Staceyann Chin

Dreaming in Rainbows

We perish each alone

and the mantra loops infinity round
my wrists

buttons snapping sailing
into the unknown

home is where the heart hurts
a boy named Robert
once whispered the like
into the curved cochlea of a young girl's giggle

and I remember you well
skinny man
with gentle hands

I dated you twice

first
when you were fifteen

again
when you were forty
two men

different times
I remember you now
both called Roberto in Spain

it's all good the phrase
I hate most today

sounds like oblivion
or denial
or lies

never has it been all good
even when we read Toni Morrison
and drank red wine
in my bathtub in Brooklyn

the nuances were missing
a texture of feeling

how does one say

sensibility
a sense of knowing there is more than this
moment

I do not miss the parts that grazed metal
on my ribs

but I do miss the way you ate chocolates
my fingers ached over in Belgium

and I still catch myself
laughing at
you frowning
me camera in hand

I have way too many pictures of my heartaches
candid
unwilling shots

at the way we never were
I conjured you
more than you will ever be

and I suffer now
mourn a self
you never had the courage to wear

always in my throat
the disappointment
the gulf

between the beauty of you
and the impossibilities
we dreamt

today
I will do laundry

banal

await the scarf I lost in a cracker barrel
say thank you to Jeb
who found it

it was a good day
lost and found

disparity
image and reality

I am most beuatiful
when I am not being watched

all soap bubbles and my own laughter
no bathtub here

but we are creatures of hope
perhaps Iowa

will have the curved soup-spoon
to cradle the body
of a small bitch brooding the bedlam

of a life that lacks
simple

a cubicle
predictable hours
colors that go together on a runway

today
the bedspread is not horrible

and there is a dictionary
on the bookshelf

today
I do not have to leave this borrowed room

this tiny tomb constructed
in chicago

I will not die
today

I will think of the Amigas Latinas
the way we laughed last night

how we consumed our similarities
rice and beans

cha cha cha

CC and her babies

Avery
and his body moving manic
alongside mine

tomorrow
is not promised

so I cannot mourn
if it never comes

in the spirit
of bodies that survive such aching
Staceyann

Posted by staceyann at November 14, 2004 10:46 AM