dreams

Veins

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in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
hard plastic pounds my ass.

keyboards and mice click
like the rodents they ought to be.
sighs and questions filter into
the stuffy dark room.

i am here but i am not here.
my mind, just like theirs,
wanders down the hallway,
out the door, into the open air.

i can picture the pedals,
the tires taking me home,
the summer heat seeping through me
like blood through my veins.

i can feel the bath-warm water
lapping around our naked skin,
his hands on my back in the soft
moments of a Kentucky summer.

in windowless hell i sit
surrounded by computers.
technology seethes into my veins,
gives me the keys to take me home.

My Moon

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the music has ended
(crickets are singing now)
and there are no cicadas here

their tiny legs call out to us
in the deep of night and the
light shining on my belly?

it is like that night under the moon
white sand encircling our toes
where i walked to the water alone

you remember. how anger and
longing threw us apart, how i
imagined a trip there alone, with them.

in a perfect circle, the moon
led me along the beach, wind
whispering the truth to me

we didn’t have electricity
a bathroom or a camper,
nothing but haste and desire

i think of this now only because
of the songs you have chosen
now ended, given in to insects

i will carry them (the music of
our lives) to sleep along with my moon.
i would be lost without it.

Forty-three Miles

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forty-three miles
and we have left behind the skyline
(cash register, stadium, buildings so new
i cannot recognize their sunken Saturday lights)
that i saw first at seven, then nine,
then permanently at eleven

we are surrounded by pines
and the famous aspens,
the cabin built from the ground up
with logs pasted together,
stone fireplace, wood stove,
eclectic collection of furniture
(home away from home)

we follow the girls along
the not-so-traveled path,
pine emanating its Rocky Mountain
odor into our altitude-chilled skin,
and I remember
(oh how I remember)
why Colorado is
home, home, home.

Layers

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with turbulence bouncing her brain,
she rests her eyes
and recounts
(rebreathes relives)
the memory.

haunt
pleasure
remorse
renewal
and words that
can’t define it.

she traps it there
(behind the eyelids)
for no one else to see.

like a kidnapped child,
it will not submit
no matter how many
locks she places on its cage.

she searches for the keys
but
they have been lost in layers
of days and months and years
that only allow her this one
to keep
to keep without release.

The Climb

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surrounded by green,
i feel i’ve traveled
this path in my past,
its twists over tree roots,
the edges thick with ancient ferns,
moisture licking my legs,
it is more than a memory.

i come to a place
that has haunted (pleased)
so many dreams that my mind
has put forward just for
this moment in time.

here it offers me a crossroads,
the yellow wood from my youth
or the mountain to climb with age.

i reach for what i think must be
a native plant, plucking up
its circular leaf pattern to turn in my palm
while my mind, taken aback,
makes the choice.

as startling as my decision is,
i turn towards the mountain.
i have seen some peaks between now and then
and I am ready for the climb.

Follow the Pavement Black

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after five and a half years of bodily sacrifice
i have taken a bite out of a different slice
strange it is to follow the pavement black
but this is the only way to get my body back

it’s not the baby belly (though it may seem)
but about my dignity, my self esteem
for them i gave scarred skin, life, milk
and now the road beckons with its silk

i follow it wherever my legs desire
as in high school when i was on fire
it saves me just as much as it did then
reminding me how to be myself again.

Delete

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just when i think my heart has moved on
you haunt me with messages in my dreams
forcing me to sever this one last tie that
has kept me connected to you (your life
without me) for more than a year.

it is just a click of one button (delete)
that eliminates all the hope held somewhere
within me, the hope that hovers inside my
dreams, sticking around like a bee in a
field of non-native clover.

it is just a click of one button (delete)
that i hope will rid the constant imagery,
the begging for forgiveness, the desire
that i have (that i have always had) for
you to love me as much as i have loved you.

it is just a click of one button (delete)
that i hadn’t the strength to push until today,
one year later, closing the screen (closing
my heart) to the amazing person that you (I)
have missed because of too many button clicks.

The Vittetoe Express

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It’s June first (my mother’s birthday)
ninety degrees with a slight breeze
that makes this uphill ride tolerable,
and as I pedal along I catch sight of
our illustrious three-tiered shadow.

First me, silver helmet casting sparkles
against the cracked black pavement,
then Mythili on the tag-along, her frilly
dress flowing behind her seat like a
butterfly waiting to escape the heat,
and then the round caboose of the trailer
with Riona singing Christmas songs as I
shout, “Pedal!” when we come to the
bottom of another glorious hill.

Before we’ve even made it to the park
(the one with two playgrounds, a creek
where Elizabeth fetched the girls’ pollywogs,
a Frisbee golf course and exercise equipment),
we have turned every driver and pedestrian
with gaping rubbernecks bent in our direction, and
I have thought of a name for this silhouette of
bikes daisy-chained to one another in harmony:
The Vittetoe Express, a perfect train of thought,
a perfect train of happiness on this
perfect Kentucky summer day.

Trail of Glory

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All it takes is one pic
Twenty minutes on their blog
And I’m sold
For ten grand we could
Buy that bike
Load up our trailer
And pedal into the
Vacation of my dreams.

You (and everyone else)
Would say we’re as crazy
As Icarus flying his chariot
Too close to the sun.

But I will always know
(we will always know)
That before the wax melted,
He burned a trail of glory
(we’ll burn a trail of glory)
That all of us can see behind us
For the remainder of our lives.

Only One

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You were the Only One I chose.
My sister would call me from New York
and ask periodically.
“Only One?” she would say,
her voice apprehensive and expectant.

I knew. I always knew, even then.

Perfect. Small town,
old architecture,
friendly professors,
far away from home,
one of the few with
a major in creative writing.

How could you deceive me?
Your price tag floating down
from the clouds and stabbing me
in year one, your ridiculous parties,
your drunken frats and sisterhoods,
the teachers who were too snobbish
to help me with the simplest questions.

But I can’t say I didn’t follow you,
didn’t tuck my gumption into my pocket,
pack my bags, and head east.

It didn’t take long before I realized,
filing cards in the catalog at my
tiresome, tedious, minimum wage and hours
library job (the one that made me gag
about going into a library for years afterward),
that I wanted to be a teacher.

So even if you didn’t hand me my dream
(as you had promised in your glossy brochure),
the wind blew me west again
and my Only One stayed put,
waiting for another deception.