i'll be your heart today

she said, "it can't be like this anymore."

"for over two years, i've been waving a magic wand over your forehead while you sleep."

"fairy dust aside, it's not helping you decode me."

he said, "when i look in the mirror, every whiny pore wants to kick the glass."

"and i'm scouting for a magazine article that can tell me i've been doing it all right, all the time, for all these years."

"i'm bracing myself for the corner of a book in the face."

"well sometimes i want to flick you between the eyes," she said. "and why can't you do what all those surreptitious boys promise in songs?"

"songs with organs that hum things like 'your parts that glow' and 'oh my god when you cross your legs beside me,' and everything else that makes my teeth hurt."

"because i'm nothing like those boys, with barbie hair," he said. "when i happen upon you chattering to yourself in the bathroom, or wearing snow boots in your underwear at the computer, munching on cinnamon sticks, i will still call out to you on the sidewalk. i will still reach for your hand. even when you tug it away."

"shhh," she said, resting her pinky on his lips.

"i'll make you a sundae."

a sea of heads, looking down

she said, "here, people smell like hamburger."

"and women talk about their children and flabby husbands in the bathroom, blocking the paper-towel dispenser."

"and you know what guy? i think one of these days, i'm gonna lose my lunch on your blackberry."

she brought me here

i was listening, and i wasn't. picking at a pear salad on a stark plate. and then i looked across the table and realized, my mom is the most beautiful woman i've ever seen.

i'm not making any promises

you think i could be your shadow. or a ghost, of a hermit crab. maybe a starfish, drinking tea with a rabbit in my hat. you are spare. not having it. a fresh egg squirming. simply loving your dad. and the view from up there. and the streams in the floor, where your tippy toes are stretching for water. cold pin balls chasing each lengthy crack.

we're not responsible for what we see

every hour, you're waiting, in an aquarium. you're in it but you don't know what it is. an arcanum. it might be fur, or helium, but it's swelling your throat and you can't even shrug. next to you, on the night stand, is a card from your grandmother. a card with a turtle-fish in a bowl, hooked to a rod carried by an aging bird with a strip of red in its neck feathers. this prompts you to grab your own neck. to feel the possible expansion since last time. you think to look outside for a long-lost twin brother or the mailman or anything, and you see a squirrel, carrying an untouched piece of pizza into and up the column on your porch. this is haunting, and you hurt, so you put on your pashmina and hurry out to greet it, to tell it you'd like to research it, put it in a beaker, maybe sprinkle some holy water. and it laughs as it spits at you and disappears.

but later, you find it praying in the basement.