Doodelay

One green morning, our fat little faces Look out the kitchen window and Find a robin and her nest on our windowsill. She carries baubles and trinkets—candy Wrappers and foil—before her vivacious Red breast and weaves them tenderly into her nest. My mother, laughing, says She’s dizzy with anticipation, painting ponies And clouds on nursery walls. Soon enough little blue eggs fill The happy twigs and their gaudy trappings And the robin settles—snug, waiting. We, too, wait for spring miracles on the Windowsill.  Weeks pass—she sits faithful—but Eggs remain eggs. Mother gets an odd pallor and avoids the

He takes my hand and plants heat in my palm. “Hurry, hurry,” he urges me and his voice is distant and warm. It’s June but there are no crickets chirping. The air has turned into tulle and swallows veil themselves in pink and gray. The ground opens greedy under our feet as we run, we stumble into her hunger for moons and craters, for dirt. It’s swollen and clods like balloons creak in the dense dusk and fill the clouds. We spoon them in our soles, the rain forks them. We’re cols of paper, flushes of spilt milk and our lines disappear as the water keeps overwriting. We’re bronchi, fleshy and bloody and white with

sometimes i just want to shake you. to shakeshakeshake you like the sky shakes out rain. mostly because you forget - you forget how the trees whisper at midnight, and how to paint with the smell of blackberries, and how red playground paint looks silver in darkness and moonlight, silver like your eyes, like wet quarters. you forget the beating of my (your) heart and the smell of rain and cocaine. i ask you, don’t you remember? don’t you? your mouth just twists into your soft, round smile and breathes out no’s, negatives, and paradoxes. so i scratch notes into your tree, your trashcan, your stairs, and the bottom