For the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana

Rusty York and Wendy Robinson sit in a Coliseum pothole
eating DeBrand chocolate with Chuck Surack and Barbara Bradley Baakgaard

It was a time
When motorists feared
Snow like they possessed
Paper assholes.
It was a time
When our idea
Rolled through brains
Like loose carpet change.
It was a time
When we couldn’t push
Enough oxygen into the room.
It was a time
When we shoved fingers
Into inappropriate places.
It was a time
When we cured
Psychic pain
With everyone’s malignancy.
It was a time
When babies were born
With aluminum brains
And titanium stomachs.
It was a time
When men still carried big
Sticks and talked
Over everything.
It was a time
When gold was silver
And silver was glass.
It was a time
When we only paid
Inattention.
It was a time
When we touched
Dead bodies
And averted eyes.
It was a time
When robots knew most
About love.

Snow Snaps

I.

It is March of my 28th year
And bitter snow
Keeps falling through tree limbs.
It never ends

This cold.
Like needle through flesh
This shot
Burns down and calms me.


II.

My mind only rests
Beneath a blanket,
Fresh frozen water
Who overstayed his welcome

Long ago.
Two cardinals converse on a branch.
Like me, they do not know
It is spring.


III.

I am too old
For winter anymore.
Each year, wind feels
Colder. I am beginning to think

The weather here hates
Me. His wicked breath
Smells of petroleum
And rotting pine.









IV.

I do not have answers
For this winter,
But he keeps asking me
About the season
Of tulip nectar and honeybee.

Maybe if he slept
Or ever listened
To quiet music,
He would lose his need
For tedious conversation.


V.

Too soon we reach the worst
Frost to date.
It is a difficult time
In Indiana
Somewhere,

The president rants about war,
Terror or something like it,
While we, in our blue finger madness,
Dig the newborn
Out of the snow.

What the Body Says when She Refuses

Next time, when I design the map
It’s going to go a little something like this:

Alright, listen to me.
Feel what I am saying to you,
One who turns the blind eye to the fact
That I control just about everything
Around here,

The forgiveness must stop.
No more apology take back talk throughs –
They don’t do anything to protect
What is left in this green, yet cracked home
You and I built together.

Map of the Body –
*You get to choose:

Path number one:

No, I don’t want salad almond faux chocolate paste nutrition landfill. No, I will not have you on top this time. No, you do not get a say in this transmission. No, it is not just about the lime. No, taste my face once and realize it does only as it pleases. It is not concerned with you or any of your accouterments, regardless of how big they are. No, I am not impressed by the status of your death brain noodle education. No, it really is just about your green glass eye, shitass. I expected it to feel like the place between water and sand. It did not. And you knew this all along. No, I did not lose the forty and some odd moments that made me this slenderized, tenderized version who really could rotate your tired face and wash her hands of it.

Path number two:

Yes, I require more than a moment to intensify and do you justice. Yes, I really did work the body to peak position without panties. Yes, this is what I look like – all over, the place you keep saying is somewhere between imperfect and monsoon white light disaster. (I will have to look that up; I don’t think you are right about that one.) Yes, my thigh can meld you into the metal you were made of and then pour you out through the eyeglass of those nine months you said it would be okay and then took it back. You are an Indian giver and yes, I know that is not politically correct. Yes, I told her she had to wait a bit longer for my derailment. From my own mess, I came up green and smiling. Where were you? Someplace I imagine – the transition that exists between water and the steam of this mess.

Path number three:

I can only be one composition in this spectacle. Night blankets the discord as I – in my own mistake trivial pursuit without chocolate money – watch burning people burn on like they are only dipping spoons into bread. I do not understand this smoldering. They always ask – what are you made of? I answer just this, because I have not found my way in the universe: I am blood orange and concrete with a sprig shooting up – always – someplace searching for what is next on the earth. Did I mention to you that one time that my real eyes are green?

Sign

In those days
I was only five feet,
Six inches tall,
And angry with everything.
Everything. Even the snow
Wasn’t enough
To distinguish cold
And flush of old heat.

I stood at the corner
Of the bar and seam
Where people walk
And sit down together.
The room smelled
Of stains and old money,
Red wine and oyster
Cracked open,

I watched the boy
Approach my 28th year
And flash arrogant smile.

You’ve never been in this place
Before, he said.
You have a name
You can get around on?

What is wrong with your eye?I asked.

And your hat tips
Over the other lid.
You have a problem
With women,

I think.

I have mother trouble
Here. He said. Reaching
Into his pocket,
He pulled out a note pad
Signed his name on it
And handed it to me.

Ever take an autograph
From someone not old enough
To have a name?

It feels like paper
But something different,
Like pennies in a water glass.

I took it.
It wasn’t the man I needed,

But I took it.

Her Inner Poet

While she was sleeping, buried deep someplace beneath the buzz of reality and the cool, dark weight of the unconscious, her inner poet emerged.

He only appeared when she was so tired, so quiet and tired, that all she can do is lead with her senses and psychic energy.....

He was a strong personality, much bolder and spicier than she, and insisted often upon sharing what often many others did not wish to learn or hear.
And when he surfaced...he spoke anyway...

Afterall, someplace there is an audience undiscovered.