For Andre

You didn't ask for a poem but you inspired this whole project. It gives me a pleasant sense of symmetry that I might end on you.

On keeping promises

I thought love meant standing on a subway platform waiting for the train that will never come
Except maybe, because love beats all odds, it would
I thought love meant defying the train schedule
I thought love meant being the rushing train
Called to the subway platform where it has never gone before,
Off course, off script, in love
I thought love meant keeping promises
But I am a poet and a liar.
My tag-line on tinder is "I'll break your laptop, your heart, or both"
People still swipe right.

Andre, I'll don't know what it means to contain the universe
So instead I count constellations when I can't sleep
Thinking about which stars look most like her eyes
Which, of course, is the kind of thing a liar would say: Stars are nothing like eyes
Except, perhaps, in terms of gravity.

I thought love was remembering how to dream
When I couldn't sleep.
Lying awake, eyes open, flying full-speed ahead into the depths of my own mind
Where her eyes are stars
But somewhere between the subway stop of poet park and liar plaza
I broke something
I thought this might also be love.
I don't dream anymore. I kind of like the quiet.

Andre, remember when you, me, and six other people piled into my tiny red car
And drove down to the lake together?
That night the moon was so bright on the water it seemed like we could dive into her
And splash around in her light
But every time we got closer she pulled away
Remember: The night was warm and the stars were bright and we didn't crash the car and I didn't break any hearts at all.

Andre, please teach me how to contain the universe.
This time, I promise, I won't mess it up.

For Josh

**I don't often write rhyming poems or songs so feedback is welcome. This is a work in progress**

You hear her say

You tell her that you love her
In every marching step
You tell her that you love her
Singing songs with all your breath

You loved her as a child
When you climbed her vivid trees
You love her even more now
You know she lets you breathe

(chorus)
You love her so you spend your days
Chanting till your lips turn blue
Take a minute in the silence
And you hear her say "I love you too"

You tell her that you loved her
Writing postcards shouting "VOTE"
You tell her that you love her
When it seems most people don't

You tell her that you love her
In the weeks you spend in study
You love her in the guidebooks
And the boots you get so muddy

(chorus)
You love her so you spend your days
Chanting till your lips turn blue
Take a minute in the silence
And you hear her say "I love you too"

She's a quiet teacher
You must listen, hear her say
She tells you in the food you eat
And the way she brings the day

She tells you in a birdsong
Or the sunrise, or the city park
She tells you in the stars
And the way they guide you in the dark

(chorus)
You love her so you spend your days
Chanting till your lips turn blue
Take a minute in the silence
And you hear her say "I love you too"

For Aunt Gail

An ode to the women of my family

"There's a reason they only name hurricanes after women"
(I hope you take this observation as a compliment)

The women in my family will not let other people into the kitchen when they cook
They say anyone else will get in their way
They cook with the same ruthless efficiency
That they run schools, or health centers, or political campaigns.

I'm afraid I have inherited this unwillingness to let others run my kitchen
In my kitchen the dishes are always done
In my kitchen the counters are always wiped down
It drove my roommates crazy but how could I explain to them
That this desire, this compulsion was my birthright
Ingrained in my DNA like my height (or lack theirof).
Same as the half-learned Jewish shabbas prayer I kind of know

"There's a reason they name hurricanes after women"
(I hope you take this observation as a compliment)

For Mira

Home

Imagine a technicolor dream

Imagine hues slung in yellows, blues, and red

Imagine sparkles

Imagine sunshine

Yes, like that, but more so

The smell of evergreen forest and 

Sweet tea and citrus

Warm light and candles and the gentle smell of smoke

The space we shared

Imagine home

For Will A

Constellation Rolecall

Last night all the constellations were in the sky
I stayed up late counting to make sure
Ursa major, ursa minor, casiopia
Even Orion, sitting on the horizon, unsure if the spring weather is a dismissal
Unsure where to go from here

They all sat in the sky and reminded me of her eyes
They all waited patiently for me to finish counting before dimming in the dawn light.

For Rainbow

A Love Poem

I'm writing this to candle light
Sitting in the silky bathrobe I bought from goodwill
And smelling the incense that always makes me feel like I'm in a pine forest
Because that's the closest thing I can feel to flirty in this lonely place

I wouldn't say I'm in love with you
In the same way I can't be in love with the moon
But I always take a moment to just breath her in whenever she graces my sky

Pine forests make me think of you
Or maybe the other way around.
I don't remember how pine forests smelled before I met you

In a way, this is Shakespeare's fault.
Because if he hadn't already wrote that Juliet's eyes were more beautiful then stars
And that stars would be dim compared to her eyes
And her eyes, in the sky, would outside anything the heavens had to offer
Then I would be able to offer you an original metaphor.

The world shatters

Mirror Poem

After I have dropped it on the desk

And cursed myself to seven years of bad luck

I do not know how to pick it up

Without cutting myself on the jagged shards

In this one the left corner of my mouth, 

In this on my right eye, red and puffy

In this one my right palm gently leaking blood

From my first attempt to pick up the pieces

Didn't do me any good. 

There is no word left in my vocabulary for

"The opposite of broken"

There's no word for

"What happens after I shatter" anymore

For (Great!) Aunt Susan

**I'm a little daunted in the task of writing a poem to one of the greatest artists I know. But I've done my best**

To My Greatest Aunt

Imagine a place where the mountains are new and raw
And the earth is wrought with drought and fire

Imagine a place adorned with strawberries and
Vineyards and oranges and all kinds of ripeness
Born from the earth.

Imagine a place where the winters are sunshine
And the summers are dappled with rain
And there is always dancing and drum circles in the park
And the lemons drip off the tree.

No wonder this place calls so loudly to all the people I love
No wonder she sings nigunim to the foggy sunrise.

I think, when the red bridge arches over the water
It looks like she's trying to say "I love you"

For Brynn

**today is earth day. Remember: capitalism causes climate change

Those Gender Feels (tm)
Or: a hot take on the Shakespearean Sonnet 

Picture, if you will, a big grey trunk full
Of dance clothes in my closet in disuse:
Velvet crop tops patterned with hot pink skulls
Skirts and dresses, shiny leather shoes.

Imagine glitter stored away in boxes,
Imagine baggy pants with elephants,
Ripped up fishnet tights and knee high polkadots,
And all the things I love to wear to dance.

This clothing is a costume I remember:
Something I can easily 'don and 'doff.
Would that it were so easy with my gender,
That "woman" were I switch I could turn off.

If I could I would fold up and put away
My label "woman" for another day.

For Anonymous

**today is holocaust remembrance day. If this post moves you, donate some money to No Mas Muertes or the ACLU #never again is now**

The Atheist

When I'm with you I often think of god
Which as a Jewish Quaker atheist
Is more challenging and circuitous
A journey then you might think. I imagine
God like the violets on my walk around
The neighborhood: delicate, beautiful,
Ephemeral. God is the morning doves
That fly away when I walk near them:
Coo-ing and flutt'ring, silly things really.
Perhaps god is a bad habit: checking
My phone mid-conversation with a friend.
Or the opposite of that: staring deep
Into a lover's eyes until I can't
Remember what she's saying. That she was
ever speaking. That there is a world out
Of her eyes. God is the strength in my legs
Simultaneously impossibly strong
And constantly failing. Ursula Le Guin
Wrote something about this idea. Something
About how atheists must acknowledge
And define god in order to deny
Its (her? their?) existence and in doing so,
Prove that god exists at least somewhere.

For Becca T

An ode to the 5th season of Doctor Who

When I sould have been studying I was

Watching Matt Smith a la bowtie and fez whisk Rory and Amy away to other words

Instead of re-reading my AP American history textbook 

I watched the 11th hour and then texted you for about 11 hours about it.

I did poorly on that exam but I made it through half a season of Doctor Who that night.

Up until the part where the heroes are separated on a strange alien planet and the villian attempts to pitt them against each other but in the end

Friendship prevails.

Of course, these days TV shows with canonical queer content and more than one person of color with agency.

The stories I prefer, like me, have come down somewhat to earth in their process of political awakening. 

But for that strange, missfit 16 year old

The stars were a beautiful place to find friendship.

"Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth"-- Albert Camus

For Daniel

An ode to the smell of an old book

Dancing is the sun setting
My feet are the sun and they know how to sink
Below the horizon and rise
The next morning as if transported
They remember the East
They remember the West
They remember the orange dusk and the light pink dawn

Dancing is the smell of an old book
And the way the pages know me so well they open
To my favorite passage, the scene where the hero
Realizes that he has the strength in himself to save the world
Except he's known all along

Dancing is fresh cookies
Still warm from the oven that I just finished
Cooking because I can't sleep under
The shouting stars so I might as well stay awake
And make something beautiful

Dancing a warm cup of tea
And my hands wrapped around
The warm mug as the morning chill
Whispers around me and the sun
Remembers to come up again.

For Erryn (one poem among many)

Sweet nothings

I have to believe it's all downhill from here, honey
A maple-syrup smooth ride into town
It gets easier my sweet,

And the sweetness eases our way

Honey this ride is a long one
Months and moons and mountains
Tides rise and retreat until I see you and
If I can make the waiting sweeter I will

Sweetheart I'm stuck on you
Stuck apart, solitude without solace
And I hope the sweetness of this verse
Staves off some of the sadness

Sadness gets slippery and easy to
Slide into these lines in time
These lines that lack a single rhyme
But I'd rather scribe sweetness.

So roll downhill with me, love
And we'll make it down to town
Down and through and smoothly onward
Let's murmur sweet nothings until we get down. 

For Léah

An American History of Tattoo Art

The Rose:
Symbolizes the way my chest puzzle pieced perfectly into the chest of my first love. Skin pressed to skin, the rose remembers the smell of the soft skin at the base of their neck. The sneaking suspicion that, however much time passes, years and new lovers, I'll never stop aching for the feel of their skin curled into mine.

Snake:
Not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you. Beautiful, graceful and venomous. Without legs but so much strength in the way I move across the earth, pressed close to its secrets. Turned on its side and twisted it might look like infinity.

Eye:
Maybe nothing will ever be enough to help me take in the world. Maybe I can stretch my hands open wide and hold my skirt out to catch the pieces that slip through my fingers. Maybe I smell the air, hear the birds, stretch my eyes wide and never miss a sunset.

Skull:
I never meant for immortality to be a theme in this poem but here we are, at death. Or at endings. The irony of a tattoo, lasting forever on your skin when someday your skin will return to the brown earth, skull or no. And then I will finally stop aching for the skin of my first love.

Wings:
There is immortality in stories more than in anything else. The stories I tell myself, my friends, the stories I tell to strangers. The stories I see (hear? know?) with paintings, with sculptures, with written texts, with the pictures I ink onto my body, across my skin. Here is how I will be remembered.

For Catherine

Mom, what's for dinner?

Tonight is your favorite
Mashed Potatoes, summer squash, and one of Van Gough's sunflowers
Because we, like him, are eating in color tonight.
Autumn leaf scarlet, deep sea blue, and spring dandelion gold

Tonight we will eat
Spaghetti, spring asparagus and Aesop's fables
The words will keep us spin us rich tapestries
Of animals and courage and love and kindness

Tonight I served
Cheesy broccoli and the way the hills lie against the sunset
With a dessert of morning dove's coo-ing the setting sun to bed

Tonight is
Tacos with fresh cilantro and sea shanties
About ships and wind and wave
And a single human against the might of the storm

Tonight I have no more paintings to love
No more stories to tell
Nor sunsets to watch
Nor songs to sing
I guess we'll have to order pizza.

For Taz

Paint-your-own Constellations

I remember that night we started up at the sky
And you tried to teach me the constellations
You named them, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Orion

But I only had eyes for the moon
Her spotted face outshining everyone

When I was a child I always knew when the moon was up--
Day or night I would spot it and point

Even before I could speak in sentences
I could find the moon and point to it
Drawn as though with the tide.

Now, in these dark nights I squint up at the sky and remember your soft voice
I redraw the stars for you
That one's the first time we held hands
That one's the shape of your eye when you smile
That one's your laugh

The evening air chills my spine but I press on
Intent on making the stars in your own image
Although your eyes would doubtless outshine them if given the chance
That one's the ache in my chest
The ache of missing you.

For Alex Pt 2

Water Poem

When I was three, my parents took me to 

Saranac Lake of the Adirondack Mountains.

Just as they were sitting down to dinner

They looked around to realize I was gone. They found me

toddled, on short legs down to the shore, Playing in the gentle

lap of rocking waves. They tell me it was downhill from there.

I prefer to think of it as downstream.

My first kiss happened in the rain

Under a streetlight, light playing in the raindrops

More beautiful crossing her face than any rain I'd ever seen before. 

What's the word for rain falling across the face of your beloved? 

The first boy who ever broke my heart left me by the ocean

We had gone on a vacation to the beach in the wintertime with

The hope that it would be quiet and uncrowded. We wanted to get away

From it all. Turns out he wanted to get away from me and the ocean

Too much undertow all ‘round

I met the fifth great love of my life

Skinny dipping in a river

Or rather, they were clothed and I was

Vulnerable. I felt the pull and I knew the current was coming

Before it swept me away

Into their arms.

For Alex B

Inspired by the song "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color For Your Eyes"

Painting you:

Painting you in reds and blues
With texture in crocheted, bright hues

Painting you in waterfalls
Waves of ocean, water's call

Painting you in graceful steps
Round the dance floor, take my breath

Paining you in lightning smile
Sit right down and stay a while

Painting you in strong warm arms
Your dancing simply oozing charm

Painting you from wall to wall
'Cause love, you deserve it all

for Sasha

A Feminist Love Poem

Someone once told me falling in love was like

Falling asleep. But with respect,

That's bullshit. Falling in love is

What I felt the first time I danced

And the hundredth time. Falling in love is

Red nails and pink lips and lacing 

Up my shoes.

Someone once told me falling in love was like

Jumping off a cliff and that's also bullshit.

Again, with respect.

Falling in love is finding the perfect skirt in a thrift shop

And wearing it to a contra dance, wearing it to brunch, 

Wearing it to dinner, wearing it to watch RBG on TV.

Love is watching RBG on TV in a nice skirt. 

Someone once told me falling in love is like a hunch

And then a series of promises

And then a lot of work. 

Or a rose, or a smoking gun or a ballet slipper

Or a shooting star. 

Love is the sun shining on daffodils and daffodils

Pushing their roots into the soft earth.  

For Mimi

Classic

Langston Hughes once asked something about dreams
And their fate after people lose interest
Something like the fate of the dodge meme
And how if you asked a teenager
What their wolf name was they would look at you as if possessed
But even these young upstarts know the meaning of the word "yeet"
(William Shakespeare basically wrote sonnet 55 about this).

The thing about timelessness,
As the band MTKO sings,
Is that the phrase "Mona Lisa smile"
Now refers to the painting, three pop songs, and a movie from 2003 staring Julia Roberts
And "The Crossing of the Brooklyn Ferry"
by Walt Whitman refers to a part of New York City that is now a TJ Max
Probably.

So, what's left, when everything else is dust?
Or, as Emily Dickinson asks in her poem "I heard a fly buzz-when I died"
If animal crossing is better then real life (and it is)
Why bother ever putting on pants?

Perhaps the answer is something about love
Or the essential human-ness of our desire
To be understood. What else are writers but very good liars?
Something about stories
I think.

For Hannah

I think I owe you a poem in some sort
Of flow'ry shakespearean language where
I proclaim I would bring you the moon for
Nothing but to breathe your same sweet air.

And though if you asked I, in an instant
Would take up this craft, to tell you I'd dive
Into the ocean for your iridescent
Eyes. You deserve more than these delicate lies.

For you, I want to break a poem open
And feed you the juice inside, I want to
Plant some poems and sees what grows from them
And I hope it's dandelions for you.

And then I'd plant fields of weeds to assert
Our springtime love, and in this way I'd say
With something more eloquent then this verse:
I'd bring you flowers every single day.

For Danielle

It's been such a long time since we've seen each other
That memory has scrubbed away the finer details leaving only
Broad strokes and general impressions.

I remember that your voice was birdsong in the morning, I remember that your voice paired with a ukulele was fine wine and cheese
I remember you were graceful as a cat and joyful as a hawk when you danced

I remember you had a penchant for falling in love and listening to Taylor Swift, a combination that seemed fated to end in heartbreak
I remember you loved like a stolen car:
Hard, fast, and heedless of consequence.

For Anna T

**this poem was inspired by Anna T and also the poem "Astrophil and Stella 31"**

Sweet Steps

With what sweet steps, my dear, do you turn around the floor
You move like the waves on the ocean
Your feet are a poem in slow-motion
And I see your eyes in starlight, who could ask for any more

Your roots stretch softly down, your branches soar
You bend, a willow in wind
And I know I would do it again
All from the start, what else are wishes for?

Oh tell me, moon, what was it like before
You'd memorized ev'ry lash on her skin?
You'd studies her ev'ry movement and whim
But somewhere you always knew that she was not forever more

God, to go back to that haven in your arms
But time, like me, is ever marching on.

For Oliver

**Author's note: This is my 300th post on this blog so that's exciting!**

Seder Plate (or to my younger cousin)

Charoset:
Reminds us that life is bitter and sweet.
Hard work and joyful reward
We find this duality in family, in friends
In books, movies, video games
There are many days of hard work yet but many joys too
How can any of us be free if some are still in slavery?

Parsley:
Reminds us of springtime
Of being the youngest
Of being the fullest of love
Reminds us of things that grow
Shooting up from the earth
Soaking in knowledge like rain
Reminds us of the sunshine a smile can spread across a day

Bitter Herbs:
And what joy is there to be found in spicy things?
Horseradish and weird pickle flavors
Fermented radish to season the gefilte fish
And raw onions for the chopped liver
How would you like to find a food that no one but your pop could love
And give it a seat at the table?
In these foods we truly find the meaning of passover welcome.

Egg:
What a small thing to contain so much potential!
What could it have hatched to be?
Who knows the kind of bird that might have lived inside?
What will you learn?
Who will you become?

Shank Bone or Roasted Beet:
We took something bloody and grim (the shank bone)
And we made it delicious (the beet)
We can grow up, change, learn new jokes, love new cats
And still honor our tragic past

Matzo:
You are the rock the table is built around
Without you we would be so angry, so hungry, so bored
You are the joy at our seder
The levity in our story about suffering
The crunch in our bland-ness
The passover meal depends on you.

Orange:
Maybe there is not a place for you yet
Maybe you still are trying to fit yourself into this big plate of tradition
The shoes of thousands of years of ritual are big shoes to fill
Don't worry, someone will fit a space for you
Squeezed between the herbs and the greens
And you will someday feel like you've always belonged.

For Keyra

To Keyra, the first great love of my life, my best friend:

I wanted to write you a poem that was just the word "peepiss" repeated an undefined number of times
And then I was talking it over with Denali and I said
"She's the first great love of my life. I am who I am today because of her."
And I realized I probably owe you a proper poem.

Because we grew up and into each other like two trees planted next to each other
Like lichen and algae, feeding each other, shaping each other loving each other

I have books of poems for incidental lovers,
Lovers for a night, lovers who shouldn't have been, lovers who never were
And here you are
The first great love of my life
The friend who shaped me, who loved me, who taught me how to love
Who taught me how to love myself
Poem-less. Not a single poem
For you.

Surely there must be something about the phones calls we shared when I was alone on the road
Something about the way you know every single one of the people I've every kissed
The night we went skinny dipping in the bioluminescent ocean
The years of manicures we painted in your back yard
Sunning our shoulders and legs in the warm yard,
The way I was afraid of your guinea hens
 The way you're the only one in my life (myself included) who can keep track of my partners

My love for you is an ocean
All my lovers combined were a puddle I splashed in
I would drown in the depths of my love for you
I would not think of fighting the undertow

But I did still manage to put the word "peepiss" into a poem for you.

For Julia

How do I write poems for a poet?
I would sooner give one of my paintings
To the lady herself, Frieda Kahlo

I feel the futility of it, me
Writing you a poem. It's like if I tried
To teach you how to love. How to star gaze
In summer nights and name each path of stars
"your eye" "your forearm" "your pinkie toe"

Like I would teach you how to turn on the
Radio and hear your name in each chord.
Like I could teach you how lips, that holy
Palmer's kiss, does touch, how to memorize
Each second of the singular epic
That is love. You could write the book on love
And here I am strug'ling through the cliff notes.

For Katie

When was the last time you got hurt?
Scraped your shin against a coffee table at the right angle
And bled a little on your neighbor's nice white carpet?
Perhaps caught your shoulder against a thorn bush sticking too far onto the trail
And cursed at the bush as though it might feel remorse?

Was she there to hold your hand the last time you feel?
Did she help dig the thorn out of your shoulder?
Put a bandaid on and kiss it better?
Did she just hold you as she cried?

You know the joke, "Two men walk out of the bar
And one man said, "Is that the sun or the moon?"
And the other says, "I don't know, I don't live around here."

Well, what's the difference between a healer and a lover?

"Is that joy or grief?"
"I don't know, I don't live around here."
Whatever it is, it's too big to hold and shining through your sky
And you don't remember when you last saw something so bright
So beautiful.

For Rivkie

What does a promise taste like?
It tastes like fresh challah bread and three day stale sandwich bread
It tastes like ice cream snuck from the fridge after midnight straight out of the carton
It tastes like the air before a warm rain

What does a promise feel like?
It feels like the air of a secret escaping your lips
It feels a cold stream on your bare feet on the hottest day in summer
It feels like the knot at the base of your neck you can never quite work out

What does a promise smell like?
It smells like the musty couches of the staff lounge where we spend hours together
It smells like wool soaked in campfire smoke
It smells like burnt popcorn and fresh earth and lake muck and dish soap

What does a promise sound like?
The noise of a city
The quiet of a farm
The song of something in between

What does a promise look like?
You darling, it looks just like you

For Daniel

A list of things I know to be true

1. That the world will continue to spin
2. Zoom is glitchy
3. If I plant a seed in the earth it will grow
4. The world will continue to spin
5. The sun shines and every day she does she says "I love you"
6. Teaching is a labor, like Sisyphus I will not drop this boulder
7. Love is the last of the gifts from the garden and the hardest of Hercules' 12 labors
8. To nurture an acorn into a tree takes sunlight, rain, and a great deal of patience
9. The sun will not stop shining and the world will continue to spin

For Marni

Mood-board for a Ghost

Think raven feathers
Think picnics
Think partly eaten waffles and dark colored posters and stories about dead English kings

Think the feeling in the pit of your stomach before you go over the peak of a roller coaster
You name it anxiety and keep it in a padded bed and feed it three times a day

Think cutting your hair, dyeing your hair, shaving your hair
Think cycling through hair like water: evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation
You name this cycle queer and and plant it in the yard and the rain waters it and it grows up the walls

Think high places and dramatic lighting and black and white words
On the page and they sound like music
You name it beauty and you feed it hope and sing and maybe it looks like home

For Andy

Lovesick

I see your eyes through screen-dimmed light
I yearn to touch you through the screen
My skin on fire, fever bright
Your words broke up in skype-skipp'd dream

I miss your lips, that gentle kiss
My heart it pounds, so loud it seems
Like cracking thunder, storming still
I cannot stand this quarantine

***Note: I will be writing 30 poems in 30 days for National Poetry writing month. Each poem is for a friend, requested by them over facebook. I will put just their first name (unless they tell me otherwise) in the title. Stay tuned for more poetry.**