Meeting you was no accident, we crossed paths for all the right reasons. We didn't accidentally bump into each other, you found me at the right season At a moment in my life where my heart couldn't stop freezing, but Over time you've given me a reason to keep breathing, to keep believing that love will find me. You introduced me to this thing we call INTIMACY Intimacy that was non-physical, not the traditional way of pumping and sweating til my river overflows uncontrollably But, INTIMACY without the sex.

The envisioning

She asked me to describe her

sight unseen

She’d given me a physical description

Always questionable because of how we perceive ourselves

Not purposefully untrustworthy

but filtered, even if subconsciously

So I pondered, what did she look like to me

She was more sunrise than sunset

For in her dawning hello

I felt hope

Such an abstract idea

But, so dark was my world

That her illumination grew optimism

Far down in the soil of my soul

She looked like wisdom

I am woman who is so strong and brave I am a woman who will accept any challenge I am a woman with a kind heart and warm soul I am a woman I am important to society the same way men are I am a woman and I deserve to be treated fairly and equally in society I am a woman I am a woman a proud one too who will continue to strive for excellence and equality for all of us I am a woman with confidence, class and grace Let's all take a stand because we matter too

We sailed through, An ocean, unending. Paddling on each side of our boat. You leave Balance off Vessel capsized. And with it, me. I gasp and grope With little hope Water everywhere the eyes go Yet I feel if I drank Until the last drop I'd be emptier still

If her hands were here
They would find something to hold
Like a ladle or a lamb
Or a hand or a hoe. 
They would not be idle.

She loved to make practical things
Picking up a needle to patch the jeans that day
Then off to paintbrushes and gourds to play.
The knots and bumps
Never slowed those hands.

With such love and patience
Those hands rolled out each long doughy noodle
And cooked just right
Became our families favorite dish
With Mississippi mud cake that night.

A helping hand she’d lend
To anyone who needed anything.

Boot Hill


At moonrise
above the dirt saloon
specters share stories,
the faded music of Babylon
whistled to the wind
through rotting teeth.

Painted lady phantoms
do the bump and grind,
a seductive dance
with filmy scarves
of dermal skin,
then ectoderm,
down to the bone.

Death visits to celebrate
with a breath of whiskey,
a reminder of conflicts
over women, gold, land,
moths and moonbeams.

The action starts at midnight,
wails, moans, shrieks, groans,
a clash of souls beyond redemption,

when you're trans, you forfeit your right to a body
it belongs to
doctors who diagnose you with gender identity disorder
to endocrinologists who prescribe
an end to the bloody punctuation between its thighs
to the surgeon who
pins it to the operating table,
splits its skin and leaves its ribs aching
and wakes you up, an hour and a half later,
with tubes in its chest and gouges beneath the arms

this is a good thing.

hyperventilating in the men's bathroom with scar tissue beneath your fingertips,

So much, so good, so now
So do, so make, know how
What unknown fate did bring me here?
In fear I act like my life is dear 

To coin a phrase
Describe a place
Portend of global warning, so sad
Imbalance of our earth that's bad 

Calamity of chemicals all ignored
In oceans, atmosphere, death is stored
Some of us are too busy making a living
Most of us are a generous lot and giving  

Much easier to forget
Why worry, guiltily fret
OK to sing out of tune
While love and lovers swoon 

I open the refrigerator and instead of food
it is stocked with automatic weapons
and hand guns and ammunition.

I make love to my wife and find
that she has a third eye
where her navel should be.

I have a clock that makes a different noise every hour.
Sometimes it sings like a bird.
Sometimes it is a train pulling into a station.
At least once a day it is a bullfight or a shuttle launch.
I took it to a jewelers to have it fixed.
He told me not to fool with it or it would melt.

I have a giant flea for a pet.

Red water laps, a familiar form sharpens;
my out-of-focus hand refills your glass.

Toasting the turn of a year never lived,
no one hears the shutter flex

but you, turning to the camera
in miniscule movement, time-lapse:

a wink broken down to its constituent parts,
smile expanded to its own universe.

Brown eyes speak of your resurgence;
recognition in the grey hair

still combed over sun-starved ears,
last reserves of black patrolling the scalp.

In the resurrection machine of the darkroom,