The Answer

Today

in the early evening

it rained.

When all of it
was over

the clouds,
the sky

were more than
anything
anyone

could ever
describe
in a lifetime.

What the Fog Does

2007

Gets you when you're least expecting,

like an old friend tapping you on the shoulder.

Curls up the highway and gently suffocates

evening's last light, prematurely dimming

the sky, and now you can't help but think

it's an hour later than it really is.

The haze clouds not only your vision but

your thoughts as well, and before you know it

your mind has wandered into those cavernous

spaces of the subconscious only psychiatrists

wish to visit. The outside colors shift

to darker tints and you find yourself

revisiting the mistakes you've made,

the kind you wish you could forget about.

You think about secrets still kept

from people you love, and what they would

think if you told them the truth.

And the fog keeps coming like it always has,

rolling over the hood of your car,

not caring that you're in its way.

Learning To Be Alone

Means coming home to the dogs at 2 am 

in the morning after finishing a rotten

shift at the restaurant. You pause 

for a minute and realize just

how happy they are that you're finally

home--they've always been this happy, so

happy for something so simple, yet 

you've always been preoccupied with 

the business of coming and going to have 

noticed just how much your arrival means

to them.

You open two Heinekens to save yourself

a trip to the refrigerator and consider calling 

up some boy to come keep you company,

but you don't--because the silly politics

of this whole "learning to be alone" thing

whisper "fail" if you decide to pick up 

the phone. You think about calling your ex.

It would be easy, but you don't. 

You turn on the TV and ponder the

authenticity of a shady commercial

advertising a Latino phone chat line and
wonder how they stay in business.

Most of the lights in your house have

been turned on. You hate staying by yourself

and the neighbors probably know it.

You open your computer at 3:15 am. 

You write a poem--

or something like that. The smaller dog

climbs onto the couch and falls asleep,

face down, in your lap. The bigger dog

rests obediently at your feet. 

Tonight, you have everything you need.

Tonight, you exist.  

For the Old Man on Table 14

2007

You came in by yourself, and I insensitively asked

"Just one?" instead of "How many in your party?"

You didn't seem to notice, though, and sat down

without looking in my direction.

I took your order without writing it down,

but you weren't impressed. 

"Water," you said, even though I suggested a merlot

"and a ribeye, medium rare."

I liked your newsboy cap, and watched the persistent

shaking of your left hand as it lifted fork to mouth.

I wanted to sit down and talk; to ask if you had

any good stories to tell, how long you had lived in Spokane,

or if you had fought in any wars. 

I wanted to know if your wife had died,

or if you ever had one,

where your family was 

and why they had left you to dine by yourself. 

But you weren't interested in chatting --

not with me, anyways, 

so I let you eat your steak in peace.

You gave me ten percent,

and walked out the door

without saying a word. 

I remember hoping that you had someone to go home to,

or that I would see you again. 

On the Bearded Dragon that Kept Charging His Glass Cage at the Pet Store

Published in a 2006 edition of Women's Press of San Luis Obispo

It may have been the squattish toddler,

slapping the glass with his chubby hands--

plap, plap, they went--

like the sound of someone dropping moist pancakes

one by one onto a marble counter top,

that bothered the bearded dragon so.

Or it could have been the sweaty fingerprints,

streaked across what the dragon knew as home.

And if it was the fingerprints, I could sympathize.

After all I had worked in an ice cream store;

I had cleaned my share of oily nose blodges

and foggy little mouth marks off the glass cases.

Still, though, I like the dragon was conscious

of what he was doing, that there was some emotional 

drive behind it; that he wasn't scratching at the

glass because he hated his reflection or because 

he was bored. I remember him because of the way

he stood on his hind legs and placed two front claws

on the enclosure, like an inmate talking to a family member 

during visiting hours. Whatever the reason, though,

my favorite theory is the bearded dragon was lonely,

and just wanted a hug. 

On Drawing All Over a Styrofoam Cup at Work, Even Though My Manager Says It's Wasteful

Published in the 2008 edition of Asinine Poetry

The way the metal point just glided across the surface, something

like a finger tip trailing through water. I think it was like eating

good soup--potato cheese beer soup or something, the comfort

food that warms your insides. It was strangely therapeutic in a 

romantic, wasteful kind of way. Satisfying like brushing the first

streak of paint onto a wet canvas. And even though I usually ruin 

my canvases, I was OK with ruining the cup, this time, because

I would make it beautiful slash awesome--it would just be

worthless for consumer use. What? You want a cup of soup to go?

Sorry. This cup has been drawn all over. Ruined by the wasteful

employee. Made better. But it was fantastic--the way the 

molecules just sank under the ink, gave way to the gentle pressure

of my lines. What a friendly submission; I don't think the stuff

minded really, that miraculous equation of alteration taking place

in my grip. And the styrofoam--it was incredible, the way it just

obeyed, agreed into being pressed into something different than what

it was supposed to be, like a lump of clay. And I thought of a chest,

exhaling, collapsing, finally at rest. 

The Way Kristen Eats Marshallows

Published in the 2008 copy of Script.

"What are you doing?" I say, 

and Kristen grins like the Cheshire Cat

after one-too-many beers, peeling the skin off her marshmallow

like the skin from a grape.

It falls away in a flaky spiral as if departing from

the body of a reptile.

A moment suspends the sugary screen

above her mouth, its transparent sides

housing the silhouettes of flame.

My eyes rest on her fingers as they pinch 

the crispy shell between thumb/index,

and Kristen smiles menacingly.

"I like it better this way," she tells me,

and crunches while lowering the fleshy, naked puff

back into the fire for another round of burning.