Skimming Stones

She feels the cool against her palm,
The weight upon her fingertips.
Somewhere a leaf falls.

Her foot breaks
The fragile leaves beneath her,
Fracturing dried veins,
Crushing soft pine needles.
The crack and snap
Echo through the trees
Reaching through the air.
Wind envelopes the newly fallen reds
And oranges, bearing
The leaves through the maze of brambles and branches.

Her hair cuts
Across her forehead and cheek,
Now pink with surfacing blood vessels.
She pulls her flannel around her,
The red plaid melting
With her surroundings.

The river water runs
Slowly gurgling and bubbling
Across gravel and sand,
Leaking into a lake: a crudely cut
Shelf of glass.

Flicking her wrist, she releases
The stone.
It slides through her fingers
That twitch to cling
To smooth, cold surface
As if it carries her life.
It stone breaks the glass,
Shattering the smooth surface.

The wind picks up.
Somewhere a leaf falls.

Raspberries

The earliest memory
I have is picking raspberries
off the fence in my backyard.
I remember the wooden boards towering
over me, covered in deep green vines
creeping over the wood like hands,
like fingertips
(they covered
The fence in a green net).
Raspberries sprinkled the fence,
fat and red.
Their bubbly, waxy surfaces fascinated me,
and I rolled the berries between my fingers,
around my smooth palms.
The juice would leave tracks on my hands:
tiny trails of pink and red,
(as if I were painting
and my hands were my canvas).
I’d bite down on the berries
and purse my lips
(my nose would wrinkle, too)
as the sour juice burst into my mouth.
I rolled
and twisted my tongue
munching on the fleshy mush,
biting occasionally on the tiny seeds.
I’d stand in the sun
for hours plucking
berries off the fence,
holding them in my hands,
in my mouth
in my cheeks.
I never actually liked raspberries,
(But I always imagined myself layered
behind petticoats and lace,
picking berry
after berry,
in a courtyard from centuries
before my time,
like the fairy tales
I saw in movies).

And Suddenly There is a Shift

It was a gray day:
Clouds drifting in and out
of each other.
The sunlight peeked through the masses
every once in awhile to let us all know
that it was still there.
I blink as a knock invades
the quiet chatter in the room,
Three doctors:
2 men
1 woman
walk in, smiling
their starched white coats
hang loosely around their waists.
I fake a smile and wave.
As soon as his eyes move onto the mechanical bed
My face droops back into my disconnected stare.
My eyes trace the wires
lolling around her bed,
twisting in and out of each other like snakes.
Her white sheets wrapped haphazardly
across the mattress.
The IV buzzes and a few droplets
of clear fluid fall into the plastic tube
that twirled in and out of the air,
leading down
down
down
to her hand, wrapped in gauze,
hiding the needle resting inside her vein
pumping the fluid slowly
into her resting body.
I run my eyes along her hand,
transparent skin resting atop weak muscles.
Her face, suddenly frail and small
stares up at the doctor
worry and confusion draped across her eyes.
The bed hums as it shifts the weight
distribution.
She holds her hands atop her stomach,
shaking, but only slightly.
She juts her jaw out and claims there are options,
pushing the tears back from her eyes,
looking sternly at the man who's unraveling her fate.
My eyes catch his,
and then I fall back to her,
then to the small table:
a half eaten bag of Fritos,
her address book,
several duly colored brochures --
"Coping with Cancer," among other catchy slogans.
I drift in and out of the conversation,
not yet saying a word
but thinking only how much I can't stand
to see this happen
right before me.
To stand back and watch the sands of time fall before my face
with no control
no decision
nothing
nothing
nothing but memories.
As anger intrudes my silent thoughts
a loud beep breaks my trance,
and I jump slightly and look for the source.
The male doctor excuses himself and shifts the weight in the room,
leaving. His white coat fluttering
with his quick steps.
I glance over at my mother,
her face pale,
and she seems as weak as my grandma
flailing against the hands of time slapping us in the faces.
The bed groans as she moves her feet, only a few inches.
She fiddles with her nails, perfectly rounded, even, healthy.
Gauze and tape trample her well aged hands.
I look down at my hands, like hers.
I have her hands,
her blood coursing through my veins, hidden
but only because of youth.
The doctor holds her hand and smiles,
and we thank the doctors,
and slip away again as the door slides shut
and their mumbled voices float further away.

Depth

A passing afternoon
sun sliding through the ocean sky
sprinkled with tattered clouds.
Shaded ferns weave
between the bougainvillea
blooming like rapture.
Stretching hands of the sun
reach for the girl lying soft on the lawn.

A lost moth fluttered against her calf,
glowing in the warmth
from the sun gliding across her fragile figure

swollen with passion

and fevered by dreams of fading memories.

She leaks into the earth
seeping between the cracks of dirt and slivers of grass.

She is gilded by the sun,
her breath like dust.
Her hands hold a universe and her eyes believe
in the traveling body.

The golden star that paints her
sets, and she knows
someone will die in these arms,

one day.

Night breathes its first breath,
like an infant fresh from the womb,

and there is light inside me.

Too Much

You're drunk, go
to bed.
You've spilled
my last bit
of Scotch
on the couch,
you bastard.
No, the amber
does not accentuate
the floral pattern
on the pillows.
But first, give
me your last cigarette.

Broken

The bar mumbles
and shifts under the weight
of the night.
Slim sober crooked men blossom
with each amber drink.
In the corner, a brackish
beauty shuffles blades
and whittles Time,
and the men stare and sizzle
with just a flick of her fingers.
The dim lamps cast shadows,
hiding her face,
her hair melting into the wall behind her,
her face pale like a ghost,
eyes gleaming.

The bartender wipes the wood
with a swish swish swish,
mesmerizing the man with the beard,
his whiskers wafting the scent of cheap wine,
his eyes following the swish swish
of the towel.
He takes a sip from his glass,
and then slides the empty cup away.
The bartender throws the towel
over his shoulder, and pours
him another, before going back
to dusting the bar.

In the bathroom, the crooked
sink is crumbling
below the broken cracked
face of the old woman.
She peers into her reflection,
drags her fingers across her cheek,
and sighs
before turning toward the door.

The lights flicker and the bar hushes,
only for a moment,
before the swish swish swish
fills the empty air again.

Splintered

I looked up toward the shifting clouds
and I noticed it had grown darker.
You looked at me as your cigarette smoke
swirled around your head,
and I remember your eyes:
big, brown, dishonest.
Our steps quickened as tiny
droplets sprinkled the pavement,
appearing almost out of nowhere.
I remember our reflections
in the cars: distorted and confusing,
one after another.
Our silence thickened the air
and suffocated my pores.
You ran ahead to unlock the doors
and turned back to smile at me,
but I grew fixated
my Marlboro, and the thin
smoke it released
once the flame caught hold.
I slid into the passenger seat,
lonely on leather
and suddenly feel too young again
and stripped of my flesh.
Though it was raining, my body
was deeply penetrated by evening warmth
and your thundering atmosphere still hovered in mine,
splintering my body into millions
of slices and shards, and I remember
counting the droplets
of rain covering the windshield:
they were like pock marks.
I remember you looked at me
like I was speaking in tongue
like I had lost my mind completely.
You bore holes
right through my brain
and you told me I’ve got it all wrong:
and I remember imagining you
grabbing hold of my thumping,
anxious heart,
and ripping it right through my clenched teeth,
and you held it too tightly
until it burst,
spattering across my chest
and face.
I shook the image from my head, and we pulled
out of the parking lot.
You put your hand
on my thigh and smiled,
but I turned away.