In Which I Miss Her Already.

She wasn't my grandmother.
In the end, you know,
she wasn't anyone I knew.
Really, she wasn't anyone at all.
She was grey and bones,
and skin,
and tubes and blankets and coughs,
like some sci-fi alien monster
out to destroy or rule the world,
or both.
But three weeks ago, and four, and five,
and all that time before,
she was Pepsi first thing in the morning
and she was Midwestern beer at midnight.
She was TMZ and 12:30 p.m. and Judge Judy at 3 p.m.
and history books at 7.
She was pixie cuts and CoverGirl and she was,
"This is much too big for me, do you think
it might fit you?"
She was fudge and glass candy at Christmas,
she was ham on Easter,
she was the best Thanksgiving stuffing anyone
could ever make.
She was crazy earrings and too-big dentures and
she was every sale at Kohl's and Wal-Mart and Big Lots.
She was Fox 10 News, Sherriff Joe's biggest fan and
Obama's biggest critic, and
God help you if you had a visible tattoo,
or worse, a piercing.
And she was there,
always cheering,
always loving,
always willing to lend a hand or
a shoulder or
a book or
just a word.
She was my grandmother.
She was my Gramma.
And now she isn't.

RIP Barbara Janet Jacobson
Feb. 11 1938- Dec. 14 2010

In Which My Skin Feels Like I Have a Fever.

can we just live in
arms, please?
in my arms and yours,
wrapped
wholesome and warm,
and never leaving you
nauseous from your thighs
to your ribcage
aching from your scalp
to your fingertips,
never leaving you burning
bones to skin or
shaking in between --
never leaving you at all?

In Which I'm Wearing BPAL's "Ulalume" and It's Making Me Feel Like a Faerie.

it's easy forget
(or pretend to ignore)
those little things
those
add-it-up knock-you-down
slings and arrows
when you're freshly showered
and smell like a poem
or when someone sleeping
is beautiful enough to merit
kisses that
only you will remember
or
when you never leave
your bed,
your
soft comforter and clean sheets.

In Which I Think Maybe I'll Give Myself Weekends Off Of This.

it's only sort of
in spiders crawling under
sunrise-golden door frames
or in breeze-ruffled
oleander-petal afternoons or
in evening sips of cold red wine
through previously parched lips
or even in the burning
incense that takes me back to
starlit-jasmine summer nights
when everything was
not better but less hard
not softer but less responsible
not lonely but less full of you.

In Which I Describe My Weekend/Monday In Stupid and Disjointed Haiku.

Saturday:

Even after so
few hours, your scent lingers on
these blue-moon bedsheets.

Chattering and smiles
should be given more credit
for the lives they save.


Sunday:

Every day should be
so lullingly spent in dreams,
so full of heartbeats.

I wonder if Jane
shows off her pubes in heaven
and laughs at her fans.

Monday:

The day flies right by
when instead of headset scripts
you've got vampire sex.

Even words on screens
are better than solitude
on scorching Mondays.

In Which I Just Took Melatonin So This Might Make No Sense.

lovers dance in words
amongst the stars,
over living hills
and
into the dreams of the
crumpled and the dry,
lost, or old,
the lonely or
just alone in a bed,
fifty miles
or a tank of gas
and two or so hours
away from
the one whose sleepy sighs
are peace enough on
most nights.

In Which I Make Saturday's Real Post

Mornings seem more like
timeless
when eyes open, not harshly,
but flutter slow
to warm breath
on shoulderblades.

Skin
on
skin
on
skin
on
lips
is better than caffeine
or even taurine and guarana,
and, baby, I'll be wired
long after you've gone
this afternoon.

But I'll be here when you get back,
of course,
still nursing my
burger-and-fry brunch,
cuz you know they had it right
back in '55 when a malted milkshake
or cherry-syrup Coke
was an unspoken metaphor
and the food was almost as good
as Lover's Lane.