the first isabel

The first Isabel was dark, with more individual eyebrow hairs
than you could've thought possible, each thick as thread
woven into her skin. And she never plucked them either.
She had common phrases picked up from God knows where,
pretentious remarks that bounced gorgeously over the room,
demi-cliches that, somehow, you couldn't help
being comforted by.

The first Isabel introduced you to the second Isabel, who was
like a film negative of the first Isabel. You could swear she
still had her baby teeth, all blonde hair and elbows. You took her
walking in the public gardens, past cherry trees, black-and-white photographs,
boys eating cotton candy in knee shorts, popular fountains and
buskers with headbands. Later, though, you had to confess that
that was a waste of time-- the second Isabel had
almost nothing to say.

In October, when you met the third Isabel, several things made sense
suddenly, like the colour of leather, dog's leashes in the park, by
Lake Ontario on a day as gray as the water. The third Isabel had shoes
of brown leather, and she sat on a bench extracting a stone, and she
caught you staring and flashed you a smile just the shape and colour of
a slice of auburn apple, and ignored you again. "Goodbye,"
you said to yourself. "Goodbye, third and final Isabel."

Weimar: the Onion Market

for Omar

In the afternoon, time sifts over the street
like sugar, catching in your hair so red like foxes.
It settles on my collarbone, spilling down my dress
as I breath; spilling down my chest as I laugh.

It is not your face that enthralls me as we
wander through the market and weave baskets and notions;
it is your placement in relation to the world.
It is your voice, with the baby-needles of German threaded through it,
the way it rumbles like a friendly lion. It is
your quiet deference, your arms as you hold doors and
your shoulders as they turn to let people pass.
The air is full of cranberry-fragrance, nuts crumble
and fruits bruise underfoot. Speckled, the smells
of meat and music move jauntily through the crowd.
It is not your body I am drawn by (I am antiquated)
but where you take it; the sun spun off a historical spindle
pushes itself into your mouth, lemon-flavoured cotton.

Repertoire #2

another time, I won't
permit you to surprise me.
I have my own pair of feet,
and my hands are pretty and small
and white beside yours. China birds,
straw men fluffing over in fields, a
black eye tweaked in my direction; I
have come undone easily before, grown
untwined under a blanket of snow. I've been
chipped in a corner of this house
where the green paint of the front hall
slips orders to the dusty brown baseboards,
in a corner where the laundry detergent's smell
hunts me like a rabbit, imperfect here in this corner
where the spiny legs of the table hide me. Tomorrow
I won't let you surprise me anymore, daring and suspect.
Justice is a prickly cactus in the window,
getting brown, and dead (though just as harmful)
without care.

Poems About Austin

Mr. Morrocco reads me stories
after dark, switching voices with characters
while the evening ticks away like cofee
getting stale. He is a grandfather clock,
or sometimes pumpernickel bread. I am
a tiny frill of pink eyelet lace, like
a sea shrimp, six years old.

Outgrowing this fancy, I move to Montana.
In the summer, we barbeque hamburgers adultly,
wearing sundresses and white leather sandals,
scratching our names with our keys into
the national park picnic tables.
Reading poems about Austin.
Poems about Houston, China Grove,
poems about Chocolate Bayou.

Years ago, I used to think
my friend Mr. Tomato Sonaros
would be the one to collect me
after I finished school. Later
I found out he was imaginary, too.

Untitled

Cherry-tongued drake, currant bushes
shake as you weave through them.
My hair is currant bushes. Also, time is.

You weave through my hair all
orange and cedar, smelling of
spices, Oolong, mirade. If you turn tiny,
microscopic, you can catch on the barbs of the
individual hairs like everyday fingers on silk.

You weave through time like a sea-dragon.
You back, sides, are sleek and dark like weeds in lakes.
The colour of strong tea. The colour of muddy water.
The colour of cellophane amber. The colour of my eyes.
The windows of this house are cracked, every pane.
Slivers of cedar stain my skin.