Train Transitions, My Octagon Mug, Fancy Cocktails, and Stable Fluidty.

I like my octagon mug

and my stomach feels queasy

as I eat my eggs 

and process you.

Digesting the news,

it's not me, 

it's true.

We talk like women,

pissed at the system.

Strong in our sadness

we laugh about the

naked chicken in the window 

across from Hello Darling!

and talk loud about the

lack of female orgasm -

an epidemic 

not aired on the news,

in case you haven't heard of it.

I feel the city come into me 

as I leave it.

When I breathed it in

as the portals of streetcars rocked me,

trains swaying my aching a little more gently

and Sufjan reminded me "we're all gonna die" and

I drank coffee in Riverdale,

the place that conceived 

a quarter of me.

It's all news to me, this family history.

Fuck you and your feelings for me.

Fuck my grace and understanding.

You tell me you liked the memories 

we made the same sentence 

you said we had to stop making them.

Candy from a babe -

a beautiful poet of a babe -

she'd have been your friend and made you cookies,

and you were sweeter than candy.

Why should a filmmaker stop filming or a poet stop poeting -

we're good at it - memory making - so why should we stop 

and start remembering?

You sang me goodbye
while I kissed your ear softly (in my head), 

and took in the moment while I was there on the couch 

beside you, knees touching, hands resisting.

Her painting of the rocks

was about stability and fluidity.

Funny, I thought in the church pews,

That's what I had already written 

about me and you when we watched the waves over stone 

from a cliff on our stomachs, living in the edge.

We took pictures,

like her.

It was her painting.

You were rock,

I was water,

and Grandma Gray painted it on paper

before I was born and I never knew her.

Life's a game of chance

and timing.

She was probably beautiful

but maybe annoying or stuck up or 

maybe she snored too loudly. 

But I'll never know, 

and now I'm moving to her home,

where she learned love.

Love in my stomach,

might puke it up.

Gin in my veins, 

dreams on my sleeve,

ideas unborn on pages

with lavender tea,

home somewhere else.

But I feel it growing.

All this hospitality, making me swoon for humanity.

I'm ready for 

fluidity 

and stability.

In the city of trees,

in the wild,

with the lights.

and I miss you.

Mom passed me Aunt Olive's inheritance 

tears in her eyes 

another stranger's kindness.
I pass out my Body of Work in secret,
relieved to be rid of him,

relieved by the kindness in your lens,

even though 

you had a woman in each eye

and when you blinked

I was gone -

but don't you worry I'll take care of my own...

But I'd still paddle the river with you,

if you were alone,

and wanted my company.

If I'm not off and hitched by then.

I was gonna by you a record,

but I didn't.

I bought myself fancy cocktails with 

the ladies instead, with colouring pages and names of dishes we have to google,

cuz we're adults and that's what women do.

You didn't choose me and my laughter,

and I bought myself fancy cocktails with the ladies instead.