La Luna

I walk the path sometimes at night
through my yard to the house.
I take great care to maintain the yard;
nature responds with her blooming beauty.

On dark, moonless nights
little can be seen.

On this night, I turn the corner to
catch sight of her-
a bright smile in a sea of darkness.
I am enchanted, entranced,
enthralled by the moonbeams that
cast a new glow on this garden
very different than the light of day.

I forget my path, my yard, my home.
I gaze dumbly at the sky and dream
that I could float away
to live in the sky with her.

I spend my night outside,
to watch as she crosses the sky.
I forget where I am, where I belong,
until the sun emerges in the east.

The moon loses her shine in the light of day.
The spell fades quickly as I remember my home.

Oral

I was probably right to be nervous,
lying on my back, looking up at her,
when she began to smear Vaseline
all over my lips.

I grew very tense as she pushed, prodded, and
tried to work herself into the proper spots.

I gave myself orders:
Relax.
Be loose.
Don't forget to breathe.

She kept at it with force,
with determination.

She knew what she wanted to accomplish;
all the cooperation she needed from me
was that I stay still and let her work her magic.

My tongue had gone numb, but I thought I tasted blood.
When it was over, she gave me antibiotics.
She'll take my stitches out in two weeks;

my gums should heal up nicely.

Delivering Papers

Winter in my childhood
was two solid months covered by snow—
late weekday evenings and early Sunday mornings,
long, empty sidewalks and quiet alleys;
my active young mind wandered aimlessly through fantasies
as my cold feet carried me purposefully along the daily route.

I stuffed the bottoms of my pant legs into the tops
of cheap plastic boots that sank well below
the bright surfaces of the snow.

Sometimes the flakes stopped falling
but held firm to the ground
while icy winds battered the upper layers
until they became a solid sheet.

If I stepped softly, slowly
I could walk across without breaking through.

Or, I could stomp a perfect foot-sized
hole, and use a stick to write my name by it.

Stage Fright

Every little sound echoes behind me
like whispers bouncing with the bright light
magnified because everything in the room
is white.

The paint on the wall in front of me is dull, flat,
but the ceramic tiles that cover so much
of the room's cold surfaces
and the bright clean porcelain of the sinks
leave me feeling like I have a floodlight
at my back.

The squeak of a faucet handle,
the paper towels being ripped from the wall,
sound like missiles flying and crashing down
as I try to focus and relax.

The only touch of color when I entered this
restroom of deafening whiteness
was the deep yellow tint in the basins of so many
urinals.

Every urinal, in fact, but the one directly in front of me.

Winter Rain on a Sunday in a Small Midwest City

I rested on a lofted bed
in the single-occupancy dorm room
of my first lover.
I did not love her; it was just that she
had made it easy for me.

Others before her tried, but this one reminded me
of the first girl I really loved—light-colored hair and eyes
that smiled warmth, smart but not boring,
raised Protestant but agnostic, ahead of me in our teenage years, and
woman enough to show some affection but
feminist enough to make me earn it.
The two even had the same name,
though one was Jenny; the other, Jen.

I looked down at Jen from the comfort of her loft
to see her smiling at me in her papasan
chair. I wondered for a moment,
what I was doing there.

It was a cold and quiet Sunday evening;
Jen had made macaroni and cheese.