Bedecked in a blue sundress she sat on the red
Sarong, spindly limbs blossoming in white
Fingers, five petals delicately clutching a
Scone, looking away, picking at the sweet idly,
Distractedly, the errant morsels that missed her petulant mouth
Fell, and landed on the red, so
wrong.

Jubilant, the ants walked, a fine line
Each fueled by a penchant for sweetness and
One, lifting a crumb above his head
Like Atlas, arms arced, the world
His supper, patiently marching home
tonight to feast on a cornflower’s
Crumbs.

Little ant-
When you carry a prize three times your size
At what point does the feast
Become a burden?

there's a little black spot on the sun today

It's official: my day job might just be making me crazy. Good bye, somewhat-defined sense of reality, it was nice knowing you.

What drives a girl to such a state? Maybe it's the hum of the artificial air conditioning pumped through shiny exposed round drum pipes above my head. Poor lighting tepidly illuminating my dim cubicle where I have no view of windows. Brick behind me, a stainless steel wall. My grey-beige, color-so-bland-it's-not-really-a color cubicle walls are dotted with postcards from the ones I miss, forever. Look, the Brooklyn brownstones I left behind! A painting of a blue damselfly, freshly flown from my left foot. A Peter Sis painting of a man and a cat crossing Charles Bridge. Ljubljana at sunset, where the madness first began. My friend's drawing of a newly budding spring tree with a moon full and pregnant amongst its branches. And, most importantly, a smiling picture of my friend j's one and a half year old baby, because, no matter how frustrated I get, I can never, ever, throw any negativity out into the world while looking at her sweet wise smiling baby face.

Slowly, parts of me start to close off. I surf the web idly in between making phone calls. Trying to help potential students fulfill their dreams, but the vast majority of them are disinterested at best. Tumid apathy, men and bits of paper. That's where I start to crack, you see. While my co workers talk about boys and tanning beds and sales at New York and Company, while they spray fake butter on their food and make popcorn because it's one of the few foods allowed on their diets, while another one eats only popsicles during the day so she can get as drunk as possible at the baseball game that night, parts of me shut down, wink out, one by one like city lights. But the rest can't stop channeling poetry. TS Eliot lines flap around in my brain like laundry on a clothesline, clean and brilliant, snapping in the sunlight that I can't feel here. My coworkers already think it's weird that I bring the Economist to work and read it just for fun. What would they think if they knew that I sat and poured over Tennyson, Thom Gunn, Marilyn Hacker, and Hafiz in between the mundanities of this waking working life.

Something's ready to break open in me. When I do shut off my computer at the end of a work day, eyes shot from staring at the computer screen, legs cramped from remaining immobile behind a desk, I want to shake back into waking and explode into action as soon as possible. Take to the streets, grab my bike, Kid Blue, and go adventuring! Spend an evening in the rock climbing gym, lats and forearms and abs engaged, dangling by a string like a marionette or descending spider, swinging back and forth like Peter Pan, falling and falling over and over and grinning from the exertion and the sweat and the streaks of white chalk across my arms.

I fly back to Prospect Park and a hillside overlooking the lake. White and pink petals fall around me, and inside...peace. Surety. Ferns lick my face like kitten tongues and I hover like a hawk over the acoustic stage, day stage. Looking down from the top of the scaffold that I will help build in a few months, thinking that it can't come quickly enough.

Ma'at

I once knew a Scorpio
With a cat named Ma’at
Tortoiseshell, green eyed, savage
She would endure my touch for a few seconds
Minutes
Leaning into my caress
Then snap
Defiant
Claws ripping through tender flesh
Before running away
To triumphant solitude.
No other barn cat
Was bigger than her there.

When years later
She returned to my hand
I waited, counting, holding my breath
And then-
The purr that rumbled out
Low and strong
From her chest
Resonated in mine
And gave me hope for the feral.

Malice will come
Roll away, lick your wounds
At the end of the road, Ma’at
When you weigh my heart against your feather
Will you devour it again? Or
Send it on to the rushes?

A Game of Chess

He leans back in his chair and gazes at the chessboard between us with a cocky grin on his face. I just made a stupid move that cost me a bishop. I can read his thoughts, crudely smeared across his face in arrogance. Yep, I got her now. After all, she is just a girl. She should have known better than to challenge a guy at chess. He’s floating gloriously on a wave of triumph and all I want to do is wipe that grin off his face.
Just wait.
I will.
Carefully, I move my bishop into position. I’m a piece down, but I’m not really worried about that---I’m thinking with a brain instead of a dick. Yes, this wasn’t exactly his idea of a second date. He’d rather be making out with me in the front, or back, seat (hey, he’s “versatile”) of his 1978 Firebird (fondly named Lucile), but I had insisted that we put a table between us and see if he really has any substance between his ears.
He could keep a hot air balloon floating for hours.
He moves again, this time pulling his queen out of danger. The test--- will he pass? No man ever has. My opponents inevitably disappoint me. In the beginning they seem so strong, so noble, but the veil drops, bishops and rooks fall, and all that remains is a pusillanimous king. I can learn a lot about a guy from his chess game. Arrogance, it’s usually the arrogance that kills him. Or not being aggressive enough. Or just plain being sloppy. His hamartia revealed in one simple, classic game. Piece by piece I tear apart his character, waiting for the one who’s strong enough to mate me.
I glance down at the board and suppress a guffaw of laughter. It takes me a grand total of two seconds to move my knight into a rather advantageous position. I silently give thanks to my father for teaching me that move. Now I’m the one with the grin on my face. Split. Would you like to keep your king, or your queen? Damenopfer: Queen’s sacrifice. His sweet lady bites the dust, but I’ve still got mine, and I actually know how to use her well. Five moves later, he’s mated. In the chess sense, that is. He’ll never get me in bed with him, although he has already offered.

Same table.
Same board.
Next player.
The game, the game, always the game! This guy really is sweet. He’d had a crush on me for the last few months now, but he’s been too shy to make the first move. I told him we’d go out for coffee and a game of chess--- I figured that was a nice way to get to know him without committing myself to an actual date. At the moment I can’t really find anything wrong with him, but the shyness of his character is reflected glaringly in the passivity of his game. He’s been pushing pawns around for the last ten minutes, always on the defensive. I’m looking for someone who’s bold and aggressive, but knows how to play smart. Does he realize that he’s blowing his only chance, that this game is boring, and once I’m bored, I lose interest fast?
It’s intriguing to see where the mind wanders when one’s bored at chess. The pieces are strewn out between us, black and white in opposition, two teams pitted against each other on a battle field of sixty-four squares. Suddenly I’m inside the flat wooden head of the knight I’m planning to move on my next turn. He’s anxious.
Ooh, move me, move me! Right there! I’m ready for the old one-two punch, me and queenie over there in the corner are gonna get this guy. Goody! I get to kill the ki-ing, I get to kill the ki-ing! Hurry up, boy, move your damn piece already so I can get going here!
Eventually he does move, and my knight lets out a victorious whinny before lunging forward, then diagonally right, into position. Horse and lady, in tandem, take down the king.

The next challenger is from Harvard. Genius. He’s piqued my interest, and right now he’s winning. My bishop fell to carelessness in a surprise move. I’m excited and a little nervous, equally torn between the desire to win and the urge to find someone who’s good enough to beat me. I’m going to play my hardest until the end (I would never just let someone win), but still, there’s a little voice in the back of my head that’s cheering him on. There’s got to be someone out there who can pass my test! So far he’s the strongest challenger to come my way--- I have high hopes for him. But I’ve still got my queen, so he doesn’t have a sure victory.
Let me just take this moment to admit that I adore my queen. Some would say that chess is a patriarchal game. The king, of course, is the crux point, the piece that all the others are struggling to defend at all costs. But I see things a little bit differently.
I explained chess to a five year old boy one time. A feminist rendition of chess.
“So there’s the king, and everyone else on the board is trying to kill him. He’s puny and weak and that’s why he can only move one square at a time. Now the queen, on the other hand, is the most powerful piece on the board. She can move in any direction that she wants to for as many squares as she wants, just as long as she has a clear path. She can do anything that the bishops and rooks combined can do, and her mission is to murder the poor, defenseless king.”
The little boy’s lips trembled and tears sprang into his eyes.
“That’s a lie!” he said indignantly. “You’re just saying that because you hate boys! Katie, she’s lying, isn’t she?”
His older sister looked down at him with a wicked grin. “No, Ben, she’s right. That’s really the way the game is played.”
He shot us both desperate looks. “You both are just picking on me!” he said, before running upstairs to his room and slamming the door behind him.
I felt bad, really. I’m not sure what compelled me to say something so charged to such a fragile, innocent little mind. I guess I was just tired of everyone being brainwashed into believing that chess is a man’s game. Yeah, I’ve seen the look before. I walked into a coffee shop one time and this old grey haired man was sitting at a table playing chess by himself. I asked him if he wanted to play and watched as his eyes critically scanned my body up and down, up and down again. Play you, a girl? That’s what he thought, I could tell by the way he looked at me so disdainfully. What he actually said was:
“I think I have twenty minutes to spare.”
Twenty minutes! How dare he underestimate me like that! He beat me, but it was only because, as I found out later, he’s the chess guru of town and he never loses. But it took him fifty minutes to do so, and he couldn’t keep his queen. I won his respect that day.
So he’s the first man to beat me in years, but he’s too old to be eligible for my infamous chess test. It figures. The only guy who passes is a senior citizen. Just my luck.
The great thing about chess is that it’s purely a game of the mind. You can pit a scrawny, nerdy little 120 pound old man against a 250 pound football player, and the outcome mightn’t be the same as that of a wrestling match between them. It’s all in the mind.
That’s why I find it so insulting to be underestimated as a female chess player. True, I cannot bench press as much as my typical opponent, but for a man to assume that my sex gives me an inferior brain? Please! That’s the ultimate insult, a misconception I would love to clear up with every man who automatically assumes he can beat me.
Am I being too hard on men? Perhaps. But I’ve been hurt enough in the past to know to keep my guard up.
And I’m doing that right now.
I’m disappointed to find that the Ivy League student, so sweet and sensitive, has fallen into the same trap that most of my opponents have fallen into. Getting cocky, feeling superior. Realizing that they can and will dominate their opponent, a mere girl.This guy’s been dancing in and out of my life, flirting, dating, a peck on the cheek here and there. In and out, the game continues between us as we shuffle around our power pieces and try to gain the upper hand.
I set him up and he takes the bait. Foolish boy! He loses his queen in the next move and scowls in disbelief. With his confidence shattered, he fights valiantly till the end, but he knows I’ve already won. This will be our last date. He doesn’t have enough pride left to call me again.

And me? I’m just a little pawn aspiring to become a queen. I’ve walked far, but I haven’t reached the end of the board yet. Spaces free up and I proceed step by step with caution, walking the gauntlet, confused by the part I’m playing and all the obstacles in my way. I’ve stayed on the back line for half my life and now I’m tired of being inactive. It’s time for a change.

Eventually a new challenger enters my life. She’s been on the board the entire time, a queen perched in the corner, waiting for the right time to slowly, fluidly, make her advance. I beat her each time we play chess, but soon realize that the game doesn’t matter as much any more. She plays with me because she thinks I like the game, and hey, I used to think so too. We play, and each time I win. But I feel no triumph in doing so. With each opponent before her, I felt like I had to defend myself, that I had been automatically designated the underdog by virtue of my sex. But with her, I have nothing to prove. How can I bear to treat her as my enemy? She and I are already playing for the same team.

We sit Indian style on the soft grey carpet of her bedroom floor, a small magnetic chess board between us. I look into her eyes and suddenly have a difficult time focusing on the game. I have never been this distracted before in all my life. She just captured two of my major pieces and I can’t for the life of me think of what to do next. Helplessly I move a pawn forward, what else is there to do? She grins in understanding, knowingly sensing the predicament I’m in. I gaze at the ringlets of curly brown hair cascading down her neck, eyes roving in adoration across the soft lines of her face, those long brown eyelashes that flutter gently each time she blinks. Her lips, upturned slightly in a smile, become the focus of my complete attention. She’s ready to make her move. Ever so slowly she leans across the board, and I close my eyes as she kisses me softly on the lips.

Mate.

(1999)

Proof 1

Wail!
At the injustice
Of missing someone
Across hours, miles, oceans
Time zones, political embargos
Only to have that person approach-
Five minutes
One floor
An arm’s length
Away.

(Close but no cigar, as they say)

In math, the problem with limits
Is that they can never be reached
What purgatory!
The distance
Halved
Again and again.
But still there is space in between.

But:
Remember that you are never lonely
When you’re alone
Only when you’re with someone
Who cloaks your brightness

And:
Remember that you can feel more close
To someone five hundred miles away
Than to the estranged lover beside you.

Thus loneliness and distance are not proportional.

(Still I want you to touch me with desire in your eyes).

Choosing ~ a villanelle

Your picture on my wall's become a muse
That upholds my belief in love ideal.
Reminds me of the things I have to choose.

Reality and dream begin to fuse-
What I think I know, what I know I feel,
Becomes your picture on my wall. A muse

Frozen in time: a garden of statues,
Or a single frame stolen from a reel.
Remind me, of the things I have to choose....

Shuffle through the memories, find the deuce.
The cards are in my hands, and I must deal
With your picture on my wall. Becomes amusing,

Doesn't it? Talking to the wall, but who's
There to reply? Tight lips only conceal
Reminders. And the things I have to choose

Between? A fading rose of many hues,
Or the fire burning here and real.
Your picture on my wall's become the muse
That reminds me of these things. I *have* to choose.

(2004)

One Decade Later

I just attended my ten year high school reunion! I was nervous about it, but the anxiety melted away when I set foot in the door. Everyone was almost exactly the same as they were back in 1998. The snobby kids who used to be considered 'popular' acted the same, but, now that I'm older, they just seemed douchy and fake. It didn't matter that I don't have a job right now; no one cared. I found a friend from ninth grade biology, Rachel, and was pleased to find that she was even more cynical than she used to be and wanted nothing more than to trash the likes of girls with the names of Nina and Tina and Emily Margolis. My touchy-feely puppy-pile senior year group of queer friends was MIA, and my volleyball buddies were missing, too, so I gravitated toward the slightly outcast Dungeons and Dragons kids, who seemed more real to me than anybody else there. I went up stairs with Jon, a sweet crazy artistic Irish boy that I made out with a few times during my senior year. We smoked a cigarette and he told me stories about all the trouble he had gotten into in Tibet and Greenville while showing me sketches of his recent sculptures. Meanwhile the only bisexual there (with died 'rage red' hair) cast her eye on me because she wasn't making any progress with my sister, Meng, and so she proceeded to drag me to the bar and buy me a drink after writing her email address on my hand and practically begging me to make out with her. The popular kids continued to cavort in their shallowness, a few pounds heavier and several of them with babies. Lots of lawyers in the house, and I didn't envy a single one of them. I came back down stairs and found Rachel discussing the merits of cock with Meng. Rachel invited me to explain lesbian sex to her, which I did, while eating chicken. Eventually a good majority of the shallow popular kids went back to their husbands and children, while Meng and I and the only ridiculously gorgeous, yet down to earth girl, busted it out on the dance floor with a few others. Meng and I fought over who was going to get to lead, and I actually got out-topped by my straight honorary communist sister who used to be my bus buddy back in the ninth grade.

Meanwhile I don't have a stable job yet, but I'm ridiculously happy. All my friends are back in town for Thanksgiving, and I had the luxury of spending Thanksgiving dinner with my sister Meng before going to see Kat's ten day old baby and heading to Olivia's for an after pie drink. I am getting to the point now where a majority of my closest friends have been in my life for eight years plus, and that feels amazing. And I may be jobless, but I thank the trees, because falling leaves are a sure thing, and these Lace arms love to rake 'em for money. I got a lead for a landscaping gig this morning at brunch and I've helped three people move in the last month, with one more coming on Saturday.

Single, jobless, and living in a tiny house in Durham. That's me right now. I was worried that I'd be too embarrassed to go to my reunion, but instead I walked in proudly, and drove home to Durham singing Mary J. Blige at the top of my lungs and feeling it. See I won't change my life my life's just fine! Somewhere over the last ten years I learned how to be happy, learned how to define myself outside of my career. I'm so grateful for my friends and my Michigan family and I can't fucking wait to see what's ahead of me next.