"we are here to analyze and report"

A few years ago,
on the morning after Christmas,
I was sitting at the kitchen table
with my aunt eating breakfast.
It was snowing outside—
big, beautiful chunks,
covering the ground like thick,
vanilla cake frosting.
As I was dipping my toast—
drenched with warm, creamy butter—
into my cup of chocolate milk,
my aunt told me about
a dream she had the night before:
“I was in my old house
next to your grandmothers’.
It was late at night,
and I looked out the window
across the street, because
something caught my eye,
and I saw dozens of spaceships landing
in the high school parking lot.
They were beautiful—
their lights shining brilliantly
in every color, like traffic lights
or sunbeams shooting through stained glass.
As the ship doors slid open,
they walked out.
They looked just like us.
I ran outside and across the street
yelling, ‘What are you doing?
You can’t land here, everyone will see you!’
And they calmly replied,
‘Don’t worry Sheryl,
you’re the only one
who can see us.’”

We compared notes on
our own unexplainable sightings.
I told her about the ghosts
I’ve seen on Route 33,
and in my house,
and about the spaceship
I saw out in Plain City,
diving into the cornfields.
She told me about the saucer
she saw with my grandfather
over Lake Erie, how he explained,
“It is definitely not a military jet
or like any plane I’ve ever seen.”
and how after it flew away,
he said: “We speak of this
to no one, understood?
Because no one will believe us.”

I believe.

I believe some of us have
the gift of sight, and we are
sensitive to these happenings.
I still don’t know if it is
a blessing or a curse,
but in the words of my aunt:
“We are here to analyze and report.”
And I will dutifully do so,
because something tells me
I’m not documenting
and keeping these records
in vain.

sentimental motherly advice on the dancefloor at a wedding.

(ella fitzgerald is playing in the background)

“I wouldn’t worry too much
about finding someone,
there’s no doubt in my mind
that you will. And when you do—
whoever it is—just make sure
that they respect you
and treat you well.”

(sidebar: notice the lack of pronouns
and the ambiguous use of “they”—
I’m not polygamous, just gay.
But this may or may not be
an acknowledgement of my sexuality
and a blessing from my mother.
Thank god, because I really
didn’t want to have that conversation,
not because I’m ashamed—
though I’m slightly terrified
of disappointing them—
it’s just a dialogue
I never wanted to initiate.
Imagine, just for a moment,
how uncomfortable and awkward
that conversation would be.
Is it something you can
just casually bring up at dinner
as you’re passing the biscuits?
I think not).

To which I deflected,
“you’ve been drinking,
haven’t you?”

“No, I really mean it,
you’ll find someone.
I know it seems difficult to imagine right now,
but you will find someone.
Just make sure you don’t go into any relationship
thinking you can change the other person.
Because you can’t, and that logic
is a recipe for disaster.
You can only change yourself”.

(which is true,
"it’s only on the brink
that people find the will to change.
Only at the precipice do we evolve".
I guess I’m just waiting for
that defining moment.
I’m ready for my moment.)

“Thanks Mom”.

the month it didn't stop raining.

As the rain started to fall,
I gathered up my chalk pastels
and ran inside.
The colored markings on my concrete canvas
began to deliquesce, melting tragically
like the wicked witch of the west,
swirling into a murky and pasty, homogonous stew
and bled down the driveway into the gutters
until only ghostly remnants and pale contours
of the chalk drawings remained—
even though I was soaked to the bone,
I knew I wouldn’t wash away like my watercolors.

It rained for days.
The roads began to resemble rivers.
Children wrapped in bright yellow rubber
raced boats—folded from old newspaper—
down the flooded streets, and held out their umbrellas,
wishing a mighty gust of wind would carry them off into the sky.
Everyone became really good at hydroplaning.
I wondered if you were safe, warm and dry,
off in a bar somewhere, dazzling
the drunks, convincing them
that you could walk on water.

It continued to rain.
The streets dissolved like sugar candy.
When there was no higher ground to flock to,
everyone collected their precious family heirlooms,
treasures and tomato plants, and built ships:
some assembled makeshift boats
nailing together front doors, dressers and milk crates,
using bed sheets for sails and chandeliers for anchors,
some flipped their homes upside down,
turning them into arcs,
others built cathedrals in the trees
weaving beds in the branches
and nested with the birds.

Still the waters rose.
People’s limbs and wills began to rust.
Some lost their minds:
One man blindly thrusted his toilet plunger
into the sea, hoping to find and force out the clog,
pearl divers—and alcoholics wielding wine keys—
scoured the ocean floors,
searching for a cork to unplug the drain.
Some cast offerings into the salty depths,
hoping to please the rain gods, praying for the sun.
Others took matters into their own hands,
aiming home-made, piped cloudbusters at the sky,
attempting to change the weather.

Still the waters rose.
Salmon swam up the stairs of people’s houses,
coffins in cemeteries
rose from the loosened soil,
breaching the water’s surface
and floated through town like a parade
as their accompanying tombstones
stank like the rocks they were.

There was a time when I believed you were Midas,
because I was convinced everything you touched turned to gold.
Too bad gold sinks.

(Besides, I’d rather spin my own gold
for someone else:
on pins and needles, needles and pins
a patient man grins and grins.
Something in my heart tells me
riding out this storm
will be well worth the wait.)

you won't find love at ladies 80's night.

They say a watched pot never boils,
they also say love comes when you least expect it to.
Now, I’ve been doing my best to shun the metaphorical stove:
I sold my magic pasta pot at a junk yard sale a few months back,
I ceremoniously burned all my cooking instruments
and spinning wheels in a fiery heap—
I ripped out the sink entirely—
I simply left the kitchen with hopes of
somehow activating the laws of attraction via avoidance;
the results have been underwhelming.
Since my leave from the kitchen,
I’ve come to two conclusions:
1. out of sight does not necessarily mean out of mind.
2. avoiding the problem does not make any fucking sense.

When I was in mourning,
and my heart was a pincushion,
I knew what to do.
Even though I couldn’t prevent
the pins and needles from puncturing,
I at least knew what to expect,
I was prepared to hurt,
I was prepared to feel pain,
and I knew I could dress and tend to the wounds,
no matter how raw and tender they were,
and that they would eventually heal,
and that I could take codeine for pain.
Now that my heart is a black hole
I’m at a loss.
I don’t know how to fill this void.

If there is one thing I do know, it is this:
love is the answer.
I can feel it in my bones.
I can feel it when I’m climbing alone into an empty bed.
I want to conjure up something beautiful
I want to put a pearl in the ground,
I want to bury something precious
and watch it grow into something incredible.
And I want to do this WITH somebody.

And I know, for certain, that I won’t find him
at ladies 80’s night downtown.



I am aching to love.

Here I am.
I am ready.
Where are you?

these days.

These days, I wake just before dawn,
waxing with the sun in muted moments of pale luminosity,
and paint the east with the watercolors of morning.
Butter and cream melt across the milky heavens;
blushing roses subtly rouge the fair cheeks of daybreak—
and as the last stars are washed away
and the majestic, golden chandelier breaches the horizon,
thick streams of lustrous light glaze the sky with honey
and seep through my blinds, collecting like porridge
in syrupy pools of warmth on my bed,
heating my naked body.
These days, I whistle with the birds in their early morning reprise
and send my own mating song out into the wild.
I mow crop circles in the lawn signaling the aliens.
I paint my lips with red wine, and coat my lungs in tar.
I strum the dirty blues on the front porch,
and sit a spell with my kindred company in sturdy rocking chairs.
And when the skies darken and begin to brew
we back up the ’97 jeep Cherokee to the house
climb up the hood and onto the top of the car,
hoist ourselves onto the roof of the house
and welcome the storm
with sparklers and rockets.

on courtship

and sometimes
it seems the only thing
you can do
is cry out your mating song
and hope to god
that someone
will want to
harmonize with you.

a lover's discourse.

As we were catching up, you asked me,
"Do you have any love interests?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Who?" you queried.
And I responded, "Oh,
no one specifically,
I'm just interested in love in general."