5 May 2009

fawn

The Dancer

She held her wrists against the streetlight Os,
mimicking winter branches. She wants
to make her body into shadow and her heartbeat
to drums. Hang a fermata like a crescent moon
overhead; Venus dotting the sign.

------------------

rachel

everybody smells v.2

everybody smells, i just notice it.
that is not to say
that everybody smells bad
just that everyone has a scent

the summer after my senior year of high school
all my shirts smelled like 'gravity'
the overwhelming scent he left lingering on me after a tryst in the parking lot
i never think of him now, except when i walk by someone wearing gravity

the two years i sat working every day, traveling every week, with him
even though i couldn't see him i knew he had just walked through the front door
spicy juniper with an undercut of salt would waft through the building into my office
making me angry

the spring she spent thesising at the reactor
every day when i walked in i could tell if she'd been there
cigarettes and something vaguely chemical, dark, and floral
it was how i judged if the samples were counted

it took me a while to identify the smell that followed him
it was vaguely manly and like a teenage boy
i identified it by accident, smelling the deodorants in the isles of rite aid
eventually he will admit that it's axe kilo

there are some people who do not smell like product
who do not smell like the fusion of cologne, shampoo, deodorant
there are some people whose scent ekes from their pores, it lingers behind the other scents in their breath
powdery, with wood, a little sweat, and a spice i can't identify

these smells do not linger in hallways
they don't stay on your shirt for days
these scents you have to be close in to get
everybody smells, i just notice it.

------

vanessa

portland
that you can
simultaneously
pour rain and decant sunshine
continuously
amazes our visitors

------

lily

scars

The one on my forehead is invisible
the memory itself is fading out -
excitement, speed, fascinating gears,
gravel driveway,
I don't know what happened next.

Stripes across my hand are a cheerful reminder
of my independence,
cooking pudding all by myself
(in a pot half the size of the burner),
a good lesson in pain management.

Messy pinks lines down my arm
the only time I've ever panicked in the woods,
and ran.
Embarrassing!

Graceful curve down my leg
and its sister, a secret mark behind my knee,
I didn't even notice I was bleeding.

On my finger
a small cut compared to the pain.
I remember who held my hand
in the emergency room,
but I took the stitches out myself.

Another for a night in the lab,
two were worth cookies in a hurry,
many are just visiting and will be gone
when the winter or the stress are over.

They are all disappearing now,
even the ones that are already only stories -
rewritten or covered over
by time, freckles, new scars,
temporary bruises,
leaving myself -
not a blank slate anymore -
but an erased one
a little smudgy
but still serviceable -
canvas for a new creation.

------

Marianna

it seems somewhere i dropped along the way
my knack for distance my desire for change
today only! hearts' cagematch versus brains:
winner takes all. ONE DAY ONE DAY ONE DAY.

-----

Ravi

Dear Monster, Craigslist,
Careerbuilder et al.
This isn't healthy

Sahar

I'm an archeologist in my own room
All my treasures lost
Under mountains of dirty clothes and magazines.


Thoth

Test

Don't tell me
You need time
To find
Where I can go

Its about time
We climb
As the sun
Shows us a round

The chains we hide
Are the keys we hold
When pain becomes a smile
We walk an inch but it feels like a mile

---

Susan
haiku tuesday

it's going to be
a soaking we bike ride home
after work tonight.

----
Denise

Rain

Rain Rain
Please come back
Insomnia
The beating drops
against the roof-
They are my lullaby