You wake up as a heroin addict. Or is it heroine? Sometimes your chest is a wing, flutter. The day after she leaves you is the worst day. In treatment they monitor withdrawal by heart rate. Here’s a trick: before you see the nurse, do pushups in your room until veins sprout question marks upon your forehead. Now let her take your pulse. Let her press your wrist gently. Valium. Ativan. Legs floating. The time she told a story for every scar, every birthmark, every nick; pale freckles like the pollen of something. Petals. Poppies. Time she left her socks on your kitchen floor and you wore them to work the next day. Time she walked out, two a.m., Tuesday evening. Time of itching, irritability. Time of insects. You know you can kick this thing. Maybe. “I am not going to hang up on you,” she said. Then the line just fell away. Once a seizure has begun, don’t try to resist: you can not stop it.



Abby #5

I took the same road to work for ten years. Could have taken a different road; would have seen different things. She entered my life like a planet. It was Halloween. She was a cowgirl, in a bra. She said, Pain lays low at day, comes out at night. Or is it the other way? In Florida, it is a felony for a man to kiss his wife’s breasts. I said, We’re not in Florida, and you’re not my wife. You have to stand for something: one night stand, two night stand, why not a lifetime? This is my disguise. Nine years from now I won’t remember last Friday night. It makes you wonder why it matters. Kissing like losing fear of death. Kissing like electric lines, volts weeping. Kissing like tasting smoke. Like stepping off a train. Like the sun, it weds the moon, they have a daughter—and here she is, in my arms. Head in the clouds. Clouds, in my head, low, coiling, dark as naught, as lips, pressing. As the space between.



Abby #6

My friends ask why so sad on my birthday. I say she dumped me, yesterday, and self pity catches in my throat like origami. But yesterday is not today, they sing, and lift black glasses of stout. I think that’s beautiful. I’m 36 and Jesus founded a religion at 33. His first miracle was water to wine; I can respect that. You can not fly, not really; the nearest thing is to plummet. You can not fight the tide. You are the tide. Lay your head on the pillow, listen to the ebb and flow. You can not stop aging. You can not fold a sheet of paper in half 12 times, no matter the size. I need a drink. I need a desert. I need 40 days, 40 nights. Someone hands me a Black and Tan, and three blue darts. The jukebox kicks on with a clunk. Tainted Love. Jesus returns! He strolls right in the bar and orders a bloody Mary. She walks in the door, close behind. My heart lifts from its cage; soaring, soaring... I am free! Much of this is gospel.



Abby #8

Come back; quit this talking, these New York stories. These orange-hearted words. On a cell phone, in a Manhattan bar you own. “Happiness, it’s like your weight,” you tell me. “You stay at a certain range.” And I breath-catch, hover. And I feel light years, generations; the way skin talks to bone, doesn’t know how hard. I can’t imagine. Two thousand dollar bar tab. A table snared in velvet rope. This thing about happiness. What of these empty hands, these eyes? What of this staring out a window, never seeing glass? A purpling sky. Wrens gather; pick at asphalt. My thoughts are aloft now, small birds, hungry, flung wrong-side in a sour wind, into gutters, the ankle-creases of trees. I do not hear this laughter, this toasting. I am a bottle on a mirrored wall. I am green glass. Stirred, is the term here. No, shaken. All of this etched inside my chest. But listen. Just listen, girl. Eat something. Now drink. Now—fly home.



Abby #11

Winter is eight months; the sky sunk deep, hungover, cigarette ashes, a worn silver earring. You say, Leave all your lights on. Be sure to get outside. Consider this season the way God considers the earth. What does that mean? It means you own a house, a greenhouse, a car with all-wheel drive. It glides low through life with a hush. And the snow falls, collects, never melts—rumpled banks, unmade beds. And you don’t wear lipstick; you have perfect lips. And you ask me, Who’s your masseuse? when you know damn well I have no masseuse. But I have: 10 degrees, snow falling, whirring gears, and we sit on wool blankets, my empty floor, drinking dry wine, arguing what to bring to a picnic. You: smoked Gouda, almonds, a book. Me: A Frisbee, quart of Budweiser, a book. Oh, idiotic grin. Oh, near-dusk windows, shadows, moon-bridge. Oh, those alcoholic afternoons—I’m cribbing that phrase. Bye, though. Goodbye. The way God considers the earth? I tell you, girl, that’s cold.

I am obsessed with the number 14. I imbed the number in all of my writing in some way (often within the text). One day I was lonely so created a girl named Abby, and so then quickly wrote 13 more poems about her, to make 14, as is my way. In fact, Abby #14 is published online right now: Apple Valley Review

The remainder of my writing process involves dark beer and distance running and teaching my 3 year old son how to read and fish a river.