i still use kid shampoo.

the air tonight was heavy with the traces of a summer that i would never hold: a syrupy, sweet thickness of sticky popsicles and hand-squeezed lemonade that made me instinctively pedal faster, knowing this indulgence was far too rich for me.
families &sidewalks of streets, lazy summer dinners, night-time readings, and bed-time prayers floated just above my head, just past the place where i could comfortably reach-[oh, but if i stretched just a little bit farther...]
&you, with all 99 of your red, hope-filled balloons, reminding me that you`re off soon: to wherever those dreams touch down.
ask me if i`d like to come along for the journey, for company, or just for someone to talk to, perhaps.
but i cannot leave the ground so easily, with that lost summer floating so lackadaisically close to my brain.
&so i instinctively pedal faster and faster, hoping the dust will cover you in my wake.

pt. 2.

"don`t mind the colour, they were all i could find," he explains.

oh, Jose. you are a favourite.

why she`s better than you. [&me]

he delivers babies, too.

black oaks.

"Okay,

not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance &comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays carp &whistle all day in the branches, without the push of the wind.

But to tell the truth after a while I`m pale with longing for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen &you can`t keep me from the woods, from the tonnage of their shoulders, &their shining green hair.

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain.

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another -- why don`t you get going?

For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

&to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don`t want to sell my life for money, I don`t even want to come in out of the rain."

-M.O.

Okay,

the bridge of my nose has a little scrape in it.
[but i don`t mind.]
&i wouldn`t have it any other way.
but it seems that my features, once unabashedly child-like and cool,
have grown warmer, older now, in the papery arms of the coastal suns.
as for today, i can`t think of any thing better than resting my cheek on mama`s tiled kitchen floor, &
maybe humming a little bit.
but, what was that you said? you don`t care about that?
you want to know what i had for lunch?
oh.

i don`t want to let go of the wrists

i liked your teeth & floral print skirt,
&even though my one-bird aviary pales in comparison to your full-fledged menagerie...
hi, [i don`t mind.]
stranger[`s] paths have crossed,
if only for a couple of minutes.
thanks for looking me in the eyes, shaking my hand, &
oops.
how am i going to get my bicycle home, again?

965

some times i wear dirty shirts &shoes, out of forgetfullness.
& why is that man still playing fetch with his doberman on the lawn?

w: "i cut my thumb! look!"
[i look. minor injury.]
a: "i think you`ll survive. do you want a band-aid?"
w: "nah. but you know what?"
a: "no, what?"
w: "i like my grandfather`s hands."
a: "what do you like about them?"
w: "i like that they`re old and cut and wrinkled. it`s because he was in the war. i hope mine look like that some day."
a: "they will."