39

Amanda and Evan Move to Colorado

Penn Station is a nightmare,
but I hear your voice in my ear.
It rains big in the Meadowlands and
when we get off too early you pick us up.

Immediately there are introductions and laughter.
Suddenly there is a dog on my lap
and tacos I can't eat. There are boxes to move
to the garage. We mix rum with coke.

I lose some minutes later in the night
when we walk the dogs down the street.
The walls are yellow so we paint them
white with wide strokes.

There are gaps of time in which
I am sitting or walking.
Sometimes I'm thinking about
how we became friends.

On Sunday parents and brothers arrive
carrying cold cuts and mayonnaise made with
olive oil. You and I pack up the kitchen,
move couches and make jokes.

On Sunday we go home. But the two of you
in three cars and a moving van are moving to make a life in Colorado.
-Hannah

Shadows cast sideways
Flatten buildings into backdrops
A movie set
Relating life to a created experience

How many times have we based
Our real experiences
Compare like or as
Something seen on a screen

Looking through a monitor at
The scene right in front of me
Its clearer when its framed
It is clearer when planned

Behind the lens of a camera
All hours of the day revolve 
-KM

38

Black garbage bags stacked in slippery stacks
in the corners of the room and on shelves.
Two small windows open wide without curtains.
It gets very sunny in the evening.

Throughout the walls, in wood and cloth,
that is where they live. They live and I leave
with bags and a box of plants on the subway.
Back and forth for many days so my legs hurt.

Using the dryer and looking closely
before finding room on shelves
that already have order.
My second home becomes my first.

Everyday I wake up with you.
I am happy I am here.
-Hannah

Small changes
No more than that
Cover what belongs
Cloudy erasure

Water and hair
Metal and plastic
Back and forth motion
Blurring edges

Pages of paper
Piled high
Thrown to the side
No longer to be used

A useless task
Can bring so much pleasure
-KM

37

Where the earth drops down
Escaping the sky, diving toward the sea
So sharply down to the waves
There I'll be

Where the fog obscures the land
A mist so blue and heavy
Horns cry out, bouncing between clouds
There I'll be

Where the wind smells warm and sweet
Tiny flies buzz about, busying themselves
And scrubby weeds reach up toward ankles
There I'll be

Out as far as the bluff will support
Listening to rocks roll out to sea
-KM

Last night when I was asleep
for hours I think I thought about
swans looking like white dots
on a big lake with murky water.

Their long thin necks
pulled by an invisible rope
to the rocky bottom
at the end of the lake.

As their necks go down
their tail feathers rotate
and water beads on the edges
and falls back to the source.

Everything gets back to
the beginning.
-Hannah

36

I
saw
two
rabbits

one
looked
at
my eyes

the
other
hopped
away

bye bye
bunny
-Hannah

 On the last day of May
The air was warm, the sun fell
Golden through the trees
Children stayed up late playing

Walking with backs toward the sunset
Parrots dipped back and forth
Green wings glimpsed between generators
Constantly working, building nests

Weaving up and down the streets
Thinking how many days we've spent
And all the endless ways to spend a day
I am by your side, I am where I want to be

I am by your side
I am ready
-KM