california postscript

at first: hesitancy: “what are you doing tonight?” three times I said no.

then: frantic: nights on the town, restaurants with rectangular plates and bottles of fancy champagne. he kissed my neck and said pleaseplease: no. my intuition said. no.

we came to rest, subtle, settle, long nights horizontal and afternoon kisses. I gave in with delight: enthusiasm.

then: I put on my thrift store slip under my kimono, painted my toes red (like us: the town) waiting for him. he never came. he still hasn’t come.

he: drives a fast car. i’m back in paris in two months. he tossed me before the expiration date. still haven’t learned to trust my instincts.

weather

you
murky_storm_cloud
moving along
but never getting any sunnier

beaten#eaten#trambled#andhard
a bad egg

r
a
i
n
over other pastures
you're cramping my style.

moi, ce que j'adore...

he has blond curls that wrap around my fingers

i'm enamored with a man from california. and for once i find it difficult to write it out.

one word, plural

fall

eyeliner

bubble

off

sunshine

hips

me

hips

supposed

be

secret

please don't tell anyone that i really really wish he was thinking of me.

- - when;

when you make my knees shake I’ll bite through the orange, rind and all.

when you make my knees shake I’ll tilt my neck back. let go.

rind and all.

little things

to enjoy
the return of
picking out cute knickers
as i dress
in the morning

and all the anticipation
that it
implies.

oh!

Plier

“Pliez! un... deux... trois... Pliez!” said the woman with the tight bun of silver and white hair, black tights and tasseled skirt. She tapped her cane on the wooden floor as she counted and glanced at all the girls in the long, clean mirror as they grasped one hand on the barre and the other arm reached out, long, lean, and fingers delicately separated.

Every girl, in time with the music, slowly bent her knees outward and lowered her body as the woman counted, to the piano music on the record player. “un... deux... trois...” Raising up to the sky. Backs straightened. Necks long. Heads always held high.

“Pliez!”

**

“Like this” she said as she took the next piece of linen from the cabinet. The little girl looked over to her mother and watched as her mother’s hand gently aligned the corners of the napkin and bent it over, creating a crease. Then she bent it the other way, flipped her fingers, and placed it on the gold leaf plate. “It’s easy” she said.

The little girl’s fingers were a little sticky and her nails were uneven and bitten. The dining room table was shiny and smelled of furniture polish. The little girl took a napkin and began creasing and bending. The room was freshly vacuumed and the little dish by the couch was filled with potpourri; it sat on a lace doily. She tried to look poised like her mother, try to cross her legs so that they looked long like her mother’s, tried to caress the linen as her mother had so effortlessly.

“Fold it, baby” her mother said. “Fold it like this.”

**

heat

It’s so hot. It’s the kind of heat that people can’t stop talking about, it’s the only thing that matters. On the radio, at the supermarket, in line at the bank.

It’s so hot your hand gets the best part of the popsicle and the little girls do double dutch on the sidewalks 1-2-3-4. The thoughts are slow and there is that time of day where nothin’ can be done but lay your poor body down, its too hot to make love, gotta love with your eyes instead. And those double dutch girls squeal when the ice cream man comes ringin’ his bell- it’s too hot to think about serious stuff, just decide which rum to put in the mojitos and move your straps to the side so you don’t get white lines on a strawberry tan. Its too hot to do anything in the kitchen but slice sour fruit for the lemonade and open take-out boxes, the chocolate left on the counter has melted and my lip gloss and my motivation.

It’s the kind of heat that makes you paralyzed. Sitting like an ice cream scoop that fell out of the cone, slowly melting and spreading over the ground. In front of the air conditioner. In front of the freezer. Half floating in the cement pool. The nights are sweaty when you wake up in damp sheets and hope there’s a breeze on the front porch, cool glass of water but even the water out of the tap is warm like the streams out of the sprinklers running for the black-eyed susans but mostly the double dutch girls and all the boys are cute because they are deep brown and glistening, in this weather everyone has a subtle southern accent. Let’s go dancing if it dips under 95 on saturday night.

...

What did Mr Wren say? Words are loneliness. I left a couple of words for you on the tablecloth last night- you covered them with your elbows. – henry miller

i buy my happiness in pretty little bottles and in the morning i have a happiness hangover

I don’t have anything beautiful to say. I just have to write how perfect this moment is, right now, in it. Day after Bastille Day, waking up in the afternoon, making a half-ass omelet and blood orange juice. My hair is tied back in a handkerchief, and I am doing laundry and dancing in the kitchen to Billy Joel’s greatest hits that I found in the living room. The yellow drapes make the whole apartment full of sunshine even at dusk, but right now the light it at its most perfect.

I can’t forget this feeling right now. Paris makes me so happy. Paris
(Its all going to be worth it). makes me so happy.

hey hugo

pavement dance
to touch your back with my fingertips like feathers, like yellow feathers
and breath on my thighs
like lovers
like

2 dollar carnations
like these boulevards and the despondency in them
the wretchedness
ballet flats floating like waterlillies
jesus is parisian
and I’m going to sleep well with my face smashed against your awkward elbow
all day long.

could you please step into my sleeve? my pocket?
immediate and close, so close

because your funny eyebrows
your funny feet
the rosebud tongue on earlobes and vocal chords.

this whispering is childish
gorgeous. don’t stop. stay like that
kiss my collar bone while I make you out of paper maché,
paper maché and bubble gum
and white rum and dictionary pages.
morning glories and

something red.

bored in london

is the best kind of bored.

be optimistic

Exami Nation.

i am
dangerously close to cutting off my hair
and skipping the country.

i'm too poor for the salon,



but i've got a magical ticket
to londontown.

(junejunejunejunejune)








[this gig is so tragically un-hip]

a love poem for a frog

if i had to pick
between you and the commerce clause
i would pick
you
any day,
baby.

fermented grape juice

He peeled her thin arms from around his neck. He stood. Wavy hair. He brushed his hand across his forehead. He stepped forward, turned around and smiled at her. She sunk back into the couch, cuddled in the deepest layers of blanket, and held her wine glass up to her face. She looked at him through the glass, bent and red, cloudy.

“I love you.” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Then he was gone.

It doesn't take a sandwich to choke

Its 82 degrees in New Orleans, and breezy. Its around 11 AM and I’m sitting in my European Legal Systems class, physically, but mentally I’m planning my afternoon. So many possibilities: I could go to the bubble tea café and read my new Breton book; I could go to the park and listen to some music in the grass; I could go to the corner of Carrolton and order a latte and a bowl of strawberries- work on my contracts homework and plan my French lesson.

I could go to the market, buy some fresh shrimp and invite the girls over for early dinner on the porch. I could forget about contracts completely and take the bus down to the French Quarter, spend all afternoon trying on new spring dresses that I can’t afford....

“Ms. Peacock?” says my professor, interrupting my thoughts.

“Um.... yes... um...” I try frantically to remember the last thing he said, where we are in the book, what my name is... nothing is coming.

“Ministère Public?” he says, peering over his glasses as I attempt to read everything in front of me at once.

“Yes, Ministère Public... they um,” I look down and see a footnote I’ve underlined, so I read what it says: “In France, in certain manners, the party must inform the ministère public of the pendency of the proceedings, so that it may give the court its opinion.” I look up at the professor to see if thats anywhere close to what he wants.

“Well, that is true, but why?” he asks, still peering.

“Because of...” I look for anymore clues from my notes. “Because of public interest.” I say. Even I don’t know what I am talking about now.

“What does the ministère public have to do with public interest?” he asks.

The girl next to me tries to put her pen down on my book near the spot where the supposed answer is, but this just makes me more nervous. Does everyone know this answer? This is an impossible question! No one could possibly know!

“They, um, the, um... Ministère has to do with public interest because... They, um....” I look up to him, my eyes pleading with him to stop asking me this question.

“What is their function, Ms. Peacock?” he asks again.

A voice behind me says “Professor?”

“Yes Mr. Johnson.” he says.

“The ministère public can act as the government’s attorney and intervene in the public interest, kind of like.....” he continues, a brief but concise explanation on the organization.

“That’s right, Mr. Johnson” says the professor.

I look down at my book again, and see, on the page right in front of me, the first paragraph highlighted, and to the side, where I had written in my favorite red pen:

Functions of the Ministère Public: 1. act as gov’t attorney in criminal proceedings and otherwise, 2. (sparingly) intervene in any litigation to represent the public interest.

on the subject of why my life is currently boring

how come you never call anymore?

have recently come into a lot of money

traveling around eastern europe in an old white van

painting grafitti on city walls with my naked body

law school

starting a revolution in New York with 6 dollars and a megaphone

a vow of silence to represent the struggle for reproductive rights

on a reality TV show embarrasing myself, but at least its network

eloped in Turkey under cherry trees, currently blind with love and lust

book tour across the western united states with alice notley

what are you up to?