rain

Listen:

thunder
is the night mumbling
deep in its throat
grumbling dark things to itself

the rain is rushing
it is bare feet slapping
the sidewalk
faster and faster

lightning cracks:
rain starts clapping
and clapping, a
standing ovation

the puddles are giggling
the puddles are laughing
tears in their eyes
bright stars in their eyes

thunder is threatening
dark things in the night
beatings and lashings
rain is laughing and laughing

dirt is laughing
grass is laughing
trees are screeching, howling,
busting leaves laughing

rain --

Shoebox

i am saving all of the shouting
i am not shouting, i am stuffing
it into a shoebox
i keep the shoebox under my bed

goddammit i want my breasts back
i fed you two hours ago
i fed you two hours ago
i just fed you two hours ago
i fed you two fucking hours ago
i am tired of being hungry every two hours

a bowl of oatmeal
a handful of granola
half a cookie
another half a cookie
a peach
another peach
a handful of granola
the leftover beans, salad, a cookie
an apple
another damn cookie

it's only an hour to dinner and i
am so damn tired of being hungry

and tired,
if you would take a nap i would
take a nap
i would like
not to have to choose
between exercising or writing or taking a shower
or just working a goddam crossword puzzle

i have never loved anything 
as much as your sweet face sleeping

i am saving up this box,
under my bed,
i need more than a shoebox,
i'm buying a filebox,
maybe a refrigerator box

every time i want to snap
i look at your sweet fussy face all
screwed up and unhappy
and somehow i'm kissing
your toes, your fat cheeks that smell 
always, like sour cheese
the fuzzy duckfeathers on your round head --

i'm telling you that box is going to fill up so fast
pretty soon i'll have enough to sew up 
all of those un-shouts and -slaps into one great big blue
and scarlet hot-air balloon
and i will be the world's first mother
to actually fly away to Australia

(probably not the first)

i might spend a whole day
three hours anyway
or at least an hour
before i have to come back
and kiss my baby

$fifty

so what if this woman gets raped God
you know He had nothing to do with that
jesus standing there crying behind His eyelids,
Oh honey, you know I didn't mean for that to happen, why
Can't we all just love each other like I do
My yoke is easy and my burden is light, you know
I would never ask you to carry
that, and
it's your body not that poor
bastard's not that maybe baby's and it
probably would have had something wrong with it anyway
so many of them do
Oh honey I don't want that for you
nothing but a baby yourself, go
Get you that fifty-
dollar unbaby off the shelf

The morning after

I want a baby

I want to finish my degree
I want an internship with a company whose name you've heard
I want a career where I can make a difference
with my unique abilities
I want a solid paycheck and the opportunity to advance and a nice bonus twice a year --
I want a good career

I want a long-term live-in with a good career
it doesn't have to be as good as mine
a man who appreciates what I have to offer our partnership
Who pays the check and opens the door and buys me a dozen roses twice a week
I want a platinum engagement ring with three diamonds, or heck, six or even nine
to show everyone how he feels about me
I want a wedding on the beach in Maui with vows we write ourselves and my college roommates carrying lilies and all the songs they played on the radio when we were first dating --
I want a unique and meaningful wedding

I want my own house
I want a big house in a nice suburb with a little yard and a dog
a fluffy dog that stays indoors and doesn't make too much noise
named Margaret or Jenson
I want a gym membership and a treadmill upstairs. I want a gameroom and a TV in every room and a two-car garage and three cars and easy recycling and a water filter and a four hundred-dollar composting system that doesn't stink. I want organic vegetables and pedicures and hot yoga and fifty-dollar face cream when my face starts looking thirty --
I want a nice house

I want a baby
one of each
I want a girl who will take ballet and grow up to be an empowered young woman who loves herself and speaks her mind
I want a boy who will play teeball and baseball and football and grow up to be a sensitive and caring young man
I want a college fund and a prep school fund and a private school fund
and a preschool fund
and a fund for dance class and taekwondo class and sports camp and horse camp and music camp
I want SAT tutoring and iPods and iPads and the right clothes and Disneyland vacations --
I want a baby,
later --

I do want a baby

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

Crocuses

So it is spring
though cold:

The crocuses already
in their prim-planted rows
in their neat-bordered beds
unfold

Such tender insides --
what white assurance, what
fearless blue --

The crocuses already
(tender, bold)
open like eyes
like hearts

though there is snow foretold