Help me
say yes to the beauty of the world
and the rivers in your eyes
the long sweet ridge of your lip

Let our
nerves talk across frontiers of skin
without words, shouting silence
of shared touch, punctuated
by the catch of breath
in the back of your throat

Give a little
light to brighten the dark
a strand of golden hair
caught and twisted into memory
of all the joy there is
in kissing in the rain
sparking a child
holding your thigh
and cooling your brow

-jm7.9

I'm sitting at the end
of the geriatric bar
where I work, pondering
the finer moral points
as I read Randall Jarrell.

Two old yuppies ponder
the finer points
of stashing and hiding
large sums of money.

In this antechamber to hell,
they argue the virtues
of safety deposits
and in-home safes,
and how to move funds
without attracting the gaze
of Uncle Sam--
less than 10,000 at a time,
they say.

On the TV, a legless young man,
a high school student surely,
wrestles another young man--
grappling and twisting,
the legless wrestler throwing
the other boy from the ring
over and over again.

-jm9.9

a late picnic in a rolling field
a quilt spread out, an oak tree
by a rockwall, mia exploring,
a half-empty bottle of wine

we're on our backs
watching the stars awaken
the fireflies talking light
obscuring the division
between earth and sky

how can i disown this dream?
what can replace it?

-jm7.9

Pronouns are funny little things. I am lying on our couch, listening to our music, living, if only temporarily, in our space.  But if you were here it'd be your couch, your music, your space, your life-- I'd just be a character passing through, heading towards the door.

I slept on our bed-- your bed-- once or twice since while you were gone, but-- I dunno, I just didn't sleep well, I tossed from one side to the other, looking for your hip to hold my arm, that freckled space between your breasts for my hand.  I woke up with one pillow lying on the floor to the left of the bed, one to the right. They didn't want to sleep next to me either, I guess, and now I have to make the bed and you know how fucking terrible I am at that.

There's a weird deja vu to all of this, which I didn't figure out until just last night-- it's all so familiar, me feeling the June air on my skin and imagining the Jersey breeze touching your legs, your back as you splash in the surf, drawing up goosebumps.  I must have spent five or six weeks of my life doing this, feeling summer rush in, thinking about salt drying on your skin while you're away and I am stuck here for some banal, bullshit reason. I am so goddamn guilty of taking you for granted-- I'd stupidly assumed a lifetime to splash in the surf as the waves rolled in, the sun sets, June asserts herself.

I realized the deja vu when I kept checking my phone late at night-- what call was I expecting? A drunk dial from you, of course.  That's what's different this year-- you missed me the other weeks in Wildwood, you'd wished I had blown off whatever stupid job or court appearance or school obligation I had and was there to wrap you in a towel, in my arms, there to kiss the goosebumps down and taste the salt spray on your cheek. I don't think you are wishing that right now.

I'll clean the fucking house anyway, I don't care. It fills the hours, sweeping, laundry, dishes, to the soundtrack of our time. Mason Jennings, Ray LaMontagne, some Dylan, Toots & the Maytals.

It doesn't matter, I know you'll smile to see the house clean, and the bouquet of tigerlillies I picked fropm the side of the road this afternoon in Oley. The cars sped by so close that I could watch the people's faces, see their reactions to me, watch them make up little stories in their heads about that fat white dude picking orange lillies by the side of the road.  I made up little stories myself, about each of their expressions-- the pair of teenage girls in the coup were the easiest, they just looked at eachother after they passed and started laughing, and forgot about me by the time they reached their destination.  The smile that was starting on the face of the young guy on the motorcycle, and the clouds that gathered on the face of the old man driving the pickup truck, they were two sides of the same coin-- the young guy believing that he will pick flowers for his love forever, the old man knowing it isn't true.  And here I am on the side of the road, somewhere between the two of them.

It rained all week, but today was clear and clean-smelling.  I bet you finally got to feel the sand between your toes today, and chase our daughter as she ran screaming and laughing towards where the land meets the sea. Here, the fireflies are tiny, just lifting up from the damp grass and bushes, looking for eachothers light.

That's why I am writing, that's why I write. I'm turning my light on, my tiny phosphorescence in the big dark. I hope you see it, and turn a little glow my way.  But the night is huge, my light is small, and you are very far away.

But you don't look at me anymore, I mean really look, with all of yourself-- you haven't in a long time, except for moments, flashes.  And in those moments you are always joyful. Maybe I could be anybody, maybe that's what joy is, that feeling when we really see someone else, look across that gulf and touch another person with our eyes-- maybe that recognition is what joy is.  Maybe it's just another word for 'we.' I dunno, but those pronouns... they're funny things.

-jm6.9

the June air is so perfect
i feel like a spider crawling
up the featureless smoothness
of the ceramic sink until some huge,
barely perceptible form throws
a shadow across the smooth expanse
of white and the water comes pouring
from the sky, wiping the white world clean
of my insouciance, the imposition
of my imperfection onto
this pristine arctic field

that's what treeflowers do to me
in your absence, the violence
of the blooming cacophony,
flowers' slow motion sex
in the air we breathe,
plants' transcendence
into the June night sky

the night breeze is cooler
where you are, and not so floral
but salt-tanged, rougher
from constant contact with
beach sand and splintery boardwalk
and the belt tightens
around my heart as the surf
speaks and speaks, untongued,
senseless, unyeilding, filling the air
with permanent wordless speech
the babble of an idiot
immortal, demented, a tortured god
unkillable, unsilenceable

that's what the perfect June air
does to me, though i seek
sanctuary in the loud silence
of the bar, the bottle,
some fucking basketball game,
that's what the treeflowers
do to me these days.

-jm6.9

KARMA REPAIR KIT: ITEMS 1-4

MAP SHOWER

I FEEL HORRIBLE. SHE DOESN’T

THE HORSE THAT HAD A FLAT TIRE

She fell asleep
as the sun rose
and the ravens plucked
the eyes from the dead

-jm5.9

"I chewed my thumb
until it bled," he said,
"I don't know why.
There wasn't even any pain."
He looked out the window
at the rain on the glass
and the overcast sky.
"I think I'm drowning inside."

-jm5.9

i am making maps
of your mouth in my mind
building an umbrella
of memory to shield me
from the raining futility
of jingling stainless steel,
forks and knives in a metal torrent,
polished and rolled, stacked and served
dirtied, cleaned, and flung at me
by the ton, the truckful,
a mountain of silverware
i wade through, cursing,
sweating, polishing, rolling,
missing you

i hide behind your teeth
and chart the topography of your mouth
hiking from the crest
of your pale lip
to the crimson buds
on the tip of your tongue
the deep valley
behind your jaw
the tender place
where the wisdom tooth will come

take me home
into your mouth
consume me
& make me whole

-jm5.9