if i were to touch my fingertip 
to that paperstain, would it
taste of the sea?

i’ve never painted with teardrops
& i’d only turn out watercolors 
in spectrums of storm

but even the pen is starting to 
drown me 
in ink and water and pulp
the bitterest tea i have yet swallowed

perhaps i need a book

wind and water and what
more sweet poison
could you pour down my throat

than songs in sunlight
and the way watery reflections
across your jaw make you gaunt

make me want
to ripple you with a kiss.

Why do you insist
on turning me to stone
Alone
On a pedestal covered in vines?

This is not Rome
I am no Fury
Nor slate for you to scribble on,
No deity to whisper upon,
No goddess.

I am a girl.
I have skin that breathes
in sunlight
Aches in the hollows of my neck.

You still think you must
crack
the sculpt?

Help me off this stupid dais
Hand to hand, eye to eye
I cannot see
Unless there are two of us.

you took me for a spin
on a two-story carousel;
i saw the world as if 
through water,
ground and sky all whirlagig
with lightheadedness.

but now something bitter is rising
in my throat;
my palms red and sore 
from gripping the teacup’s wheel.

make it stop.

you can’t be cavalier
with someone else’s fears
and you’ve got to know
i’m terrified

why else
would i 
swallow my pride?

this is how we pass time;
finding places that make our messy aches
feel beautiful,
riversides we can toss
our flowery loves into.

i know you care
how far downstream they float;
whether they can stay
above the surface.

but i have no problem
drowning for you.

at six a.m. i glimpse the moon
half gone against blue, and you
half asleep in musky sheets;

by noon i am hungry
for cardigans with your bergamot aura,
fingers stained
with teabag watercolors.

but it’s in that misty suspension
just before dinner
that i could write odes to your eyelashes
and your portraits of me are best.

I was the small one, once.

Your armchair, smooth
and scent-stained with smoke,
was too vast —
my head only reached
the thunder-rumble of your belly
and I could sit on your shoulders,
claim myself atop Olympus.

They tell me
I am lucky,
I am special
to have seen you
so tall,
to have seen you
at all.

Those were glimpses
through San Francisco fog:
nothing existed beyond
my fingers in yours.
You always did like leading,
that I knew.

And the more I knew
the more I grew
the farther I could reach and roam,
and I roamed for years
for miles.

I want
to be Alice,
shrink again to take your hand
savor the vistas
as your gift
not a given.

But you are
a man —
no longer a mountain.

eight o’clock and Sunrise
reaches out a delicate finger
to turn windows to gold —
a cosmic Midas touch.

you used to touch me like that,
show me rubies
shining beneath my skin; 
we had something, you said, something
no one could take to the bank.

but my metal mornings went from gold
to bronze
weighing me down all the way.

and now i wake with golden windows
and lead in my stomach. 

i never thought i’d see you again
like this:
seven-thirty sun tracing
gold across your clavicles, filling
your penciled-shadow jaw.

you were dead to me 
for as long as the leaves fell,
but spring has made you
a god.