Barred From Every Pub Even The Burrito Plaee
Teddy carries what he deems of importance
In an old trolley cart padded with terry cloth.
He holds congress with Johno and Frank
And two other silent boys in the town circle.
Their guitar looks nice on you
It is a rare occasion—
So you sing for them.
Your voice is sweet,
But like the things in Ted’s trolley,
Only certain people are deemed of importance.
I’m a lucky one today.
I join the silent boys as they suck on balloons
And marijuana with tobacco.
Earlier you left a sandwich
For a sleeping man outside the chicken shop.
I think it would be nice for him
To hear you now,
And for the large Tongan man,
Who just ten minutes ago
Wouldn’t let you into the pub,
Because your face is mean like mine—
All angles and bones; too much to contest.
Sometimes people don’t take to things
They can’t quite figure out—
But our insides are soft,
They like it when we sing.
Reverence
Our vaulted ceiling housed a choir:
a chorus of angels.
Its little cracks healed our own.
Coils surrounding the lamp
wrapped tight around our limbs.
I fell asleep on the floor
while you tinkered
with piles of cord and pedals.
I awoke to the roof—
to dancing of water from the hose,
to spray paint monikers crumbling
styrofoam surely as steel in seawater,
to lighters thrown in the chiminea
exploding like the fourth of July.
Our after-hours pub hung
crystals from their ceiling.
It felt like a church.
We drank the wine and ate the bread.
I sang with the bells.
We wept with the congregation.
Somewhere here we were
brought to our knees,
and I have not yet learned
how to get back up.
Heathen. Expat. Hometown Girl.
I have seen sunset over plateaus
And the rock that bleeds
Where the virgin statue weeps oil,
Paper bag lanterns pepper
Lightning bug rooftops.
My friends far and wide
Now bleed like the rock—
Men on horseback staining a landscape
They are small and unfit for.
Strangers too happen unannounced;
Ghosts appearing in the owl light
Searching my bedroom for treasure—
Searching the sitting room for gold.
We drink pyrite from glass bottles;
Spilling, singing, filling time.
Hand in glove, howling at the moon
All alone, but together all the same.
I’ve kissed fame on the mouth.
It tasted like cigarette filters,
Peaches, and Lorazepam—
An empty vial on a porcelain floor,
And the mighty ocean at dawn.