Kitchen

There is a smell in the kitchen,
Like stale silver oxidizing in the cupboard.
Unused, and arrogant.
You ignored the smell yesterday
At breakfast. But I
Heard you sniffing, and saw
Your nostrils a flare.

So are you going to set the mousetrap 
Or am I?

These Dirty Dishes

please
engage me with your eyes
and not a complicit ring on that finger
because somnambulant pride is really dribble drabble
a complete waster

my slippery digits dousing discount dishes
warm and pruned
check once and twice for leftover pieces
clasping wanting wares of a finished meal
your legs bend and bicker with squeaky sneakers and dirty laces
a-line body leaning against my kitchen counter
verbal nuances zig and zag from your mouth
so cavernous on the good days
and tightly pressed on the bad

Desperate to keep them busy
I dip my hand deep into a sink filled with cleaned silver
and pretend as though there is more to be found
by the plug I will not pull
because then i would dry them
and have to face you
show you my expression of a deeply disgraceful sadness
please don't stand there looking at me with those liquid eyes
they write about in novels
you have to leave me here and alone
because i don't have the strength to be your woman.

I Will Never Be A Mother Again

We do this little ditty
in the room with the least privacy
urging the whole world of no one
to interpret what we say when
eyes drip and drop to sleep
and nose hairs rattle snake shake

no i don't trust you but that's not your fault
track records be damned, i seek bravery in the face of a scary duo
gently held for a time, in confidence and organic order

moments like these are the icons of life
the slathering of stimuli, mixed amongst debris and other such
little things to collect, like stamps, or china cups

but sitting in my kitchen, hunting floor tiles
your longer legs twined in mine,
tall above me, watching my synapses fire
in brain matter mostly moist
evincing nothing because
(to be frank) you're no magician
and what you want is to hold my hand and be sung
sweet little diddies to help you sleep soundly and
digest daintily the atrocious actions of days gone by

as though i could write cheesy and epiphantic lines
like bobby dylan riddles, humble and wrecked
but past and proven, just for you

i will never be a mother again
not for you not for her not for him not for no one.

Un Love

these breasts of mine drift away on clouds
flickering with lightnings of first descent
cold as snow peaks with twice the echo,
where confusion and fear and uncertainty abound.

this is how our nights spend their time it seems
lonesome and lost and wondering aloud on dreams
what kind of world is thinking about themselves,
when the last refuge of the damned is divine?
oh god, divine.

i will come by tonight and check on you
more to say, if you wrap your cast around me,
my breath will draw the last trace of definite doom
along the line of our cotton sheets.

D-D-Don't

Don't go softly into any good night. I'll dream of your barefeet
padding along the concrete, sparkling with shattered sand, sender
unknown. In the end here's what I think really happened
when we were (relatively) young. Just because
yours is the only name on the ballot doesn't mean
you will to win. I'll make sure you look hard for what you get.
Act four: Job. Security. I can curl up however I need when the
lights go out. I'm no wife, but a partner. Don't forget that, we need
too much affection in such a bristly place. Me?
I'll be satisfied no matter the outcome of life.
In order to breathe there is no other choice.
That being said:
The best part of my day is when I crawl out of my uniform.