Elephants

"If the elephants have past lives yet all destined to always remember
It's no wonder how they scream 
Like you and I they must have some temper..."

Rachael Yamagata - Elephants

arial

sometimes

i think poems sound better

in ten point font

untitled

A month, maybe more, now

I am looking for the right paper

not words,

to use

Sprawled across my desk

Are all manner of post-its, notepads, binders, and thin spiral notebooks

I am not in college anymore

My handwriting is too confined by lines

none will do.

At home, there is a box

Of papers bought for cards, papers 

With raised and embossed velvet, too many fibres,

Shiny green, red, black paper holiday colors

In my bag, 

The one that I carry around with me

a journal of handmade paper.

With a length of twine to wrap around;

Keep it closed

My poetry, my life

Somewhere in the middle,

I cut out a rectangle

Uneven

So I keep cutting

before beginning to write.

Dear Andrew,

closure

it was the night. it was the last night. 

i stopped you, my elbow at your ribs, my arm wrapped around the front of your body,

stay like this, i said, holding you by your waist. I have to ... 

my head left 

so i took him by my small hands

i took him and saw things I had never seen before,

a few freckles on his cheeks, a few hairs between his busy eyebrows

a chin cleft shallower than i thought

i had no need to see

my hands were not done yet, my hands savored this

founding the smallness of his waist, the broad expanse in his shoulders, the blades protruding and pointy

the hair curled around the nape of his neck, 

memorizing the exact height of his collarbone, the faint dusting of golden brown hair above his pants

the surface of his pale skin, the smoothness until right below his neck

a few teenage aberrations still clinging to this manly back

i'm tired, he said.

my hands turned him around

my hands found what they were looking for that night

it is just art, is all

there is a photograph on the wall
I don't even know
I am looking at it
when you come to mind

every ghetto every city every
black and white outline detailing the grimness
the grime;
every place a reminder
of the way things could have been

how long am I waiting
for myself to come around
Come out of this.
stare through the photo and see nothing at all
or better yet
a photograph.

a man of few words, but many hugs

whatcuknowboutme