Comic Book Heroes

All he talked about was
Comic book heroes
And movies
He knew all the good ones by name
And he struggled, and I struggled
With real-world problems—
Not the things you see on the silver screen
Mundane obstacles, like rent
And no matter how I’d try to emulate
One of those strong women
From the comic books,
My powers failed
And he left town
And that sort of thing
Never happens in the movies.

Imagination

Eyes like two blue moons at once,
he gazes at me from across the room,
all tired, wrapped in a forest green blanket.
My mind fills in the rest—
suddenly there we are, and I run
a careless hand over his chest,
caress his face, delve into ecstasy
and let my body run on auto-pilot—
my hips know what to do, where to grind,
how much pressure to use,
when to pull away and heighten tension,
how to play the sheet music of passion
and at what tempo—
now allegro, now adagio
yeah, baby, take it slow—
He rises like a dove taking flight,
blanket spilling off of him like Zeus’s cloak.

Quiet Jazz Nights

I used to sculpt,
When I was very young,
Only a 16-year-old teenager
Learning to form dreams
with my hands
And the patrons there were all
So much older
And they played jazz on the radio
All night
As we drew together inspiration
From the clay
And painted our worlds in glaze

And the nights were calm and cool
At that old brick community center
So many years ago
And I miss those old jazz nights
When we sculpted our visions
With our hands.

It’s That Weird Time

I’d say it’s the inner mechanism
Of the doldrums
But I feel like it’s that time
Of year, again—
When the moon is full
And the other sushi bar patrons
Wear the masks of monsters
And your friends run around,
With heart-leashes tethered to their pockets
The lemon water taste of defeat
Hanging heavy on your lips,
Taste it, says the world
And this time it uses that strong voice—
The one that tells you
It’s not messing around, this time.
The eight-ball breaks and the tarot cards lie,
And didn’t Einstein say once
That God doesn’t play dice with the universe?
It’s that time of year when
I sure hope that he’s right.