Not for her bright and daring lips

The door is sage green, reads 'coffee room,' and the barista has milky white nails.
America sounds under the salmon pipes, with the voices of six conversations.

Still, Bold Lips ignore.

They speak instead, under indigo'd eyes and bleached, coifed hair. Bolstered by turquoise and skin-clinging tights. Livened by a sugary take-out drink.

But when she vacates her spot, held regally near the yellow-brick framed window, and just next to the tray of skim and straws,

When she rises, she is missed for her quips,

not for the red of her bright, daring lips.

One more for the power of statement!

One more for the power of statement!
She asks, and she receives.
And now, she thinks, what's next?

Do we dream,
and in dreaming,
become still more awake?

Sure, the will of the Unconscious
is pretty strong.

Better leave it unleashed,
and, for a while,
follow along.

few more

and then she saw them
and for no reason at all
she's smiling all night

*

while one seemed an ass;
as simple as a wink, he
pulled her mind away

*

handshake nudge high five
hug scrunch together say cheese
gulp bob cross congrats

a couple

Icy powder pulls
at the corners of our stones;
Smiling shrieks echo.

*

Misunderstanding--
underwhelming, less than that.
I'm out with the snow.

that beach

Do you ever think of concepts as tangible things, so you can reach out and take 'em?

Like a mom is a wave and a dad is a line, a sharp black line.
A hard teacher won’t bend and a softie’s not substantial enough to believe in
Friends are the colors sienna and gold
Practicality is a rock, art is like wind
Writing is moving the pebbles on a beach
to make a pattern
that sometimes other beach goers see
and sometimes they don’t.

Recently,

Recently, I've been

Thoroughly taken by the story of a
Leather Tramp who
hit the road just after graduating with honors,
distanced himself from the minted metal remnants of his conventional life, and
found himself by letting his feet find the terrain
and his mind, the world beyond human construction.

Determined to prove himself a loner
he fled his family, more times than one
to walk into the wild
only to know in the end that
happiness must be shared.

head rests

Leah's head rests on her right shoulder, a lightening lead burden that has, up to recently, housed thoughts of how to change things. Empty thoughts, these, that called her to think about a process rather than proceed. Now, she is re-energized.

***

She has just returned from a dinner where she was the eighth at a long table of eight, and sat next to the birthday girl. Happy to be fully present at the restaurant, Leah was engaged in her surroundings, and now remembers the way her chopsticks crossed each other, leaned against the red inside of her near-empty bowl in a race toward the ceiling. Next to her, at the table corner, Maggie's half-eaten brownie sat, her chair already returned to the next table over, her cheerful shadow snatched so quickly from the wrap-eatery's daily-swept tile floor to find the open pages of a physical geography textbook.

Leah had pulled her knees up to sit cross-legged in the chair, and she sat up, surveying the red and yellow decor around the restaurant, then her forest green pants, the way they gathered at the insides of her knees.

She looked at the friends at her table. The birthday girl, hands in pockets, a quick-witted, comical collar-puller, always up for making a good time; her long-time gals, ever-supportive and ever-giggly; Leah's good friend of years now, a girl whose consciousness Leah happened into by chance and fortune, a girl who listens, appreciates every word, asks about 'that film festival this summer,' and does not need a reminder of who 'my friend Betsy' is; and a guy who always seems to get her references, shared her interests and sly grins, who characteristically draws chuckles when he declares he 'loves his body."

Leah noted the shined table surface in front of her, now littered with small paper plates, covered with brownie crumbs. She focused on the over-sized clear plastic water cup that now floated several extinguished trick-candles. She thought about the drained double-A batteries in her camera in her room.

Around Leah and the bobbing multicolored wax candles, the table burst into laughter as Emily finished sharing an anecdote about her nephew.

Leah chuckled at Emily's remark, and smiled to herself. She soaked in her reality.

Next

Next, to bend my silver spoon
to take off into my wild
to read the relative universe

played 77 keys
seen the tree leaves turn
in turns
south through the Midwest
and soon,

as the world has my nod,
it'll snatch me again
like a tablecloth from under fine China
without much fuss

bound for the sharps and the flats
for the west, and
for the west-becomes-east

for the moon
and the wild, filigreed, bendable
spoon