Category: holidays

Brunch Poem Day 14 (mine).

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At the bar I answer three questions correctly
The difference between self-awareness

& self-consciousness is that one involves a strong
understanding of self and the latter may

prevent you from acting and The color of the first
humans was sandy soil and one other before

we drive  to the train station and back since Eoin
has left without saying goodbye. Tall people can’t

see me and one Guinness is enough and as
we exit once then twice through the back I throw

the fur of my hood over my eyes  and snakedance
my arms through the crowd and Hey tall people!

Betcha can’t see me now! Five dollars wasted
on the jukebox  isn’t so much but we never even

heard the songs and Eoin actually could use
that bill, may I have it back for him, please?

Even now, listening to Nina and thinking of Katie
tolerating an updo I can’t quite undo the smile

I started when I asked Eoin if I could quote him
on that (in the wake of his inquiry regarding why

I’ve never photographed him and years after
I wrote my first good poem with his name in the title)

and he responded with his elfish sense of right and wrong
Oh, so you’re asking my permission now?

Brunch Poem Day 10 (mine).

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How can we gesture
toward the gifts
that cannot be nestled
beneath a pine?

Can we repackage
what was intended
for us in order
to save
someone else?

How can we proffer
what we’ve learned
so that others
will know to pull
at the ribbon?

Where is the adhesive
than can press
a flap of paper
to the crest
of a forehead?

At what time can we begin
to slide a fingernail
beneath the fold
of what we’re told
was meant for us?

Who is the arbiter
of who gets
to open what
first?

What is the shape
the scent
the nom de plume
of sheepish
thanks?

Into which tank
shall we be funneled
so that the liquids
of the year
mull correctly?

Is this really
not
a test?

Brunch Poem Day 9 (mine).

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Oh bollocks thin
tight pants & suede
boots! I’m not prepared
for these parts & yet
we will ourselves
into a winter leisure
on the grass, the ground
not quite cold enough
to sprint from but also
not quite dry. It’s 9pm
when I voice my veto
for the glasses—it’s time
to swig and if not now
then when can you drink
straight from the bottle
with a friend who shares
your name? And so with drink
in tow & hats on ear
we fiddle down the His Side
of the street where pavement
squares aren’t as angled
by the roots. Hoo! the night
is colder than a witch’s
chest exposed to currents
and a swift eclipse & even if
the nightsky fails its task
to teach us of our smallness
& the exigence of whittled
mornings shared in bed,
we’ll have numbed the toes
of longing for this place
& named mistakes which now
in low degrees will be briskly fed
to desperate winter birds
like bread.

Brunch Poem Day 1 (mine).

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This is so not our job we hauled in
the Christmas tree dressed
in mom’s boots mom’s jackets

in the New York freeze, Sarah
with the meat cleaver at the trunk
knocking off stumps the both of us

sweating after the sawing second
step and even later still gloved because
This is so not our job! I’m facefirst

in the tree’s underside my hat stolen
by branches Sarah’s sweeping like a housewife
in a hat until at last the thing stands cornered

in its hoop skirt beside the fireplace
and the rug is spiked with scent
and the cat declawed