Glad You're Moving In

Perched on a stool,
as one be-speckled
gargoyle over Paris, my love.

As fine in a red shirt
as on a cold night
those two arms can sink
the ships of my heart
send up fireworks
to celebrate
the drowning of stars.

This part, my heart,
played by a ukulele orchestra
with toes, not fingers
on instruments crafted
by a master craftsman
and sold at auction.

I outbid, I did.

If afternoons
a lake stretched out
under the iron of July heat
then my heart
under the surface is
disturbing the fish.

Tell it plain -
you cannot go around
making a girl ineffectual like this,

cataloguing for a lover's almanac:
quantities of orange light
the subtle angle of collar bones,
all things whispered


Prediction:
another season
of missed appointments.

All this by way of saying
still crazy about you.
Still!

The Day MJ Died

It is 4:55 in Vancouver a Thursday,
the day after St. Jean Baptiste yes
it is 2009 and I try to call Heather
on the bus home from work but she doesn't pick up
and I think maybe she's working
the night shift at the hospital and
won't be home for hours.

I get off at Vine St. and
straight to the market where the
avacados spring back from my touch
and all the berries are rolling downhill
from ripe - everything smelling
of summer fingers.

It rained this morning,
but now blue skies. I get asked for
change twice before the bakery.
I want plain bread. Four rolls
to rip apart.

When I enter the apartment
he is listening to Billie Jean.
All the wires in the world
buzz with jokes
but I can only think of that snowstorm
in February of 1984. How I lay in the dark
of my best friend's bedroom
listening to Thriller
while the city filled with snow
and six blocks over my sister was born.

House Guest

When the kitten showed up,
I was unprepared.

It stretched its talons
and yawned -
began to unpack the photographs
of its family vacations.

I had not put down plastic
on my furniture.
I had not purchased a litter box.

I felt uncomfortable
because it wanted me to find it cute.
I am never living up
to the expectations of others.

And it would not answer
the basic questions
on my questionnaire
for potential roommates,
such as Sex? M? F?

In the end I had to ask it to leave.

There was a big kerfuffle.
It deleted me from Facebook.
It told my acquaintances
that it thought I was psychotic -
but like literally - actually psychotic -
technically.

And this one time
we passed each other on the street
and I was pretty sure it saw me -
but it just kept walking.

It's tail in the air
like a proudly waving flag -
claiming its ass for Spain
all the way to the intersection.

Catalogue of Items Picked Up By My Boyfriend During His World of Warcraft Adventures

1. Shoveltusk Soup

Warms to the extremities.
To the very twitching fingers.
A product of the safari mentality,
it becomes a piano in the gut.
Plays show tunes that gurgle,
burp in a lower register.

Goes well with crusty bread.

2. Lesser Blessed Mittens

Have been blessed,but only casually.
Do not block fingers from January wind.
Smell like wet dog.
Have been coughed into twice.
Are misshapen in the thumb.
Disappointing, at best.

3. The Ultrasonic Screwdriver

Assembles, disassembles - but faster.
So that at the end of its turning
there is no memory of what was before.

Only
one perfect shelving unit
or ten shelves on the floor.