Because of You
We have lost our balloons. For e.g.,
you haven't cleaned the kitchen, as in wiped the counters, fridge,
and the stove, ever.
You fearfully do the laundry nor pay the bills.
What scam of "I", your maid-to-order? Your mad. Yours ruing,
You look up from your reading. I have nothing to wear, you say.
Joust ware what you heave bombs, I ricochet. You sorry sack of no
soiree. Ay?! Ay?!
Your sitting there on the couch is infused with nothingness.
It's for crying out loud. It throes itself in duel, the opposite of dance. It
thinks straight from the cartoon.
OK, are you a task hole and your crotch a sport of inflatable crutch?
Or are you a brimming brevity whole body a tremor off the fire's
ever here in our living-room with the television on FOX
for fuck's sake? Yes! Yes! Yeah, we have lost our
way, our little one with her sweet fragile life of her own. At night
I sit up and listen for her breathing.
heidi lynn staples
6
when the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea
broke apart
warming the middle of my
SPF 30+ the smell of coconut
oil skin slick shining
skeins exposing blue and light
the breeze it is said through the breathing
I loved him like blowing up a float
till I was dizzy and my mouth
was a changing angle of sunlight.
rain may fall as an all day
a sudden thunderstorm downpour
Do you think you’ll ever take me back?
He was sixteen. He had a climate considered tropical.
Because if you don’t, I’m going to marry Sonia.
fucking in the woods on the beach of a bayou.
as it did during the spring equinox.
on average, 46 tornadoes a year touch down
actually suffers more tornadoes
waterspouts-tornadoes that touch down over water
the water body temperature
7
mouths, for example, common and beautiful
lakes, slow-moving streams, woods.
when he entered me like the tip of the peninsula
as the swiftly flowing current,
the beginning
of the gulf stream, I whispered cup-like,
rose-pink flowers, leaves ovate
to heart-shaped, wavy-edged to him-
dunes
migrate downwind if they are not stabilized
by hardy vegetation, such as sea oats
that can withstand sea spray and burial by sand.
words developed between us, were moist
woods, roadsides, city lots.
a common spreadwing, damselfly. abdomen long,
blackish, with bluish-white tip, watched
wings transparent, short; held half open. our
8
everyone said we had an overstory
of tall, widely spaced longleaf pines
we both came
from highly fire-adapted families
plus many tropical vines and epiphytes.
on the sand under my mother's college blanket
we held to discover
& tidal swamps curiously welcomed us
his favorite part of my body
would be characteristic in wetlands
tomorrow had extended progressively
farther inland
to form the blanket of marine mud
spelling out our names into this new
life, building up
the "angle of repose," it is the slope
beyond which lovers will begin to tumble
not far from a clear, cloudless sight line to the sun.
translated into fishing sport.
you haven't cleaned the kitchen, as in wiped the counters, fridge,
and the stove, ever.
You fearfully do the laundry nor pay the bills.
What scam of "I", your maid-to-order? Your mad. Yours ruing,
You look up from your reading. I have nothing to wear, you say.
Joust ware what you heave bombs, I ricochet. You sorry sack of no
soiree. Ay?! Ay?!
Your sitting there on the couch is infused with nothingness.
It's for crying out loud. It throes itself in duel, the opposite of dance. It
thinks straight from the cartoon.
OK, are you a task hole and your crotch a sport of inflatable crutch?
Or are you a brimming brevity whole body a tremor off the fire's
ever here in our living-room with the television on FOX
for fuck's sake? Yes! Yes! Yeah, we have lost our
way, our little one with her sweet fragile life of her own. At night
I sit up and listen for her breathing.
heidi lynn staples
6
when the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea
broke apart
warming the middle of my
SPF 30+ the smell of coconut
oil skin slick shining
skeins exposing blue and light
the breeze it is said through the breathing
I loved him like blowing up a float
till I was dizzy and my mouth
was a changing angle of sunlight.
rain may fall as an all day
a sudden thunderstorm downpour
Do you think you’ll ever take me back?
He was sixteen. He had a climate considered tropical.
Because if you don’t, I’m going to marry Sonia.
fucking in the woods on the beach of a bayou.
as it did during the spring equinox.
on average, 46 tornadoes a year touch down
actually suffers more tornadoes
waterspouts-tornadoes that touch down over water
the water body temperature
7
mouths, for example, common and beautiful
lakes, slow-moving streams, woods.
when he entered me like the tip of the peninsula
as the swiftly flowing current,
the beginning
of the gulf stream, I whispered cup-like,
rose-pink flowers, leaves ovate
to heart-shaped, wavy-edged to him-
dunes
migrate downwind if they are not stabilized
by hardy vegetation, such as sea oats
that can withstand sea spray and burial by sand.
words developed between us, were moist
woods, roadsides, city lots.
a common spreadwing, damselfly. abdomen long,
blackish, with bluish-white tip, watched
wings transparent, short; held half open. our
8
everyone said we had an overstory
of tall, widely spaced longleaf pines
we both came
from highly fire-adapted families
plus many tropical vines and epiphytes.
on the sand under my mother's college blanket
we held to discover
& tidal swamps curiously welcomed us
his favorite part of my body
would be characteristic in wetlands
tomorrow had extended progressively
farther inland
to form the blanket of marine mud
spelling out our names into this new
life, building up
the "angle of repose," it is the slope
beyond which lovers will begin to tumble
not far from a clear, cloudless sight line to the sun.
translated into fishing sport.