Explore Poems: Infatuation & Crushes

Loved you since I was little, on the playground break-time
-brawled with you and your mismatched cuffs…

To all the boys
who asked me
to dance and to 
all the boys to whom
I said yes and to 
all the steps we took…

1.

i wish i could tell you why i go back and forth between cities.
maybe i belong to the bridges &…

He seems to me equal to gods that man
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
   to your …

I want
            my Luci Tapahonso cowboy
            with a shining belt
            and a good dog

he likes my legs in blue jeans
but even more,
            my poetry

we ride the moon’s shirttails
             till dawn
when we bless ourselves

and wade into the spring water,
            well-fed and wet faced

& while the sky turns...

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura,
ella sueña en su baranda
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las...

Green I want you green
green wind green branches
Boat on the sea and
horse on the mountain
Shadow on her waist
she dreams at her railing
green flesh green hair
eyes of cold silver
Green I want you green
Under the gypsy moon
things are seeing her
but she can’t...

Twelve years old and lovesick, bumbling
and terrified for the first time in my life,
but strangely hopeful, too, and stunned,
definitely stunned—I wanted to cry,
I almost started to sob when Chris Klein
actually touched me—oh God—below the belt
in the back row of the...

No matter who leads tonight, who follows,
I feel his stare as we work the floor.

He swaggers from heel to toe.
Is it his smile?
                      Or his eyes I can’t ignore?

Even the lights wink, catching the pearled
buttons on his black paisley shirt.

The whole...

I

Above the fresh ruffles of the surf
Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand.   
They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks,   
And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed   
Gaily digging and scattering.

And in answer to their treble interjections   
The sun beats lightning...

Under the sagging clotheslines of crepe paper
By the second string of teachers and wallflowers
In the school gym across the key through the glitter   
Of mirrored light three-second rule forever   
Suspended you danced with her the best slow dancer   
Who stood on tiptoe who...

There are people to live for and people to die            for I comfort myself: there are people to sleep with and people to wake with            there are fifty thousand years...

I tried to stay away. Could not. I’d turn to  J
    or T and say: Today’s the day

it stops. Nothing right should feel
    this dirty, nothing real

this quicksilver and fanged. I kept thinking
    of  that show My...

It's easy to
fall in love
with the
grocery store boys—
the one with the
tiny coffee cup
sweatshirt, too-tight
pants & cotton shoes or
the impossibly pale
fish boy who smiles
when he says, I'm
from Alaska. Your
heart swelled,
stupid &
dreaming
of a boat
in arctic
waters,
stars,
dots
that 
dot the
ocean floor, you
will read
him poems & he
will...

Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no...

The twilight of your face,
the unknown bird in your voice,
drew me to your eyes’ green vision,

your song about a moment
that stood in the shadow
of a moon vulnerability,

a Natalie I saw standing alone,
at your friend Carolyn’s party
years ago, where you called

me...

At fourteen I wanted to devour you,
the twang, the strut, the perfect proletarian
butt in the black pants of you. I wanted a man
like you to sashay into town and teach me
how to be an aeroplane in water. I didn't want
to...

The Easter hats usually exploited gardens
and even when I took mine off, artificial bluebells
were braided into hair

just as they were (white lie)
when Deirdre's son dropped petals
into his mother's casket: one landed
as useless improvement of her mouth,


Years before, Deirdre and I...

To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;

To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;

To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth...

It seems insane now, but
she’d be standing soaked
in schoolday morning light,
her loose-leaf notebook,
flickering at the bus stop,
and we almost trembled
 
at the thought of her mouth
filled for a moment with both
of our short names. I don’t know
what we saw when we...