11 - 15

11.  My god mother Jennifer

Chews on vodka, spits the butts of cheap

Cigars on the ground, chains too many words

With a single slur.

She is not deft at much,

 but she can argue anything.

 The weight of her wedding

Band was too great, and she

With heavy hands signed the divorce papers.

She now lives with her cat, Brutus,

The only man in her life that won’t betray her.

Little Five will be kind to her.

12. Don’t lock your knees

You’ll pass out before

your new life begins.

The bridesmaids are

years beyond you,

whispering practiced words

of encouragement.

They have been through it before.

You’ll learn to love him,

After you finally remember

What his sweat soaked

Convulsions feel like.

13.In your sister’s bedroom

Under the black lumpy futon

There is a box.

The box of her secrets,

Her fears, and her hope.

Sporadic scribbles that prove

Your relation.  

The carpet still shows

The signs of when you

 once lived with her.

A bookmark marks her latest tastes,

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

She always been more postmodern than you.

The head lights of her car flourish the window,

Time to disappear.

14. I want a cigarette.

Well packed and dry,

I want it to hurt, I want to smoke it

Until Darwin tears it from my dead hands.

I want to walk past my middle school,

And show them what happens when

They fail to do their job.

I want it to guide to someplace

Less worrisome.

I want the smoke to carve henna

Into my lungs.

15. I watched them from the lobby,

I wasn't going out of my way to watch them,

They didn't go out of their way to be hidden.

The power dynamic castrates him,

But he seems to be happy, complacent.

They are drunk, lacking the lucidity of a

Spiteful heart.  I can’t hear what she is whispering

But from his smug smile you can tell

She’s finally opening up.