One Summer Dessert

I am an ice-cream cone

Wafer plains and ridges promising a reward

A curved and tapered vessel

To hold sugary, crystalline cool innards

To be perfectly cradled in your fleshy palm

And your rough fingers callused by steel work

Thankfully cupping my sweetly rough exterior

A clutch too eager causes cracks in my ridges

Holes in my paper thin plains

An approach too timid lets my innards melt

Become soupy and exposed

And my fragile but solid shell

My contained existence

Implodes in your helpless hand

Written for Fundamentals of Creative Writing

(poem had to begin "I am a")

Set Me Adrift

I want to be a dead-beat

A beat-nick

A nick-knack collector

But what would I do 

With all these things

Too heavy with memory 

To sling on my back

Too precious with heart

To spread on the street

Because I’ll be that girl

With chalk on her face

And red speckled elbows

Toe-tapping the tune

Of the last passer-by

And with the sweep of her hand

Clearing the dust

Of humming and drumming

Everyday life

Before unfolding a palm

And blowing a kiss

To the blank canvas below

Covering it with colour

Perfectly matching your face

Until too many feet

Or too much rain

Turns you into someone 

I don’t recognize

One Year Ago Today

2007

We Do This For Free

 

You do need to say it

I can't believe it if you don't

Because we're rarely on the same page

And you need to find the words on your own

 

No one is looking out for us

Or issuing do-overs

Everything that happens here

Goes straight into the books

 

I know loose ends make you uncomfortable

Well honey closure never was my strong suit

Things sure can get complicated

When there's no one to clean up your mess

 

Of course it would be great

But it could never work

Life doesn't translate well

That glass is thicker than you think

2008

Painting Lines of Silver

 

One

(It rolls quickly, no pleasantries, then disappears)

Two

(It lingers, disco ball reflections, then lets go)

One

Two

That's all I give you

Today.

Only on Sundays

When hot chocolate turns your stomach cold

The mixture is powder again

Coating the walls

Searching for its lost moisture

When hot chocolate leaves your mouth puckered

Lips are chapped

Constantly swallowing

To flush the taste of your tongue

When hot chocolate doesn't calm you

Tugging on your eyelashes

Scratching the back of your hand

Peering into the foam stained mug