Into the Wild Blue[Africa]

Yes, I AM stealing my thread title from the last two years. This probably won't go that well, but I'm trying it out anyway.

Spoiler

1. Simplicity Itself
2. Good Days
3. Love
4. Ten Feet Tall (or, Teaching)
5. April Showers
6. Springtime
7. SUBMITTED
8. [untitled so far]
9. [another untitled one for now
10. #tenrandomfactsaboutme
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April 2nd. 1/30

Simplicity Itself

Potage parmentier is
simplicity itself.
To make or to eat, I'm not sure.

Potage parmentier is
simplicity itself,
but simple does not mean easy.
Otherwise,
life would be simple
simple as a bowl of leek and potato soup.

But credit cards and drive-thrus,
just-add-waters, instant meals,
online job applications,
and 4G
don't make life simple.
Just easy.

Potage parmentier is
simplicity itself.
Not easy, precisely,
but simple
and simply delicious.

April 2nd. 2/30

Good Days

"Have a nice day,"
I tell the old woman.

She says,
"I'm going to, honey.
That's the only way
to get a good day:

You have to make it one."

I'll have to play with this one more later. Or next month. Either way.

April 4th. 3/30

Love

She told me,
It's as if you saw someone
across a chasm
and fell toward him.
And in the middle,
you caught each other.
It's amazing.

Yes, I think: amazing
the way a tidal wave
is amazing.
Now the two of you
are suspended over a rift
reaching down to the earth's bowels.
If one of you lets go,
you will tumble into the abyss.

I like to think
it's as if you saw someone
across a chasm
and walked for miles
over stones and rubble, the desert,
parched and aching,

until you find a bridge.
And in the middle,
you meet
and quench each other's thirst.

April 5th. 4/30

Ten Feet Tall (or, Teaching)

Some days,
I drown in children.
Their
you ain't my mama-s
little boy!-s
stop touching me-s
the way they call for me
every other minute.
This is too hard
He's touching me
Are we done yet?
I come home dragging
sobbing

I can't do this

Other days:
the scent of success is sharp.
I swoop through the room
like a hawk
listening,
watching,
telling them

Yes,
you do have to write five words
No,
you may not use the bathroom
I should not hear any talking

and when the room goes silent,
I am ten feet tall.

April 20th. 5/30

April Showers

In April,
the trees out the window
are mantled in blossoms like
newfallen snow.

April 20th. 6/30

Springtime

People abound with
goodwill
the way the gardens
abound
with hyacinths.

April 29th. 7/30

[POEM REMOVED FOR SUBMISSION PURPOSES]

April 29th. 8/30

[untitled so far]

I crave you. Not like the desert craves
rain, which is what people
always say.

People are wrong.
The desert does not crave.
She sleeps,
waiting
for her allotted centimeters.

If I slept so,
my heart would sheathe itself
in waxy leaves. In the glacial night,
it would race across the sands,
too fast for viper or fennec or
falling temperatures. I would crave you
like the desert craves rain--
which is to say,
not at all.

I am not so dry and vast.
I am a rainforest, teeming
with secret rustlings and matings.
Waterfalls thunder in my veins.

You move through me like a panther
in the night, a silky pelt slinking
through the shadows, paws padding
down my back.
Your teeth are gentle on my shoulder.

Soak into my skin like
the rain on a dart frog's bright back,
the droplets glittering on
bromeliads and the smooth skin
of river dolphins.

I crave you like the rainforest craves
its quenching meters, the deluge
it cannot do without.
The floodwaters that drive the cycles
of birth and death, growth and rot.
Life from life:
the way I flourish in your light.

April 30. 9/10

[another untitled one for now]

My name falls from your lips like
a star streaking through the heavens.
A wish I made with all my might
answered in the single moment
I saw its brilliance
shooting through the night.

April 30. 10/30

#tenrandomfactsaboutme

i.
in and out like the ocean
my lungs, my heartbeat,
corpus
every tendon and muscle
strong
in a way I never thought I was.

ii.
naked and trembling
with cold or nerves or pleasure
I can't say
the sun on my back,
a gift,
like the stars and moon.

iii.
pounding the pavement
in canvas sneakers and a hoodie
learning the city
through streets and sidewalks,
alleyways,
the little ranches and Cape Cods.

iv.
tree bark rough
beneath my fingertips
in and out like my lungs,
my heartbeat
strong
one body breathing all together.

v.
alone in a restaurant
naked pleasure
I can't say
I need someone
to feel good in my own skin.
I am enough.

vi.
streets and sidewalks
under my feet and I sweat
my way through the city
heartbeat quickening
breathing free
singing a song of myself.

vii.
one body breathing all together
you and I
a communion of souls
and skin on skin
beautiful silent loud strong
rocked to sleep like an ocean.

viii.
I am enough
and it is new.
I have never been enough
for myself.
Now,
strong and happy and good.

ix.
singing a song of myself,
I laugh at the wind
and sky
and sun.
heartbeat quickening,
breathing free.

x.
strong in a way I never knew
I was
naked and trembling
learning the city in and out
like my lungs, my heartbeat.
I am enough.