Sunday has become a day of bread

Increasingly, I find myself accountable to yeast.
I'm kneaded and folded by hands too tired to rest on the keyboard.
Honey oat and vegan avocado call to me with a voice that sounds like home,
but that was never my home.
The wafts of freshly baked embraces are a cultural memory
implanted by the white picket fences I've yet to see in person.
So I substitute,
I darn over the holes of missing traditions with
weekly practice in homely creation.
It's a glutenous trap of the homemade variety.

The Prostate Poems

I.
Oh spot of pleasure
hidden from view between
twin buns of steel.
Teach men your secrets

II.
Two rings stand sentry
before the passageway of the Prince
relaxing only to grant entrance
to the ambassador of a foreign body

III.
The sweet plum unattainable
convulses beneath prying fingers
and expels its seed from
the base of a newly grown stalk
as if to say
please swallow this again

IV.
internal walnut
only light stroking pressure
clipped fingernails please

V.
Greek protector of Exocrine origin
your contractions invoke Dionysian fits
drink now of the alkaline secretions therein

VI.
never a massage did produce
fluids so copious
or pleasure so shaking
as this assault on my prostate
even memories arouse erections

VII.
This pulsing thief of reason
entranced by the crown jewels
forgets what he is carrying
and drops a bag of pearls

Pavement

It starts with a heartbeat.

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump

This is the pounding you're used to.

It's mutual need fueled by

hot and quivering thighs

in sync with pumping arms.

Breath,

torn in gasps by the little death of achievement,

rants ragged in protest.

You will never finish this marathon life

without sparking fire-fomenting rebellion

inside every mitochondrial membrane.

That heartbeat? It gets frenetic

Tha-thumptha-thumptha-thumptha-thump

amped up on adrenaline and cortisol.

gotta go, gotta finish, gotta win, gotta love

mariposa stomachs doing backflips and barrel rolls

while the mind surges upward into an abyss.

Evolution is an arms race.

Combine and separate;

adapt to every shitty hand life throws your way

and overcome.

This, this was never a prurient goal,

so wipe the sweat from your brow.

Feel the heat of the afterglow,

the  flush of accomplishment.

Sit up straight.

Relax your jaw.

Wash yourself of the salted remnants

of an hour well spent

Tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump

It ends with a heartbeat

The above piece was my submission to Labyrinth, the feminist and literary arts journal of Western Washington University.

Postcard Poems: Six

I hope you never hear this
because I wouldn't want to see you blush
red like the six seeds swallowed
to give Hades a Queen.
Six seeds for six months
because six months separated is long enough
to abide Hermes' escort from this mortal coil.
But
we all have an Orpheus
willing to follow us into the dark
to plead their case past three trials
and carry us back into the light.
Even if they look back, don't fade away
unless the sadness and the silence
should rival the burning hate of Styx
in ways even Lethe cannot wash away.
For Odysseus does Penelope wait
greater times than half circles round Helios' hall,
hiding daily devotion in nightly tricks.
Sometimes even the brightest lights
cast the darkest shadows.
And I would carry you away like Ganymede
if you wanted to be closer to the sun.

Bonus pic! Because Ethan requested a hand-painted postcard I took a picture of myself in process.

Postcard Poems: Untitled

Thank You

Postcard Poems: Reminder

A soft security blanket found
smashed between the mattress and the wall
smells like a day's sweat, like fresh deodorant,
like the strumming pangs of missing you.
White fabric and a faded design
linger in the cold aftermath of departure,
a memento of the nights prior.
This is the fuse that lights fireworks.
This is the inspiration that moves mountains.
This is the start of change.
This is love.

Postcard Poems: Make a Contract?

What if he was proposing?
In a different time and place
a contract passed ownership onward
she bargained with her being
signed and
give away a name
wedlock only to throw away the key
give away a self
these little deaths make room
for who we are to become
a blessed union
devoutly to be wished?
nay, an institution that brings down empires
and traps princesses,
murders witches to foul the land.
Marry me, sweet Entropy
carry me 'cross the threshold
to the light on the other side