Summer of Love/First Reading

Francesca and I reading from our chapbook Summer of Love (YOMO, 2013) with Emily Toder at Zinc Bar last night. Thanks to everyone who came out and to Drew Boston! 

from Summer of Love

4.

At that grad party I’m passed out on lawn chair

and John Vanca flings me over his shoulder like

“She’s going home with ME” and I giggle “Yeah”

‘cause I still owe him for throwing up on his 

Bronco John Vanca and his pony tail

you promise to keep

me and my beergarita safe pull on my legs

away from him to the couch very “Shhhhhh 

we don’t even have to kiss I vacuumed your 

vomit out of this kid’s astro turf don’t worry” 

even though you 

driving my car

don’t buy me breakfast 

If you'd like a copy for $3, send me an email XOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Excerpt from Just Us Girls

I am in a tight corner

where harm 

is duly meant

and to be harmed

with the skill

required to fill in

an eyebrow

is commendable

just keep under

standing this and

you will be

made

the you you

carry inside

yourself

an admittance

which throws

into disarray 

the pruned

napes of the

female network

in its heightened

overlapping

I know nothing

of those girls

what is made 

safe in the mouth

exchanges

color

the lips to

create new territory

we are so 

because one 

says, a 

generative bonding

better 

when retained 

✶

you brought out

my muted 

activity for

performance purposes

a way to keep me 

in participation 

eight hands 

clapping, appear

to feel the air

between speakers

ultimately 

there is a lacquer

something in terms

of hierarchy

        I put her in my clothes they called my mom my mom

        called me ready to rip my hair out. The girl with my ID 

        in reception never thought it was possible mom, didn’t 

        think she would actually go through with it, but tell me 

        again now who am I? This yellow top? 

a wider cut 

with formal

implications 

announces itself

loudly I 

did not test 

the fair inverse

the recalcitrant 

female privacy 

you are

in the state of

things at quite

a safe position 

in its beginning

there is confusion 

of ability

what gathers

steam 

lacking the other

side’s correspondence

only what is offered

what received, you

speculate on 

motivations

by the sound

a female’s voice

it adds up 

to something

this sequence

multiple surprises

within claims

of civility

I find it

deliberate 

✶

our dual

surveillance 

purporting

what slit

in view what

I have to be

is someone

talking 

a glean 

maintained 

without such 

compliance 

there is a certain

choking

something stuck

in the back 

of the throat 

trimmings ascribe 

persistence 

always the girls

delight afforded

to us through

their conversations 

it is about

making everywhere

outside

the development

of a smokey 

top lid 

Translation of a Medieval Song

When I leave my house I am filled

in true speech, naturally, with milk

because it is not beautiful to be alone

to you that likes or if I did be into it

I’d do whatever as one of them

this should be suiting

a thing that grows to which you belong

in my same that dies every 6 PM

becomes prolific, boring

if we make it to Bolinas booked on

my granddad's credit card then would

I still know my body better than yours? I wish

for innate accuracy and less humidity for

I am wait, what it is to be 

things under moods so

prune me if I do say no as nothing 

near you that chooses

Who I am to you

is not knowing

a real body

how I am

so totally fine

and still 

this body

I want it to

be something 

for me but

it is not mine

reminding itself

of itself you

move it out 

of the mouth

give way and

everything

I tell you

to reconcile

I only want

to make you

casually not you

we’re feeling 

something

like that my

double-sided

mouth over

the phone

when I 

no, no

it ought to

be as beings 

well communicating

We’re inside mouthing

your type of girl 

on my shirt on this

concept of duty

you’re telling me

loose reason

like I’d rather

not say the law

of my being

I am telling you

in parts it’s

about you

how upset 

I have to 

call one 

and look

it was nothing

just itself in

the individual 

moment and

again in an 

individual 

moment rather

a crisis

of mouths

If we’re going there

about your limited body

my finger-counted men

just don’t, watching 

girls without

clothes on

I want us to work

like that

I want you to recover

like that

I need to explain 

it’s very important:

you’re not shaped like me

I looked good even 

in my passport photo

ask me about it almost

anyone if we’re going there

would tell you see

how it looks on you

it’s because we’re inside

without clothes on

I’m a total wreck 

how upset I don’t

have Iggy Azalea’s ass

don’t remember anyone at all

who doesn’t think 

about your limited body

or is it that we’ve

had too much talking

I’m tired now I need it

definitely all my friends

in bathrooms

saying I’m sorry

girls 

it’s my birthday

don’t feel sorry for me

or, okay I’m a total wreck

I know what I mean

I can’t open my mouth

I'm so in love with you so
someone come bloodlet me

It’s in your instant

mouth saying combination

skin, because I don’t 

if it takes you 

this long no worries I can be 

the more present I can talk 

to my friends about it

really nothing at all 

of a thing know nothing of a 

thing that may perhaps be 

down there pony-tailing my 

hair with fist while I’m 

thinking about me

and I’d open my 

mouth and ruin everything if 

I wanted to if you said my 

shirt looked nice

because this feels like 

that this feels all running down 

my leg when I stand as in 

I trick my body so it’s vomiting

just pretend it’s 

an obligation my body 

it’s a job treat it like lunch-rush 

on plancha like Brooklyn 

concrete on Passover 

NBD for N.A.B Conversation

Just     only         just 

can’t believe I deleted all 

can I get them back? 

use name a lot in texts means you like someone

WHAT DID YOU DO WHAT DID YOU SAY

NBD 4 N.A.B. that is SO COOL NOW

a couple   minutos my cholita

I call him Nab

just      you really are a GOD SEND but today I am busy

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say now

what am I supposed to say next

there’s busy and there’s BUSY

being a rare breed a special girl

can’t pick up like one of those fucking toy claw machines

we digress

we digress

we digress

no social life ever

got four initials four cool like that

nice to do that

happening in life

that’s so crazy this is weird

still feeling really weird 

did we come home together

did we no no

I’m a special girl like every other girl

as it should be

the TERROR

laid in bed for long time

weird

really weird really stupid

now hurt feelings   write better

now I’m scared

we digress

we digress

really push yourself Aly

it’s really stupid

not in my book! stick with the plan

a different point

the end of the voice, the way to get out of it

FUCK OFF

since neck wrestling’s a tough sport it’s

pulling me into a Christmas tree on the sidewalk

what it’s like to have 1/3s of you split that 

the worst or the best

end up in a Christmas tree? let’s go

take off shoes feel like shit

is YOUR life so busy you can’t put THAT in a poem?

dribbling down

that’s fine

I’m enrolling

we digress

we digress

god you’re never *in the moment*

learning your boundaries

WHAT ARE MY BOUNDARIES

it depends 

1, 3

I don’t know, will I know?

anyone can do this

I WANNA KNOW MY LIMITS

but I’m feeling this be my stay at home mom

it’s more than just talking

less than telling secrets

I get anxious

we digress

we digress

Mom’s right sleep comfortably in my XL twin

it was all uninteresting 

sorry not some DIIV song and

everything they’re all uninteresting but sounds cool

interesting sounds cool or both

always hope for both

in advance getting fat during the winter

(Have a conversation about what you were doing at the time of the conception of one of your poems and weave the two texts together.)