March 21 - Untitled, Theater Class

Running my finger tips along your spine is like running my hand across the Appalachian Mountains on the globe on your desk.  It has been locked in place since you found it in your basement, always prominently displaying America.  Your parents myst have been nationalists, they have made it forever spring here.  I can imagine hearing the bloom of trees forever about to flower.  It is the sound of rustling sheets.  I want to draw a map with my finger tips, turning you into a facsimile of the globe.  Adding states borders and rivers and forests.  Mountains and valleys.  But you laugh when I start naming the peaks, and you turn over.  Making it winter on our own little American map.

March 20 - Coffee Shop Flirt

Before she found herself racing to take her shirt off as he watched, excited even by the glimpse of her waist, she bought him coffee.

A magazine had told her that it was "a simple, effective way to flirt" and she'd seen it done in movies and he was cute and both of them really needed to get laid so she made her move.

"And whatever he's having." That's how she'd closed her order.  It nearly sent the barista into confused apoplexy.  In addition to a summer Sweet Tea, she got a mocha latte.  She hates mocha.  But it gave them something to talk about as she handed him his second of the morning.

So she races now not out of eagerness - she does not know nor particularly like this man - but out of necessity.  She will stop if he doesn't start soon...

March 19 - Untitled

I wish I did not know you.
I would not imagine us
curled together - ribs lining up
like a zipper - and warm.

I wish I did not know your house:
warm, inviting - it smells like home
on TV, of food and love, and
like the cast has not yet heard cut.
Our director yells cut an awful lot in my house.
My parents stop acting
and we go back
to hating each other.  When people
cannot see.

No one has ever yelled cut on us.
But still I wish I did not know you.
For then I would not know these things.
And I would not miss our talks.

March 18 - Nice Girls Do

She sits in class and glances.  Smoothing an awkwardly too long skirt over her knees, crossing one leg over another, she tries to look desireable.  She cannot.

She sits in class and glances.  Remembering the lessons her mother taught her. Don't run, only thieves and children run.  Ladies wear their skirts longer, no man wants what he can see walking to first period. And others.  And she realizes that her mother was wrong.  If they can't see it, they cannot know it's there.

She sits in class and glances.  She is a nice girl.  She does not get the boy.  She sits alone.

March 17 - Untitled, Math Class

Across the hallway is a blazer casually thrown across a chair, suggesting the idea that the owner is perpetually about to return and claim her seat.
It is a woman's blazer. Highly designed.
          Impractical, unopenable pockets.

I can see them.

She has not yet returned.

March 16 - Watching

Watching the woman you love go out on a date is painful.

Watching her go out with a guy is even worse.

            It suggests a hopelessness so total and so complete that it over comes you.

But watching her date fall apart, that is a new kind of hell.

Because this is envy fulfilled.  What made you jealous has been swiftly and surely taken away.

And you must support her, because she is your friend and she assures you it wasn’t a date anyway

March 15 - Thursday, September 13

A chill ran through my body that day.

I once heard a poet talk about our death days.  Those days on which we will one day die.  Shakespeare died on his birthday, which – in addition to ruining the party – makes for some easy headstone math.  We never celebrate these days, but perhaps they are the best days.  The world celebrates for us by throwing us a bone.  Our favorite songs line up on the radio, or it’s the perfect temperature.  Something like that.

So perhaps this was not my death day.

Perhaps, as an old Samuel once told me, a goose walked over my grave.  It sent a chill through my body that would not leave.  It sunk into my bones and made them lead.  I shivered and jittered my way through a thoroughly average day.  That goose must have stayed put.  The chill stayed so long in my body that I thought I would never be warm again.

March 14 - Dancing

I imagine us dancing.

(Nothing more)

Your hands look so strong.

I want to hold myself to you,

Lash myself to you,

Lean on you.

I have always imagined us dancing.

One arm strewn lazily across your shoulders,

(Warren said we missed out on learning to dance)

my head against your chest.

Rocking back and forth

Waiting to be carried away on the current of the rhythm.

March 13 - Old Stories: The Foundation of Athens

A cab driver once told me a story…

The campaign was neck and neck.  The Woman: wise and strong on defense.  The Man: upper crust, good with horses, and a navy man with a temper to shake the earth.  The city faced a tough choice.  Both candidates were capable, both willing, both willing to fight to the last man for the loyalty of the people.  Ultimately, it came down to this: who offered the most.

The Man straightened his trident pin and struck the podium.

“I will turn this city into a military power.  I know the sea and I will give you control over every last drop.  Men and women will quake in fear when they hear of our city.  The world has never known and will never know a greater military force.  But I will also give you trade.  Dominion over the sea will make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.  With the sea, I give you the world!”

The crowd went wild.  The men of the audience stood hooted and hollered.  They could not conceive of a better offer.

The Woman straightened her owl pin and motioned to the window.

“Look to the next hill.  Do you see my groves?  I will give you the olive tree.”

The men began to laugh.  How could the olive tree compete with the sea?

The Woman struck the podium.

“I will give you the olive tree and it will give you more than my fellow candidate could even dream of.  It will give you jobs.  It will give you fuel.  It will give you food.  And with that, it will give you knowledge and wealth beyond all imagining.  The work it will bring will breathe new life into the economy. The fuel it will bring will light your lamps and thereby allow you to work longer and study more; it will improve schools and prospects beyond.  And it will feed you.  With the olive tree, I give you wealth, wisdom, and strength!”

The crowd was silent.  Tensions mounted.  As the people shuffled out of the auditorium to the voting booths, a murmur began.  No one knew quite what to make of the offerings.

As the votes were counted, the candidates waited each sure that they had won.  With every ballot tabulated, allegiances swayed.  No one was sure who had won until the end of the counting.

Ÿ ¢ ¤ ¢ Ÿ

Olive trees line the road on the way to The City.  It is known for it’s intellectuals and for it’s cuisine.  Jobs are scares now, but they’re scarce everywhere.  A statue rises from the center of the city, high on a mountain.  The Woman sits, crowned with olive branches with spear in hand, w