stuff girls dream about

i want to walk down the aisle of a church in albany

soon, but not too soon

while 'jesus, bleibet meine freude' swells from the organ and floats up high

i want to glow and try not to cry while you glow and try not to cry

and your brown eyes reflect kindness and passion and the saints on the windows

we will be shocked by each other's beauty

as we promise father bradley that we will forsake all others

and i want you to know that

i relish your boyish grin

when you win scratch offs or you kiss me

it reminds me of twizzlers at hockey games

and the cigarettes i'll make you quit

soon, but not too soon

"sic transit gloria mundi"

thus passes the glory of the world

the quiet in this room hurts

i don't know what to do

you're absent, and i summon to my thoughts

times when our feet were on the stoop, eyes in the stars

when the glory was our camaraderie, reckless and unshakable

a remembered fraction of your joy

to take and rest my worried hands on

i mull over our stupid happiness

weightless hours, fled on the wings of youth

rare but it came often

prior to the wretched migration of the good

beer and cheese fries and ignored naivete

laid heavy on our tongues, our limbs unnaturally light

we would float down the streets

weave through the trees

mischievous ghosts meaning no harm but to ourselves

and we saw everything like it was stripped

so we were only aware of the beautiful skeletons

L E D orange showed us the spectacular

we were spectacular, too

reality is a porcelain plate, or the foundation of a house

chips and cracks move furious through the cement or the glossy white

when we glance away distracted

too soon we can't use that plate

can't live in that house anymore

in this room i sit and sigh about the past glory of the world

uncut and springing up from the core of you

without your shaking laugh and mannerisms

i don't know what to do

we're still children

Venus of 215th street

I finally understand why women are so enchanting.

I was on the one train this afternoon, listening to Diana Ross and The Supremes, tapping my foot and chewing my lip. I was thoroughly lost in a daydream where I was baking pecan pie in an  adorable mint green apron, dancing around the kitchen of the quaintest little house set in some southern state in 1969. At 215th street I was jolted out of my domestic vision when across from me sat the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. The kitschy cabinets faded and my fantasy pie was replaced with the kind of girl that can flirt with a smirk and kill with a kiss. She looked exactly like princess Jasmine, only she wore a gold puffy coat with fur lining rather than green satin slippers and a tiara. I  could not help but glance twice at her face. Never have I seen a visage so perfect, there was almost a holiness to her. I was taken aback by the sight of her sitting in front of the window, so warm and contrasting with such a frigid backdrop, December sky the color of wet toilet paper. Her eyes were deep hazel, darkly outlined, her dark chocolate brown hair was thick and straight, with an ethereal sheen, the kind I've always wanted. Her complexion was flawless, she had such an easy hold on that fantastically dark beauty that only blesses mediterranean or middle eastern women. Her nose and lips were of the most delicate formation, the shape of her jaw was just rounded enough to make her cute as well as gorgeous. This is the kind of girl that inspires sonnets, men have struggled to depict the likes of her features in iambic pentameter and alternating rhyme scheme. During our startling second of accidental eye contact, she smiled the most beguiling smile. This struck me as so strange, because such communication is avoided as a rule without exception in these situations, and I was left with a wistful jealousy. An unshakable curiosity. Even after she got off at 116th street, that smile remained in my mind's eye. 

I am and have always been solely attracted to boys. I'm a sucker for lean muscle and prominent noses, big hands and embraces of protection. Until today I never understood why women were so worshipped by the world for their physical features, I always agreed halfheartedly to that kind of reverent admiration. Now I understand it. I fully get it. Scarlett Johannson? Nah. Megan Fox? Nah. This insight is purely platonic, memorable nonetheless. Goddess on the one train. Why can't I forget about this girl? I think she was trying to tell me something, like a big sister giving advice, a teacher, leading by example. She was demonstrating the power of a smile, how to take the world with a simple smile, a languid, striking breathlessness. I can only dream that I could someday harness this type of power, have the men of the world on their knees, take and hold and squeeze them until they choke, while they gaze dumbly in glazed over adoration. Venus of 215th street. 

hate

nights like this

I need to sink my teeth into your pain

gnaw until my jaw hurts 

watch your face fall like mine did 

all those times

so good so good

like macaroni and cheese when you're drunk

or cardboard wine when you want to be

cheap 

undeniably satisfying

evil

I don't like how

you hold a blacklight above my soul

Dziadzi

sometimes I go down to the cellar

and I am awed

by the cold and dusty domain of mason jars fur coats plastic bouquets.

they sit on shelves with sad anticipation, dormant as forever through the mild months of May and June 

when I would pick agrest and bring the berries to the turquoise kitchen.

Dziadzi would notice the pink of pride in my eight year old cheeks, smile and wink one of his watery blue eyes.

of course then I could not understand the depth of their patience and pain

all I saw was the love of a grandfather 

when his granddaughter brought gifts from the gooseberry bush.

I remember when he made me that "Belle's room" sign. I was five.

It was shiny like a mirror. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

he hung it on the door of the room where I slept, and I promptly was a princess.

I think on the dusty haze of afternoons he spent making birdhouses and shelves, 

his brow furrowed in precision and love as he cut and hammered.

and I am awed.

they stand scattered like sacred statues around that house, 

silent and noble as he was, the wooden vestiges of his honor. 

they are quiet as his suffering.

sometimes I am startled by their presence,they speak thousands of words he never did.

as he aged his big rough hands grew clumsy, rings loose around his shaky fingers.

and then he couldn't build anymore.

sometimes I sit in the Belle room and contemplate how his lips, with their rare grin

never issued complaint.

and I am awed. 

if I let myself I can still hear the sound of his unsure step heavy across the morning

as he woke to make coffee, sometimes cream of wheat.

if I let myself I miss his rolled up sleeves and his laugh through gritted teeth,how he used to drive with his knees and the beautiful purity of the stoic affection that he bestowed on our family.

each day he unflinchingly took the blows of life with a carpenter's wisdom.

my Dziadzi