Trite

Those wide eyes like hooks
bit in my heart, and drew it out

in long strings, like angelhair
all tangled --

They were not black, after all
those strings
nor the tired brown of driedup blood

but wincing rosepink and violet.
Too soft, like pasta cooked too long

trite
like jigsaw sunsets.

That snarled yarnball
that unshelled uncurled astonished snail

is too-pink and heavy, tender still
from your small-weak-inexorable pull--

heartbeats

I keep a box with your heartbeats
at the back of my closet
buried under too-heavy sweaters
my most uncomfortable shoes

sometimes i hear them anyway
your hearts, beating away
doubletime, mouse hearts
little bird hearts

I thought my heartbreak
would drown them. Still
they go on drumming away
with their own impossible life --

I need

a bigger box
a bigger closet
a bigger house
to hold you

I did not have room in my body
for you, little mouse,
little birds, I do not have room

I am tired
of hearing your heartbeats