the bricks spread
like fire
toward the field
where the sun will beat
each shadow
into
hiding

baby air balloon

blast off
shirley -with her curly Q's-
temple
like a hot air
balloon.

dress
scribbled black, white
and pink
with streets of
paris
crumpled ominously,
in their
folds.

to her skin

I finger the white papers nervously waiting for some kind of response. I am going to be a writer, I just declared, because it it’s true and somehow-important. But momma just sits there as my shadow ripples rapidly across her knees, into her lap and over her shoulders, repeatedly washing over her like a frantic, angry spirit.
Momma rocks more than any other mom I know of. Some mom’s cook a lot, clean every day, or drive too much. My momma rocks. She rocks quickly with one foot always pressed flat into the ground and the other pointed sharply towards the TV. I swear she can see me, despite her lab-rat gaze and I am nearly certain she hears my trembling voice. Sometimes, if I wait long enough, the human background to her methodical movements, she will turn towards me with a snarled upper-lip to touch my hair or answer a question. Can I go to Roxy’s house I will ask and like a guinea pig, or some other round-eyed creature, she mumbles yes or no without breaking her transfixed stair towards the television. I am hoping for something, anything this time to encourage my latest discovery. I am a writer, I think, silently this time.
The papers have begun to feel damp in my moist grasp. I hold them to my chest, where their glowing whiteness contrasts with my sun-beat skin. Startled by a spark of pain, I look down to see a bright red stripe spreading across my palm where I have accidently sliced my skin. The papers, a simple little book made of construction paper and pen, slip through my fingers, arms and elbows, as a surge of heat burns through my stomach towards my throat. They pause mid-air before gliding towards the floor into a dazzling parade of chaotic checkers. I wonder if momma knows how much I need her to pick them up with me, how much I long for her to look at them and touch them to her skin, to her memory.
I slowly turn toward the television, where a country-music-singing cowboy sings of heartache and whiskey. My momma's chair sways back and forth in a subtle display of excitement, rustling my papers in the light waft of oak and disappointment.

cymbals

I am a pair of
steely, cold
cymbals:

poised to crash
into crescendo.

poised to puncture
stale silence with
reverberating cadence.

poised to liberate
these offensive fears
you have stifled with
societal, pious objections.

I am pair of
second-chair
cymbals
rising from the
scaffolds of a
new generation:

poised to settle
score for years of
quivering quiet
and stilled reservations.

poised to crush
the salty pillars of your
sanctimonious trappings.

I am a mounting implementof voice.

Whiskey, mother.

you drank through a straw

dipped deep into your pink, plastic tumbler.



straws were for kids, I had thought,

till one day

I reached-

while you were in the restroom-

for the glistening gold

whiskey.

I watched it slosh near the edge

splashing

brilliant!

-all but for the stench-

near my nose

onto my lip.



Shock, spit, sputter.

The burn swept rapid hands

through my gut as I shuttered,

ache pressing hot tears to surface,

then stream their tiny

trails

of incriminating saltiness.

Whisper-screams

Remember the night we
whisper-screamed

careful not to rustle
crinkling jackets and
soggy jeans

just in case we missed
a buzz, a word, a murmer?

Color Desire

At night I am still a child.
My mind studies the day a million miles from my body's desire to sleep. Restless, weary, tied up and tied down by strained, stressed and knotted blankets- my eyes remain the amber attraction of floating particles, illuminated in a copper stream above my bed.

The cold smell of blue moon rays, piercing through my sheets, bursts into fruit flavored nostalgia.

The foggy lamp light outside my cold bedroom encloses the night in a hazy shroud, not unlike the spindly exhalation of a wet breath against a cotton candy sky.

Reaching toward the thick, smoggy light, my hand is precariously encased in saran wrap textured glass.

I bend and I fold outward,
downward,
toward the spongy landscape of cherry blossom grass and sparkling clean footprints, rising like Lego blocks and checkering the scene for miles.

I have yet to spot the luscious light of my first stirring.
A powerful, skulking form makes its way across my weightless, crayon-box path. A tremor seizes the tree to my right as the heavy night sky opens her mouth and swallows the mysterious mass like a left over bon bon.

Finally, I recognize the cinnamon bread light suspended before the cedar post, dropping crumbs of glowering embers, like a careless, cookie-munching child.

Thickly, I tear a portion, throbbing with life and breath and lust in my palms, just large enough to fill my mouth

open, warm, waiting.