Lisa Zaran
　

Tripped

From your pocket so obliquely
you pulled me out
and readily, I found a comfortable
position in your palm.

If your voice is heaven,
I've been acquainted with it for years.
Does this mean I've died ten thousand times?

I just assumed I was dreaming.
That it was my midnight
which created your mouth
and the songs pouring out

seemed to me like light
the color of cyclamen.
Maybe the ache I feel is nothing
more than a yearning toward

absolution which I find
again and again in the corner
of your pants pocket, closest to the groin.
Am I being romantic?


Plot

Some nights, when the moon is so slim
it won't stroke up a chat and the stars
by some sleight of fate get stage fright
the sky so dark like make-believe,

I'm uncertain.
Is this a sort of wantonness inside
myself or did broad daylight ever exist?
The dead, whom are nameless remain
nameless still. I keep coming across

my fathers grave covered in leaves
and human grit, buried beneath the umbrella
of a mesquite, indescribable the scent
of exhumed dreams, the flavor like spit

tobacco. Be quiet. I repeat a litany
in the confines of my own midnight head.
Stop dreaming. Hush. Keep your mouth. Shut!
The last word rips from my throat.


Change

I keep seeing mountains
rocked
in layers, gray and grayer
trespasses leading to another world

I don't want to ruin
my new skirt trying to climb
or break one precious bone

against some tweaked stone
I know
is waiting there for me.


Eye Of The Beholder

is just an eye
dotted with puffiness

the average eye
framed by a face

of varying age
with splintery whiskers

and a mouth
which has spoken shame

like the rest of us

tongue languishing
in its guilty cave

the eye, a different
flower altogether

that sways like any
when the breeze shifts.