Kabuki Blues

not perfect
know that
moving  toward
not there
may I never arrive

the learning
the mistakes
because I  am
not correct
may I never arrive

always open
to changes
a wrong thing
not learned
may I never

the process
beautiful, painful
only way
of teaching
may I  never

I wake up
I stand on
the  balcony
watching  rain
a lightning rod

may you never learn
may you never arrive
my cold hand
your warm  hair
a lightning rod

please may you
may I never awake
to  learning other
or to arriving there

Caffe Venezia

The smoking section sign...
each night it was at large and
drifted backward table by table.
Never where it should have been.
We wrote on the bathroom walls
until they gave us a chalkboard.
Then we wrote on the walls
around the chalkboard
as the staff played
Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"
on repeat. On repeat.

You pictured yourself as a
Kerouac or Bukowski,
but you couldn't drink yet...
and college towns are
hard places to find a good,
hard, underage drink.
So we were the Expatriates
we were the Hemingways
we were the Fitzgeralds.
Stains and cigarette ash on
our vintage wool and cottons,
on my beaded dress...
We were purists then:
we dressed like grandparents
and read things in French.

Our tongues lodged so very
firmly in our cheeks
that it became impossible
to talk so we watched
our condescension drip slowly
down the plate glass window
picturing the hole we'd punch
in reality by going out
young and beautiful.
We'd outlived Kurt Cobain.
We thought we were brave
but we were
just
young
and terribly
over-caffeinated.