Anastasia: Dig

these old bones
will bake in the
sun and chatter
a message in
morse code
asking when
will you stumble
on my stony bed?

Anastasia: untitled

you've gotten inside
a postmodern mind
and proven
that words
can't ever count
for everything.

Anastasia: observation deck

in a crowded room of people
i feel like i am the one
under the scope
of the eye of God.

every time i fall
i scrape my knee and bleed
and i stare in disbelief as
my blood cells scream "god isn't watching."

Anastasia: I do my best thinking in the shower.

everyday I run the shower
for several minutes
before I get in.

I listen to the water
splatter on the floor
and peek the curtain

just enough to feel
the faucet kiss
my bare hands and feet

that rest beside it
on the floor.
I think of all the ways

I am torn.
Between left and right
up and down.

my body is segmented
like an ant. I never
know which part is

alive and moving.
maybe my arms are
dead and maybe my

thighs are an icy
tundra, unfriendly and hostile
to manifest destiny.

everyday I stand
and enter into steam.
I never wait for it to cool.

everyday I start from the top
and work my way to the bottom
but I wonder-

how long would it take me
to be kissed clean
unmoving, on the floor?

Anastasia: Fire

candles burn and i am
hallucinating, feeling,
red, orange and yellow fire
in the pit of my
stomach. the gentle
tips of your fingers will spread
and i will thank the stars in 5 syllable words.

Anastasia: 3689

our magic number
is 3689.
i count the
ways we
can play:
3689-3688
is 1
3689 + 1000
is 4689
and i count
until my finger tips
numb and my
mouth stops
forming vowel sounds.
i wish i had been
better at math;
i am sure these
numbers and vowels
can cancel one another
somehow.

christa*: de la vieja (of the old woman)

la boca de la vieja
tembla
revive, repaso, fecúndo
dale un momento
para que puedan caer
todas las fotografías
de azulejos en sol sangrante, olores
de sabanas recién planchadas
caer de sus labios

la mano de la vieja
tembla
revive, repaso, melancólica
dale tu mano
para que se quiete
y se vaya
sin miedo
del olvido

the mouth of the old woman
trembles
reliving, reviewing, fecund
give her a moment
so that they fall
all the photographs
of tiles in bloody sun, smells
of sheets just ironed
falling from her lips

the hand of the old woman
trembles
reliving, reviewing, melancholic
give her your hand
so that she can be calm
and go
without fear
of forgetting

christa*: a midnight proposal

you lead a very complicated life, he said. complicated? maybe... but today it's just empty. Keys opening doors is the only hint of belonging as the space between the possibilities expands with my chest. Breathing in smoke and smog, I long for a horizon, a snow-covered mountain, a lake, with a canoe for two. If I am two, will you be my one? We can play at love, nibble at it around the edges until the sugar-coated giddiness forgets the goal of the game. For playing kissing touching slide the snowflakes down the tips of green, carried by old friends weighed down by change. I think I could love you, she said, and kissing touching playing they giggled, tossing words like leaves of fall, and welcoming their return. Cherry blossoms of warm rain float down through thick air of four eyes searching, seeing hands touching in propped pillows and wondering... would you complicate me?

Anastasia: An Explanation

when sleep finds
the corners of my eyes
i know that it is in
my veins,
flowing behind my retinas
and in my fingertips.
in the strands of my hair
and in the heels of my feet.
when sleep finds the corners
of my eyes it comes
to me in a flash
and i am jolted awake-
fly to the light
and let every word
of you flow,
pour from my
mouth.

Anastasia: The River At Night

I cross the River at night

I stand midstream
between her shores
and wait for the tide to rise.

I count fish and pebbles in her eyes
in the moonlit rays between passing clouds.

I wait until morning,
climb out and wait for her
to silver again.

I cross the River at night.

Anastasia: Westward Current

I've run to the edge of
the map, looking for you.

I can see you
through the fog on the horizon
I can hear you
through a violent mob of seagulls.

I've watched you
running back and forth along the coast,
waiting for you to join
a western school of fish gulping oxygen at the bottom of the ocean
speaking in silent english of how they
long for the worms and waters of a western seaboard.

I watch and wait
and sink a hook into the ocean
hoping you'll come take my bait.

Anastasia: *****

you breathed into me
a black velvet sky

and i spent a century
counting the holes of the sun burning through.

James: Almost There

Almost There


I am driving West on I86
listening to David Bowie—
Life on Mars?
on repeat,
casting glances to where
I’ve engraved the words
'Almost There'
at Ten and Two
on my steering wheel,
with the destination:
Away.
I breathe the neon gas
of road signs, looking for one
that might tell how far until
Someplace With Something Worth Seeing.

I contemplate interstellar portraits of
all the lights dying;
What must the Moon have thought when
the Northeastern United States turned off?

I spend the highway reprogramming a heartbeat
to match the protest songs of a generation,
manipulate my voice into radio waves,
aim it at satellites to converse with the planet,
if you’re out there,
please,
triangulate my coordinates and tell me where I’m going:
Yesterday will always be
not quite as good as it could have been.
Tomorrow will never be anything but possibility.
Remind me what it’s like
to wake up in a city that forgot you were there,
tell me again about the open road
while I’m stuck overnight in Grand Central
reading Ferlinghetti,
make antagonism tangible so I can have a ‘this place’
to want to get myself out of,
write me the equation
for the medicinal effect of avoidance,
carve my spine out of ball bearings
so I may occasionally slide from my skin,
compress me into aerosol cans
so I can mingle at dinner parties in the troposphere,
whisper me the words to every
soldier poem,
Dear John letter,
suicide note,
grocery list,
and religious text.
Teach me the phonetics of humming piano keys
in a forgotten language.
Call me between the hours of 2 and 3 AM,
leave a message after the beep;

I’m no longer questioning
the presence of life elsewhere.

Scratch

scratch

the itch underneath my skin makes me crawl like a snake shaking off its old and loosening armor. i can feel it flaking and falling to the ground around my feet. this is my morning shower this is my ride to work this is the final picture behind my retinas.

Anastasia

Igneous

i am a flat
strong
piece of historical
evidence
that the earth
existed without
love. throw
me in the ocean
and i will sink
to the bottom
or skip me

skim me
across the
glass top
of your world.
put me in
your hand
and i will
let you read
my imperfections.