i think i can

how do they do it? the bees

with their perfectly patched honeycombs. a shape
in nature [repeating]  itself

i am the bee

surrounded by fabric and words, fabric and words.  fabric.
and words.

watching the tunnel of my life


take shape

i punched a wall and she bought me ice cream

the world is full of mixed messages.

in Nebraska, stop lights are horizontal and dough is baked around the meat of a Runza.  

i drove my friend's car there once while he elevated a leg full of staples.  Spicoli's dad called him my Samoan.  hey mel, where's your Samoan?  he's knocked out on pain killers.  or he's picking at his staples. but where'd you find him?  in a phone book in 7th grade.  i like him, that big 'ol Samoan.  

that's what we did back then.  we worked in gas stations and warehouses and got in our car after work to drive 7 hours for a boy we couldn't get enough of.  we learned that manual transmission could still have cruise control and that a friend wouldn't bail on you just because they tore the shit out of their leg in a work accident (even though you told them they should bail on you).  we played frisbee and sang in the sisters room and fell asleep watching Army of Darkness.

but back to the wall and the fist.  back to the ice cream and my scrunched up nose.  back to his story about putting his drugged out brother in a choke hold.  

i think

if i didn't have the Samoan and the boyfriend's dad and the trash cans that lift their lid like magic, 

i might not know who i could become

from the island

we wade in the salt and the blue up to our hips.  i am leaping, you are diving and shuffling, diving and shuffling.

we are at the mouth of a crocodile river and a sting ray ocean.  

i take another ballerina float and scream before i know exactly why i am screaming.  a long tentacle has whipped around my leg, fast as a shooting star and just as hot.  one hundred tiny nails attached to a thin leather strap wrap around my ankle on up to my thigh.  you are suddenly beside me, carrying me back to shore where i take stock.  i touch my leg to make sure it is still there and when i have verified that all my parts are still my parts a laugh wells up and out of me.  you shove me over onto the sand and say you were sure that an alligator had chomped off my leg.  it was, i say, an alligator. . .or a jellyfish.  

two days later i could still feel the tentacle around my calf.  

on a tuesday in another country, i remember the sun in my eyes.  i remember the desire to be weightless and the fear of paddling beyond the break.  

my place is in the whitewater, though i long to be where you are being: up on the board that is up on the wave that is full of long black fish and sea reeds.  

still i carry the fear.  still you carry me.  

still i can laugh at the sting and the salt (while i keep my eyes open for crocodiles)

still i wonder what it feels like 

to fly  

can't catch

it's one of those days

when you can't catch
a break.  when the words
that she hears are not
the words that you say.

i sent her out on the street,
left her to fend for herself
in the dark and the cold and the wet.
another whole night.


and here i am in your warm
house. foxy jumping on my shoulders
makes you apologize.  makes me
smile.  this is a weight
i can bear.  cloth and thread.
the coming together of colors: white
and blue and blue and yellow and red
and blue.     and white.

the thread and the cat and the street

are impossible to unravel

what the sky holds

they were not friends
they were not lovers
yet they were a kind
of brotherhood: the clouds.

it wasn't the fact that they
parted.  it was the way
in which they parted.

this one a hurricane
that one a thunderstorm
these two, these two

they parted for the sun

when i land

your dreams are red: red hat, red jacket, red
store, red apparel, red name tag.  red car.
study law and business.  open up your own
shop.  design your own clothes.  draw.

but, you say, first i want to go to london
i'll wear a nice button up shirt and a bow tie


a BOW tie! I squeal

yeah, a bow tie.  and some skinny jeans.
then i'm gonna hop on a bike and pedal around
he takes of his hat and smiles wide
i'm gonna let my fro fly free.


then maybe i'll hit singapore.  
i hear i would be real
popular there, cuz i'm so tall.


i close my eyes, just for a second, and see
big ben.  i see him on his beach cruiser ringing
his bell through the crowded streets
of singapore.  and then, eyes wide open

we are both

the distance between

london.  and singapore

driving the cat

it starts the way it always starts: in the middle

i am chained up, shackled.  a handcuff somehow fits around my neck and you are with me, though i don't know who you are.  two other you's are held prisoner and i know now that they are, of course, really other me's.

our kidnappers have gone.  they drive off in a long hooded town car, dark.  i can see them craning their necks toward the house as they drive away.  three of them; three of me.  i am in plain sight in the giant picture window.  this feels like another trap, another way to catch me.  the house i find myself in is a mess.  paper cups and tools and debris surround me.  surround us.  and here, in plain sight, is the key.

we unlock ourselves slowly.  we take the bait.  we wait for the trap.

tick tock.  tick tock.  tick. . .tock. . .and still nothing.  i am alone, the decision to leave is mine.  whatever happens is now my fault.  see how they trick us?  i leave anyway.

under cover of night i cling to the shadow of shrubbery.  i climb the hill up to the other house and find an impossibly large cat.  or a cow.  or a cow that feels like a cat.  and i know, instinctively that it is neither.  it is a way to escape.  the cat-cow nods her head in agreement.

my hands are not petting but searching for the latch, the hook, the opening of the door that will let me inside.  there it is!  and here i am, crawling into the belly of the beast.  sprawled forward as if on (yet in) a motorcycle.  like i am flying instead of driving: this cat.

with a twist of the wrist i accelerate into the street to start the next level

in the middle, again.

they are out there.

they are watching.