Remote control smile (batteries not included)

Summer Oven Letter

Dear Nana,

The weather here, hot. Slow burning heat your
toaster oven door left open & set to full
blackness burning bagels, bread, tiny
imitation pizzas into dessicated cardboard
landscapes pockmarked & cratered, no hours of
clear water revival can revert post mark lost
stamp torn off, a pile of paper in your foyer
& puzzles tied with a twine string, just, stillness.
vacuumed silence aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa sliced & served
with a small plastic cup revealing your voyages to
Colonial Williamsburg, Bermuda, or Disneyland time-traveling
mementos documenting weather patterns in letters
How many squirrels did you see today?
Certainly more than me. I have 73 channels to
flip through compared to your fuzzy five
so time exploring the yard, the garage,
the basement, memories, weather, took precedent to
TV dinners fishamajigs & a sinking slow heat
seeping through storm doors vacuum packages &
your places for hiding money--plastic children's cups
I think--palmed bills warm from your hands,
I know you saw squirrels today.
........................................................ XOXO Chris

swing

we swing
aaaaaa with such an appreciation for snow
against gravity
aaaaaa it was in her nature to forget people’s first names
so many books you couldn’t breathe
aaaaaa soon she began to call everyone
john or betty
chains holding us tight
aaaaaa this is the kind of winter i can bear
when we would get a rip in out panty hoes
aaaaaa a free newspaper everyday
an apparent lack of colour leads the imagination to think of spring
aaaaaa green was his favorite colour
she would send us to the nurse to put an ace bandage on it
spring swing sing
aaaaaa i returned three books on & about Robert Lowell to the shelves
cheeky is not an American word
aaaaaa two flannel shirts the same colour, but with different designs
he tried revising poems years later
aaaaaa push me
an exploration of white space
aaaaaa cities are works of pure happenstance
the tilt of the earth causes climates causes biomes causes
aaaaaa concrete (poetry) to be less concrete & more free than paper
he highlighted texts
aaaaaa A MOVE OF THE CURSER NOT THE SCROLL
(nearly all the words so what was important
aaaaaa went unknown)
renaming the earth to reflect its watery nature
aaaaaa spacing comes into play, but not in the sense of
open field composition, but rather arbitrary fun.
aaaaaa perhaps using the wrong interpretation
half off all books lured me inside
aaaaaa a tale of going around or over the bar
the wood door to her room is broken
aaaaaa but you need the space to breathe
when escaping from a car that has driven into water do not panic
aaaaaa a misuse of vocabulary words
assembling is half the fun
aaaaaa a lock that won’t close
the circulation of air, hot rising, cool falling
aaaaaa a fist size shattering of wood
the top of the coffee tasted like roasted marshmallows
aaaaaa i saw my teacher in the bookstore
wait till the pressure has equalized before opening the door
aaaaaa a rush of wind, a gulping sound
windows will not crack from kicking or keys
aaaaaa a safe stocking stuffer
her room became warm because the thermostat downstairs was set to 75
aaaaaa things i forgot to do
yellow leaves on my floor with writing on them
aaaaaa perhaps you should have purchased that safety hammer from wal-mart
it was awkward and still, me with my hand on a book about Ezra Pound
aaaaaa old post it notes with the glue failing fall
winter without snow
aaaaaa you can make a sentence academic by inserting a term
a topic to write on
aaaaaa a list of due dates past
her mind always shut down when I started to talk of schools of poetry
aaaaaa i could collect them, pressing their patterns between book pages
after my teacher left i had a conversation with him
aaaaaa fascists can be fun sometimes
the cover is orange
aaaaaa cut into wedges, like a soccer game snack
frost in Florida
aaaaaa there in the crowded stacks warm with winter coats on
I bought a book by T.S. Elliot (I know Steve will be mad)
aaaaaa so to avoid a price hike we bought two bags
salt had been spread to keep students safe
aaaaaa a landing pad in the grass
but his poems were illustrated by Edward Gorey
aaaaaa a small peel goes well with wheat beer
the wood shook from the transfer of weight
aaaaaa not because it was cold, because it was alive.

set swing

Despite the sanding of wood &
tightening of screws, the swing
set in the backyard always
creaked & gave splinters.

Buried in slippery summer
hands--raisin pruned from the
pool or sweaty from a game
of tag--the shifting wood

fragments could be ignored

or brought to mother for surgery.

swing set (earth&memories)

ground between fingers after jumping
from the swing set, a landing pad
pierced the grass a

small cloud or poof of dust--
I can jump farther than you
higher than you

longer than you I am better
than you run faster than
you--rises & disappears

but we always land on the ground.

early mornings in the house my father built

early morning and the sound of my dad's work shoes on the kitchen floor

leaving behind my great-grandmother's quilted coccoon for
orange slice shadows in the hallway and the cold wooden banister gripped
with tiny fingers so i wouldn't slip on the stairs in my
red flannel footie pajamas that haven't asked me to grow up, yet

six a.m. and bleary-eyed, my dad and his brief case in the kitchen
reading from a box of raisin bran with milk spilled on his tie
all grown up with three kids and a house he built himself
my mom still upstairs in their bed sleeping in his warm imprint

bright kitchen light and heat from the woodstove hot on my cheeks
standing on the botton stair, my voice squeeky with leftover sleep
my messy hair, curly like his, smoothed by his freckled hand
my dad calls me by a nickname that tells me i haven't grown up, yet

putting his brief case on the counter and cereal bowl in the sink
the volkswagen rabbit running rough, warming up, waiting for my dad
padding butter on a slice of white bread for me, crumbs fall snowy
on the sleeve of his navy blue suit, the one my mom says matches his eyes

early mornings i woke up for bread and butter and orange air
my grandmother's quilted coccoon waiting warm for me to return
with crumbs on my footie pajamas and a calmer collection of curls
after sharing my dad with the hot woodstove and quiet house

now i wake early mornings grown up, listening to my own work shoes on the kitchen floor

september snow globe

Greg likes snow globes.
The way the world encapsulated
in a bubble can slow,
& each plastic flake
falls, glides to the ground,
settled.

I have one of the city—
the Empire State, the Statue
of Liberty & the Twin Towers.
It’s his favorite.
He shakes it up--arms flailing
as a four year old who hasn’t
fully figured how his body works
does--& waits with breath held
for the ten seconds
of falling to be
over.

“The snow never sticks to the towers,”
Greg says. He tells me:
“It’s because they are so tall,
so tall they are part of the sky.”
They are Greg.
They are.

telephone 8