Poem When I think of you, you’re happy. You crack a smile mid-thought during a red light on a summer day. You sigh and stretch your arms back with a big exhalation at the end. Maybe your toe taps to that one song with the guitar and the chorus we know by heart. I’ll hear you singing off key and we laugh because of the joy it brings us. Maybe you’re not moving, maybe you’re just waking up, sleepy and cheerful. You’re holding a cup of coffee while leaning against the sink, that golden gorgeous morning light bathing you. When I think of you I hope you’ve found your sunshine. I hope it’s as good as you knowing I’m happy, too.

Erotic Haiku The night comes early ushered in by softened light Autumn has arrived — • — • — • — My bedside lamp glows in bright pink light, soft with sex Feminine on me — • — • — • — I want you here, now Setting molecules ablaze Explosive with lust — • — • — • — Sing me your love thoughts Hold my hands, wind up my hair Kiss me up my spine — • — • — • — Lips writing love notes One kiss, I love you more

Life A pink, faceless torso drives my car around the board between Paydays and mandatory stop signs it skates with and around other cars filled with more faceless torso’s, casually plunked like pegs into tiny holes filling game pieces and we use them to count our pace with the click click click of soft plastic against cardboard, we slap wax-papered cards down with each “achievement” knowing it’s not real, none of it is, not even a little bit, but here comes another draw of the deck and here we are, owning homes, adding more blue and pink pegs we muster our luck, we push through the hardships, we get to the eventual end having said “I suppose it was what it was” and surrender it all back to the board, again

Aloner-ship The man at the bank asks me if I’m ready (about thirty times) to commit to pay for bricks and pipes a patio door that creaks when opened trees keeping secrets I do not know walls that will be freshly painted neighbors who befriend neighbors who spy for exactly thirty years Then came signing the repetitive letters making up my legal name It came full stop at the sight of my legal name —

MARKET DAY Your pockets are full, but did you get enough? Be quick — a woman slurs — and slowly steps off the curved pavement. Flowers slowly growing in grouped bunches Branches swaying overhead . . . Scared maybe? Scared of what, the wind? The sly, sharp-moving wind? Who knows…

The months between May and September around and within Texas’ wide borders and central plains are undoubtedly volatile. The early idea of Summer has faded and become a reality — from now on, there will be rash-inducing heat, a choking heat, a burn from outside into within to such an…