Grief Is a Hoax

"22" by Mark Rothko

Old man walking on your knees down Park Avenue don’t
crucify yourself there are 96 better ways to die.
Before you rise remember: all stages are calendrical and
the state of grief is a hoax—less state more village;
less grief more life. Can’t you feel that sad heart claiming
your name, beating at the paper of your skin? Can you smell
your mother’s hair, the blood in your teeth at the funeral?

The world feels far too close. Who doesn’t wake up
next to a cold window and reach out for a second body.
There are 11 ways to stop dreaming of home. Leave home and
stop dreaming of the 11 ways it could be. We are always
there, hanging from a gum tree or happily lost in the night sea;
we're at home while massacring small villages,
or falling down a white river as the family dog watches
us go by, barking and moving his stiff tail.

LUV POWEM

Poem inspired by the song "Anyone Else But You," on Juno soundtrack.

You kiss me on my apple in the brain of night
my girlhood falls to pieces I'm a shiny fit of rage

you're all legs and bony parts I'm a softer plot of land
together we're a puzzle the neighbors stop and sigh

it's not the way we kiss that gets the small dogs yapping
I make you laugh in bed against the middle of the night

sometimes I remember how my mother looked in death
it's in your face at dinner when you take your final bite

once I thought I'd never have a lover in my bed again but
like the spring you cycled round and found me

by a tent at the ocean I was crying from the cold
you gave me special socks and read from Rimbaud

you took me naked down the unconcerned river and now
we live among the bookshelves and our seashell lamps

you hum yourself to sleep with a pair of Frenchy songs
I wake up to the tune of Paris growing in my belly

I watch your morning lips just moving skin to skin
we're not so bad together even though you have those scars

they come to visit each December I have mine in May
three daisies in a vase inside the window sill we make

a home OK. The cat's in bed I'm sneezing you wrap your arms
around me grab my breasts it's cold the floor against my feet

the sun is nowhere to be seen I turn to you a daisy in my teeth
now there's just a crumpled pair of shadows at the sink.

Personality: A Perfect Disorder

"Joi de Vivre," Picasso

what are you willing to sacrifice
what are you willing to wish for why don't we
play in the park push me on swings
this story takes 17 blocks off my life remember
the piazzas we ate pizza bianca let watermelone juice
drip from our hands to the cobblestone street
why do you dream just of rome why don't you talk of
the ten-year-old self the first day of school admit it
you in your slacks and hard-bottom shoes so lost at sea
among kids in their USA sailor jeans gathered in circles
away from you turning their necks every few minutes till
two girls walked over and asked you
you stayed for a while it wasn't so bad you could
run fast your timing was quick you used it to leave
and return when the wind changed directions.
You understood pain like sharing your candy
let's face it who came here wanting to spread
themselves publicly open it's easy to love these closed doors.

"You think you're so popular," says my six-year-old niece when
I stand with my hands on my hips. I don't ask I know
what she means I hold in my laugh when she asks for
the meaning of "fuck" and tells me that "sexing" means
cookies in bed. This girl she's attached to
the world like glue she's a fury her shrieks are
a fierce morning prayer, she pulls her own hair
she has muscley fists and thin pounding legs.
She hurts the ground you can feel it. We envy her
hate her we want what she has. Wouldn't you hope
to come into this world devoted to feeling the air so
singularly yours on your skin and getting exactly--
not one item less--what your asked for? Nothing to dream
just this life wouldn't you hope to be the person
God listened to the voice screaming the loudest until
you were seen for exactly the person you came here to be?

Homage to Alec Baldwin

Homage to Alec Baldwin

after Lynn Emanuel

It’s no longer morning.
The weight of the day pushes into
my eyes nose shoulders mouth it’s ok
I am going for a walk I am looking for
Alec Baldwin. He has come to me
and my neighborhood to hide inside our rain
no phones no lawyers no sunglasses just
this October heat wave in the city of
Seattle. My name is Tatyana Mishel and
I am searching for Alec Baldwin stowed away
somewhere in my hill-encrusted neighbor-
hood. I am a dolphin in a pod of air
swimming upstream and downstream.
Cars unroll their windows drivers make
eye contact smile like they know something

I wave at everyone hold my breath.

I am sure the sun will out
Alec like a stink bomb in a rabbit hole
he’ll explode from behind the glass of
his bloated middle age TV screen
he can’t hold the pale glare can’t keep
away from the candy dishes in the shops.
”It’s for the kids,” the pharmacist snaps
when I finger a baby Mars bar. “It’s for
Alec,” I reply and grab three pieces.
Striding low to the ground I am a mountain cat
as stealthy as Dick Cheney I am a 21st
century stalker and I feel okay hopping
from bush to bush I will not be tailed.

This Case of Alec Baldwin unfolds
between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm
three hot days before Halloween. I am
a hunter filled with kisses,
chocolate in my pocket I know Alec
has a sweet tooth. I know he’s sweating in
his giant rental all alone throwing knives
at a wall with a mural of Kim, God
I hope his kid’s not there I don’t need
that kind of trouble. “Baldwin, Alec,”
I say into my cell phone and the operator,
female stutters back, “in Seattle?”
I hang up. I have on a pink T-shirt
a cream sweater tied at my waist I am
sporty and I can live with with my original breasts
bouncing inside fibrous cotton. What I cannot
have is a nick name. My name is not Tat or Taty
or Tater. I could be Tatyana Baldwin no
Tatyana Mishel Baldwin that’s better.

I’m sick today is the story I told my boss
even though my hair is full of waves my skin is
beige I am generally a brownish tone this is
not Alec’s type but I would be good for him

I’d put him on a diet of salmon and water
get him running let some air out of his body.

Sitting on a corner I try to collect my thoughts
but all I have is a flash of James Taylor
singing Sweet Baby James and shooting
up heroine left right and center. Alec understands
vices that's something we have in common.

A bleat of sirens, a fire truck in no hurry
rolls by I run behind it yell,
“Are you going to Alec’s, is he OK?”
The beautiful shoulders riding on the back gives
me a princess wave, Oh brother they’re all
gay anyway. By now I’ve walked in a loop,
I have arm pit sweat yes, me, Tatyana Mishel no
middle name no nick name I believe
in circular patterns, standing work stations and Fibonacci
I have walked into the middle of my own personal spiral
call it a womb pattern where I began this pilgrimage
today at the market after hearing whispers
of “Alec” and “around here somewhere”
so I buy three red dahlias and three peppermint chocolates—
in case his crazy-ass daughter is here, too.

An ! In a White Bed

Picasso's Portrait of Jacqueline

Lady Hezbollah

You are the exclamation point in a white bed where I cover my eyes lying near the wall where I think I am not a coward.

Three petals in a bud vase and I pretend you are coming for dinner I am making nothing to eat there are three Luna bars on the coffee table and the Kinks are on my tinny speakers. Do you ever look at the phone and will it to ring I even sometimes see the outline of my body in the sky at night.

I have three children they live in my toes sometimes I step on them run over them they get back at me with ganglions neuromas plantar fasciitis I house them in wide shoes give them space sometimes they come home to me rested pain-free.

To-do list: bed sheets, goggles, eye cream, renew passport, Frank O'Hara poems, tampons, lube, condoms, pregnancy tests just kidding.

One year I was done with everything Where is the exit sign I asked I was like a baby lion in the big city too much noise and fast-moving people blank eyes and chords plugged into their ears. Nothing to do but find food and someone to rub my mane I was alone during wartime looking for home but I was already home god I hate it when that happens.

I thank all types of water for being good to my body and the clocks for getting me places on time and my clothes for fitting and the sailors for walking in their white uniforms with their strange languages along the waterfront.

Once I wanted you not unlike the way I wanted to reach out and touch the giant dahlia at the contest I was five and yelling Touch Touch Touch and we left to eat dinner at i-Hop and the next morning ripped up our flower garden planted carrots and other root vegetables some herbs.

I am a daughter a friend I am an aunt godmother lover I can be more anything you want it will hurt only a little I am not so broken anymore I buy my own dahlias I follow a stranger down the street until she looks over her shoulder to see if I am her younger self or just another person running for the walk sign.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Etc ...

Painting: Picasso's Blue Room

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart for No Good Reason Other Than I Feel the Need to Get Back at Someone in the Same Way You Used Me As Your Emotional Scratching Post

Because I had no face left to see the day just a pillow against the wetness of my nose and animal crackers in my teeth

Why did I say I loved you after we got off the roller coaster and you found my keys in the bushes I said I’d move to Alaska with you—what was I thinking I avoid snow and bears and small airplanes

Just because I cooked eggs for you and flew home with you when your father died stayed in a hotel with an empty pool don't think —

Have you noticed how cold my ribs had become it's because my bouncy blow-up house was growing brittle

I was starting to live more in my pelvis and toes up in my larynx and then one week after you couldn’t drive me to the airport or ask me over when my power went out I returned to my bouncy house and it was dark and no fun and I was lonely and I wore my old jeans and a baggy shirt even tennis shoes—even to work!—I had animal crackers for breakfast two days in a row and went to bed at 8pm

There was a pin pricking at some intestinal location and it hurt I tried wearing mascara it still hurt I tried running ten miles before work it still pricked pricked away now at my kidneys

I went to the blow up house and it had turned into tin it was dark you were lying with your back to me it was the way we slept each on our own side of the bed I lay awake all night willing you to turn your big body over and spoon me claim me I woke up without sleeping

It was going to be a long day

At the gym on a Saturday night swimming in a dim lit pool with a retarded man splashing away
An old Korean woman brushes her hair in the Jacuzzi I tell her Not in the hot tub she nods at me nods and nods as I point at her brush

Because I don’t answer the phone instead listen to old Carol King albums I watch movies about musicians who chain smoke I think about buying some cloves

I stop reading stop writing stop smiling at the coffee girls I wear red I swim faster slapping hands with lane mates I listen to Bob Dylan covers

My niece and nephew ask me what words we used to end it

I have CDs they’re used they’re yours the sun comes up like any other day I have a face to see it my eyes are dry there are petals growing on some winter trees: pink, sweet

I am pink sweet you never tasted it I am here stirring tomatoes and sausages with a fire popping and snapping with a friend on her way over I wish it was you I’m glad it’s not

What does it mean this twist of fate

It means nothing it means I didn’t sleep enough it means I ate too much at dinner it means another lover across town is watching his girlfriend cry and one day I will hear about it—

Saturday morning I get up for swimming I want to stay home in bed reading Joan Didion instead I show up late there are wet happy faces

I pull myself through the chlorine butterfly to the far side of the pool back and forth back and forth there is light some kicking

blues and greens shimmer curtains open windows rise streaks of sun wave at me from the watery floor I am warm again.

We Bloomed Midway Through Life

"Death and Life" by Gustav Klimt

I will show you fear in an hourglass
it’s a beast your hand growing older on my knee
all the neighborhood girls wiped clean.
We have fights quilted into our hamstrings,
the chroma of our courtship is thick with summers.
One June there was so much rain no umbrella
the stitching on my bra bled through my shirt
I thought your grin was mine all mine but no at dinner
still damp from a shower you told me
I was transparent to everyone even my underwear—
I threw the rest of my spaghetti at you
your face all marinara red you all ready to
get up I sat with you pinned my legs around you
slurped the strands falling over your forehead
I licked the tomato sauce from the cavity of your nose
I fed you like a mother bird,
importing olive bits from your chin past your lips,
my tongue on your tongue your hands on
my hipbones I could taste the smell of you in my throat—
I felt you rising the ground tilting my head dropping
gently I was a baby again my father putting me down
the layers stripping off I felt the air of childhood on
my belly I felt your lips sliding up the bone of my shin
I saw the alligator cake of my fifth birthday my mom
holding out her arm to me in the department store
spanking me for getting lost; I feel your knees against
my ribs the cotton sliding from my body I remember
the last time my dad sang Brahms to me the stern voice
of weekend mornings, “Grounded young lady not a word.”
I remember teaching you how to say my name.
I remember being lonely one summer I still feel it
sharp like glass in my ribs sometimes it grows stronger
strong like the shadow of you pressing down on me
my breath your big skin soft body I am just a girl again
out past curfew enter me I am a woman teenager-
scared sometimes lonely often lovely and I know it.