Confessions of a heartless thing

this is what I see
with every switch of my head
and under-breath mutterings.
a woman, not healthy
her mind exposed to
the “human condition,” that is
inhumane reality.

I am a quitter, can’t stick
with things you know, even those that matter
the most. And I think
what a terrible person I’ve turned out to be,
not because my heart was exposed
to inhumane realities,
but because it wasn’t.

This is a brittle
sheet of ice below me – a balancing act
and my ears are already ringing.

fruits in the winter

a girl in love trembles
and waits in the February cold.
her blueberry veins cringe through paper wrists,
sudden quiverings of hands no longer
limber enough to write–
her letters are frozen.

i had cranberries for breakfast and read that she
had died in the cold last night,
waiting for you.

Letters from Madinah

Madinah was my dream
but you packed your bags and my heart–
traded it in for a one-way airplane ticket.

Your hair is falling out,
and your chin disappearing under a beard.
Your rusted Arabic voice barters,
marble floors and thin slices of heaven.
I hear the vendor laugh, he can always tell
about foreigners, and charges you extra.

I stayed up late to make sure you had
these warm smiles and tea before your trip
from the snow dunes of Toronto
to sand.

I see your smile sipping bitter coffee in a dusty street café,
watching bottles of coke being manually refilled.
There you are, listening to quiet
and shuffling off in tattered slippers to
prayer before sunrise, white lines on the horizon.

Fajr in my hands, and what I have remaining are
your grainy accounts of life
emptied into your letters from Madinah.

This old man, smoking
and smiling, asks me
to trust him. Ashes to ashes-
an ashtray of a life.

Pencil markings,
shards of breathing dust
and city grit mark my lungs
on a gasping canvas.

To be read with Spiders

I pick her up at the beach,
the spectacle that she is.

To her I rehearsed this conversation often:
first was the part where I swore my timeless love.
And then the part where she laughs
at me; cruel and impenetrable.

My name is beautiful
and my eyes are
two dots behind spectacles.
Often mispronounced,
misinterpreted in the quiet shell
of a woman

This is a woman under chickpeas
and a heart that hides behind the
sound of waves.

He picked me up off the sand,
the spectacle that I was.

though we have departed

Maybe I will find you
amongst the old notes
I keep, with names etched in margins.

Maybe I will find you amongst
dusty photographs, under toothless
smiles and in pear trees.

Though we have departed, maybe in my dreams I’ll find you
just like the dried flowers I find in my old books.

February, again

Now
I get into the car,
and the rings on each of their fingers
reflect the sun,
an inherent beauty;
the rainbows I’ve missed
these few years.

A year in full
and still, for all the snowmen
soft music and
figurines,
I am not happy.

a french word

Here are some thoughts circling in my head: the french word for headache, why I insist on not accepting medication from people, and love letters written by a friend in class and stuffed into a pack of gum.