Under What

In your aunt’s house with her Himalayans

you wander in your new black boxer briefs

I’m in my Ghostbusters undershirt and jockeys,

feeling bohemian because we’re housesitting

in December in our underwear.

Your hand-size bottles of sparkling wine and

champagne adorn the hot tub.

I’m drunk on the sky.

You shower before getting in.

I can hear you singing.

Tomorrow when we’re in your car

you’ll sing Metallica and it’ll be

Terribly romantic.

Put another quarter in the jukebox,

I’ll say, and press on your polo shirt.

We have the room to ourselves,

a big green bed in someone else’s house,

and the blinds are drawn until one o’clock

the following day.

All your best friends still know you,

and all your best friends’ mothers

secretly wish you were theirs.

You bought me gold.

It’s odd that beauty has weight,

and you like it hung around my neck.

In the hot water you gaze at me celestially,

maybe because your glasses are on the concrete

maybe because I’ve never had sparkling wine

and it tastes so sweet with starlight.

Your hair is against the blackness

and your skin is against the wind.

What happens when feelings are tangible?

I could bake this beauty in the air,

let it cool on the western shore,

watch the aroma waft across the Pacific.

The cat is sleeping on my underwear.

You lassoed the moon.

We’re drinking it together.

Endings are always so much harder to write.

The air is lazy. The stars tuck us in.

We blink; bathe in champagne.

Perfect Day

Our bicycles are ready,

baskets full of peaches,

avocado-cheese sandwiches,

and thermoses of Canned Heat.

We blast Jamiroquai from a radio

generated by my wheels.

We make it to the hills by lunch.

Your glasses—they glint in the sunlight,

and your arms—how well they know

the knots in my back.

We peer out over canyons,

Baby Boomer biker gangs,

migrant farmers selling strawberries.

We pedal to the beach,

where plovers invite us

to stitch in the shoreline with our footprints.

The Gipsy Kings are interrupted by

a radio news flash:

George W. Bush has been lost in Katrina,

an ecological love affair powerful as Monica.

We can hear soldiers retreating

several oceans away—foxtrotting, now,

constructing libraries out of disarmed weapons.

In your glasses I can see it happen backwards:

a Kurt Vonnegut novel,

someone’s lost dream.

Together we eat peaches.

monkey

White Man Dancing

The crazy monkey in your skin

jumps up for attention.

Your biceps bulge,

fever spreads through your freckles,

constellations browning

your shoulders.

You say you don’t dance,

but when you see me here,

Converse staining the pub floor,

you reach for a banana.

On Flirting

  1. you know my name

  1. you sat next to me in class (two times)

  1. you initiated a conversation with me (of your own free will)

  1. you will soon forget

  1. probably already have

  1. shouldn’t have brought up Viagra

Body Map

Thighs

According to Seventeen magazine:

You should present your thighs like filet mignon

in a miniskirt standing under the lamppost

just after midnight.

Barbeque sauce would help

if it had less carbs.

Eyes

Who says your soul rents space in your forehead?

Why doesn’t it linger behind your knees

or drive up the interstate of your vertebrae?

Nostrils

Sierra Visher told you in fourth grade

that you had a pancake nose and

it flattened when you laughed.

So you stopped laughing in elementary school.

Sometimes if you flare them in front of the mirror

you can look up your nasal passages

right into your brain.

Your brother will later tell you

that those are just boogers.

Hips

Your hips are Darwinian and luscious.

Get dark red lipstick and a pencil skirt.

Keep all your notes in a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper.

When you get unwanted attention,

just swing your hips surreptitiously to the side,

and bounce your opponents to the moon.

Ribcage

Oxygen pulls you in and out,

A deflating balloon.

What else do you keep inside?

Phone numbers, candy canes,

Second hand smoke?

Waiting

Waiting

When she thinks,

she opens up her mind with a grapefruit spoon,

slices it into happy triangles of citrus flesh,

then drinks what’s left in the bowl.

When she lives,

she tills the concrete with a John Deere tractor,

unearths fossils from the asphalt world,

scoops up the ash remains, and burns them for fuel.

When she loves,

she picks apart the seam of her hairline,

unzips limbs from fabric patterns of skin and hair,

stands in a field during a sandstorm

to watch as her insides slowly unravel,

waits for her dust to settle on the reddened earth,

waits for a person with a mind like a grapefruit

and a soul like a tractor

to sculpt her into a sandcastle.

In Honor of Isla Vista

A Spiritual Poem in Five Minutes

When I think of spirit I think of Pirate

drinking on Pardal accepting a plate of Shabbat

dinner salmon on Friday night when he tells jokes

You kind of have to step back away from his face

so the spirits don’t get in the way.

One night his friend Abraham approaches us

offers to explain our Hebrew names.

“Ah, Shoshana,” he says to Shauna.

“Light.” “David—Strength.”

He peers at me through monocle eyes, says:

“Julia—from the English: Jewel.”

Pirate laughs so hearty from his perch,

clutching salmon to his chest,

coughing up spirits.

Blossom

Blossom

I didn’t recognize his voice at first.

“Happy birthday,” he said.

I heard Jerusalem in his throat,

felt the cobbles beneath our

feet the one day we held hands.

My birthday is one week exactly

from the anniversary of his dad’s death.

Every time he speaks I have synesthesia—

see the Feather River in late May,

smell sunburn and sweet sweat of late afternoon,

hear Dave Matthews, oar slap on water,

feel finger on s pine. The day we kissed

he planted a seed in my chest. I’ve tried but

I’ve never managed to block the sun.

First-Rate First Grade

First-Rate First Grade

Welcome to the Seaside Café

Try the macaroni

Necklaces spiced special today

Your maitre-d Tony

Will candlelight your card table

Tulips arranged as stars

Harmonize fairy tale fable

Of skyscrapers and cars

Today’s appetizers goldfish

Oscar Meyer wiener

Bologna catsup and relish

Watch out for Mabel-she’s meaner

Than an ungreased George Foreman grill

Sizzling fat through fractions

Monopoly dough on the till

Do we have your satisfaction?

Ignore Susie the sobbing chef

Step over the spilled juice

Hank serenades though he’s tone-deaf

Teacher towers like Zeus

Sit back, relax, put up your feet

Eat up before it’s cold

For service that cannot be beat

Just ask a six year old.