Something So Small

The kitten

Has to make up to me

Before he sleeps.

I want to know

What he knows,

And you still don't.

XOXO

Fall Slides In

Our floors creak in the weather changes,

Like the bones of an old, protesting woman

Who has seen too much

And lived enough

To have filled up every page of her diaries,

And sigh at the first sign of fall.

XOXO

It's Only Smoke And Ashes, Babe.

There are some mornings when I wake up, and it's as if no time has passed at all.

Still fuzzy

Still dazed

Still noncommittal

To anything

But the next breath,

Still hesitant even on that option.

I wonder sometimes if what I'm doing now will fuck up the rest of my life for me.

The hard part if figuring out if I really want it to, or not.

I have no idea

How I got

Half these bruises.

I have no idea

And

At the same time,

All too good of an idea

How I got

Here.

XOXO

A Literary Playground

Last night,

My parents took me out,

And bought me beer.

Tonight,

I keep quiet,

And hold poetry near.

Life cannot be lived at Mach 6;

When it's going too fast,

You'd be better off dead.

Like Scheherazade, I've told 1,001 tales.

The trick is not in the telling,

But in knowing which ones you've already said.

A limerick will pass the time,

But it can never hold the attention,

Of a fully-weighted rhyme.

Then, the short story.

Next the novel.

Electronic words have not yet found their place,

Just like me.

In 9 months, newly embarking

On the next chapter.

The epilogue to college.

The preamble to life.

What came first,

The writer, or the page?

Script, syllable, or phrase?

Twist the words,

And shout.

XOXO

Nicholai la Citta, aged 3 months.

The kitten sits
In the chair
At the head of the table,
For all in the world
Like an expectant child.
It’s fitting,
As I say to him
At least every week,
“It’s you and me,
Kid,
For the next
Fifteen
To
Eighteen
Years of your life.”
He burbles back happily,
As if he understands,
And in that moment,
Listening absentmindedly to his chatter,
I catch a glimpse of what I would be like
As a mother,
If the unlikely were to ever occur:
Over-protective,
Impatient,
And devastatingly in love.

XOXO