Another missed connection (not exactly a poem but eh)

To the cell phone hero:
Black sedan
black wide-rimmed specs
delightfully nerdy.
When i dropped my phone in the middle of the street and yelped,
You held up two lanes of traffic
& saved me from a world of fretting and being incommunicado.
You are surely a very kind & generous soul.
Thanks for helping me out.

WRM

River Stone Physics

Our lungs come together like river stones.

We make smooth sounds against summer’s dying breath.
this is my season.
I shift gravity around in my body
use my tongue to press down the constants of the universe.

Gravity pools half-arbitrary
in nooks and bends of my body.
Forces begin to course and flurry
catching in eddies behind elbows and knees.
And now I feel it
the wind pulling off my kneecaps
as light as rose petals.
I am not ash I am just power.
A body of power coursing.
Autumn rivers overrun their casings.
I am a cask of physics overrun and running amok.
Afraid my limbs & fingers & appendages
might just start breaking off softly,
floating up to the ceiling fan.

I am afraid that the bends in my capillaries are becoming round and heavy like lumps of mercury
I feel their weight perforate my skin
and burrow into the mattress.
Thrilling fears push it even further
The separation of matter leaves holes burning in the sheets.
I might end a pile of gasping ashes.
The sheets pulled crooked on the bed.

I need you here
to hold down my wicked skin.
My heart is losing meaning
like a bullet burrowing through it’s backside
all the heavy parts are coiling together.
Say my name and anchor this body back to this world
smooth over the cracks you opened when you opened my mouth too far
You knocked my body off its axis,
You left my moons spinning and opening their eyes like hurricanes

Suddenly a rupture
and that deep-seated well of pelvic gravity was upended
thrown off kilter completely.

and I am floating.
with this river always within me.
When I die my descendant will rub river stones together and think of me.
My name will mean to them what is between the river and the rocks in the riverbelly.
My name will mean ripples in the air
and a cathedral of trees opening their lungs to winter.

Your mouth moved stillness into sound
Convinced me my body
is more than just a random series of kite strings:

“You are birds & church bells & early morning;
a crucible for compassionate action
I don't think you understand how big you are;
how filling the whole room you are"

A Few

List of signs that summer is dying:
Riding bikes on broken pavement
while the sky flames pink and tangerine
sky closes up shop early.
Conversations stall,
and nobody brings up the weather anymore.
Citizens use too many modifiers.
You can taste nostalgia even in those last hold outs:
 hot ham sandwiches,
 beer cold enough to rattle your teeth,
& kisses in the park, with cold water running over your feet.


Body and Bones
My body came to this spot
to free the world from sentience
to taste that back-of-the-mouth ink
that is not so easily held down
by the loud philosophy of wax paper
I am trying to talk about
shout about
all that it lost in the repeated reprints.

Holding what's lost begins my tongue buzzing
something hooked and honeyed pulls taught in the stomach
these butterflies have become long & loud
and now are cable cars tracing electric circles through my system
Sounds pop coppery from my mouth

 Reality hangs light & shifty like a kimono.
and between frantic diaphanous breaths
words start breaking down
fractures abbreviate into a periodic table for meaning.
She's so—

 Heavy

 You make my marrow aware for itself &
in a cascading moment of re-alignment
my bones begin seeing each other as neighboring countries.
Bones cry out throaty in deep rattling celebration
Bones celebrating their interdependence.
With cores condensing we are starting to shake off gravity's hand.
You make my bones feel power,
like superman could be their sidekick
or climb as high as we might ever wish

 There is gravity in your mouth and it want to crawl in and get unspun.

City Girls
The sweet smell in the air is complicated by something rusting
I smell the city making noises outside.
The skyscrapers shamelessly shout out their own names in the angled amber light
Tonight, I have traffic lights for eyes swirling red-yellow-green.
I am no longer made of mouthfuls of forest.
I am not made of trails in my backyard
and cardboard sliding down hillsides are only glimpses of my childhood.

We are city girls now
 and in my naive kind of way I sometimes want it all back
I want it to unfold like a lion yawning
like a spire of light bouncing out from mountainy teeth.
Instead, I will write you letter from the thicket of my childhood