i said "i think love is
truth" and smiled
but she really  didn't know
and  neither did i

she muttered "lucky you"
and i                 wasn't listening anyway.
we're all students of half-truths
of absent fathers or rain


(go ahead, pray for sun
and tell me how it goes)


ugliness is youth and the
same clothes as yesterday
and hours and hours and hours and hours
mulling over pain


who said pain is a problem anyway

life isn't neat

it's beautiful


ugliness is defining beauty
or a cage or stage (or measured words
or plain old common sense)
or wanting anything else

(ugliness is rhyme, or a turn of phrase.)
and pettiness is all the rage.


she told me we
believe in hell to get to heaven
and i wept because
she began sinning at seven


(what an awful weight
and she longs for death

her life is an awful wait)


we paused for a drink
i asked her why.
she asked me to cover the tab
and if i thought angels could fly

when we whispered "i don't know"
our Fathers nodded sympathetically