Newton

i am not the part of the dandelion
that you blow away with a wish
and find, somehow,
stuck to your boot
when you get home

i am not the apple
that fell on newton
and came back to him
in biographies and epitaphs
and medals and eulogies

i am not the alarm clock
that you snoozed
and sirened again
five minutes
too late

i am not the shadow
that is sewn to your feet
and stuck on the wall:
even when it is not there
it is there

i am not the discarded secret
that comes back at bedtime
and whispers to you,
"i am here and i know you best
i know you real"

i am not your ruby lipstick
that all stained your champagne glass
and, removed from your mouth,
find smeared on your cheek
echoing what the night had been

if you push
gravity will have its way
and i will not return

Vesuvius

there is a fire that consumed the palace in the night and no one saw the orange and red and yellow and no one felt the heat.
everyone slept through it, the fire in the night.
only the queen felt her crown was melting from rooms away, and when she got there, the soles of her feet were raw, the meat and bone of the queen, in the fire in the night.
and she said, ‘dear me,’ as she saw her melting crown, as she saw a pool of gold, another shade of yellow, with a glimmer and a richness, in the fire in the night.
she tried to collect the pool of gold in her hands in the fire in the night, scooping a molten treasure up and trying to gather it in her nightgown. soon the gold had frozen in the crevices of her fingerprints and then she used her mouth to save the crown, this molten crown. the queen, with the crown swimming in her stomach, in the fire in the night.
long live the queen, another shade of yellow in the fire in the night. long live the queen, who was the fire in the palace in the night.

Splenda, please.

It was the sweetest
cup of coffee.
I loved it so much
and you did not.
I knew you liked
yours black.

*

She knew you liked your coffee
black, she knew
a lot of things, she
saw you when I couldn't
and I found you out on a Starbucks
receipt, black ink
graying out like
aging hair or
steam atop a kettle or
an evaporating lie.
A black lie thinning
into a white lie.

*

I see her one time
when the Starbucks barista
wrongly calls her name
after serving my drink.
She takes my coffee,
my white chocolate mocha.
She looks at me with
the blackest eyes.

*

This isn't what you think.

A Plea

how close did you want me?

( breathing back into you or two blocks away
arm around your waist or voice in a phone call
across your morning coffee or behind glass on your bedside picture frame
our toothbrush bristles meeting or our books in separate shelves
hands in hair or cold dead air
behind your eyelids when you blink or a silhouetted figure when you think )

how close did you want me?

( and if you wanted me that close,
why are you lightyears away? )

Oh no, Winona

Drink this in, my dirty queen said. She took the goblet and handed it to me. The wine was as red as the rubies in her cheeks and flecked with the gold from her irises.

There's ice in this, I said, eyebrows furrowed. Questioning! Why is there ice in my wine?

Those are diamonds! she exclaimed. Drink and sit on my throne.

Your throne? I repeat. Next to you?

With me, she said all certain but not meeting my eyes. Hers were too busy counting the rings on her fingers.

I took the goblet to my mouth and gulped down every drop. Diamonds sat on the bottom of it, and I took my place beside my queen. Her butterfly lips landed on my ear and my eyes fluttered shut like stilled wings.

Poison, poison, poison.