these folks are
with their dead
than we (western world/’developed’ country) ever have a chance to be
if you can, you must watch this film
and then this one
or in reverse order

_______

how the woman walking up the aisle and i
smile at each other
like we know each other
(her mouth almost formed around the word ‘hey/hi/hello’
my eyes beaming back)
though we don’t
and maybe it takes her a longer time to realize it
than i

_______

one mitten at home
i pedal
one bare hand gripping the handlebar

_______

at florida and cross-street
four way stop sign
drivers wave me on
from either direction

_______

the slice of that pie chart
keeps coming back
how the circle was all the water
and the 1% wedge of it
was all the drinkable/usable water
and how sometimes it feels hard to plan for the future
as if this kind of mundanity
(not to be confused w/ modernity)
will continue much longer
parking spots
water bottles 3 gulps big
10 kinds of waterproof mascara
overtime/lunch breaks
calorie burning
made in china, mexico, indonesia
matching iphones
our pet electronics/digitronics
updated windows
updated carpeting
updated landscape
antibacterial hand soap posted at every intersection of hallways
shopping in pajamas
working in pajamas
sunscreen
coconut water in a can
ikea
flat screen tvs as light up menus in the burger king on campus
flat screen tvs angled to offer updates/headlines that no one looks at
flat screen tvs when something like a chalkboard or ticker tape is too passe
(REALLY?  A FLAT SCREEN MENU? IS THAT NECESSARY?)
flat screen tvs that will eventually be obsolete and replaced by the newest so that all these will get shipped to india where children under twelve will pick apart the panels, bust up the toxic screens for flecks of precious metal
chiquita business mixed in international politics
double-wide baby strollers
trash island
death by neti pot
which isn’t about the neti pot at all
but really about the water in it
how quickly we forget about
the crack in the nuclear reactors
and how long we
entangled in torment
wonder why cancer
why our bodies twist where they do
the technologies/medications
that haven’t been around long enough
to know the repercussions
the language that has been assigned to our bodies
and the medications assigned to our assigned bodies as if
we’ve been relocated
outside of our skin
toothbrushes (offense #1, the handle made of plastic)
with the blue stripe in it
that eventually fades
to tell you its time to buy a new one
and then, the plastic device that holds the floss
BECAUSE OUR FINGERS HAVE FAILED? ARE FAILING?
now the desire to leave a legacy
fulfilled

_______

and then
after some sips of coconut water
a joke about teaspoons
that we return to
from time to time

_______

plus this:
the viking paperback with its
orange spine
blue unfurling ribbon
and a landscape for a dress
kate, i’m crawling the bridge back to you