if it were untrue, I might have been
less mad; I am the best of drivers

tiger mother, paper tiger, full
of slant, piss and vinegar

that occasion of our first big fight,
he connoted with a

two seasons of sabrina,
the teenage witch
under my belt
i’m feeling powerful

i sign on AIM after 9pm
dial up noises are wands
just a secret crush

it’s always nice,
talking to you,

Cliché

I’m your favourite cliché.
Go ahead – 
  paint a red dot on my forehead,
    push it like a button,
      wrap me in a sari,
        round and round I go.
Make sure it’s
  – bright

She lives with her mom

two states away

and I wish this was all

I've failed to teach her. 

rsvp

for sacha

you’re a bound cloud
mist locked down    skipped
across the lake, I can tell

I woosh your eye’s pallet
missing calls      flatten
hunger      a slow drawl
boy  with

Luxury

This September the cool
air has come quickly
and I’m in love with how
it crawls into my belly,
smooths its long creases
on the bones of my esophagus.
What a luxury — to feel
   

daughter

Her mother sometimes talks in her sleep
while she, so it’s told, whimpers or stretches.
Her brother twitches restlessly through the night.
He’s got finer hair and stronger teeth,
their

CHIAROSCURO

-

Your hand and its physical touch
fuschia as you brush

The inside
of desire and nothing

I'll say it
on the skin of your tongue

Name and unname
your eyes and their

sour

i wanted
in the way
that want follows

bedraggled
a half moon
of bites

it starts
like this
slowly

rara saw
FIRE FIRE
in my eyes

hard to describe
to you who
no longer

On Shaving my Legs for the First Time

the offending hairs that sprout from dark skin
like unwelcome ants that toil through the night

hairs that signal virility on my father’s chin
draw taunts

an immigrant love letter

this is a love letter

     to jasmine rice     and soy sauce     in the ethnic aisle     to the crisp

     melting     of duck skin in my mouth     you taste     the

I WRITE PANIC

into the locked kitchen
cabinet, china chipped
& sticky. i write
myself into a bottle
of vodka, sloshing
in waves of bitter
padded tongue.
i write the morning
green &

crying boyfriend

feels like me and god are fighting
they don’t want me to do anything

getting my period at midnight
my poems are like prayers

god doesn’t want me to stop learning
maybe i

Describing Feminine Energy

I am electric-orange.
I am strong legs running
through a poppy field, two arms
thrown open, both feet meeting
soil, moon-face turned up to
the sun, with lips like

Wait Here

Though sometimes the present clutches,
panoramic scattered, in gigantic ways,
we wonder about “its persistent fluttering.” 
Later, far-reaching, bark phone in the wind dawn
that

                       words to describe love

saw a pretty plant through a store window
                                                                    picked out a different one instead
that

THE FORGE

we’re speaking by the heat of the
forge, perspiring, charlie grasping
the end of my steel rod with gloved
hands, i pounding metal atop the
metal shop anvil with a sledge ham
-mer.

One night of nothing

When the languorous motion of bats and owls overthrows the scorching August air
making a party only takes three

One night of nothing
heavy      on an empty

for M

   i.
In the beginning there was only the girl
and the ocean. Someone was telling a story; 

in the story a girl’s friend died, an accident, 
so she walked into the sea, breathed

Your hair blows like a plastic grocery bag...

Many days I realize my dreams are fiction half way through.

"Lyric" and "Obvious Pairs"

its stagnant swollen limbs...

"Strange," "Rare Books," "New Suit," and "The Killer"

in this one you’re a six foot / two hundred pound prize