By Amy Simone Piller
You are chocolate with mint
after hours
alit on my pillow
magically decadent
gifted moments
saved for days
what would have been digested
savored
sanctified.
This is not a fancy hotel
beneath the bridge suspension cables
still crusted with snow
city still sleeping
unshaken by day’s start
you rest
I throw away the wrapper
the place we rest together.
By Amy Simone Piller
The moment you awake
and allow yourself to believe
I should sleep five more minutes
nothing worthwhile will happen in these
The moment you decide to not
tell that stranger how beautiful her family is
on the subway how they embrace
child on hip prepared for the day
The moment you make fun of yourself
for an accolade deep down you think you deserve
but [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I am smelling your sock
come out of the drier
I know its smell
this state and not
the way you press your toes
to my breasts sometimes
still makes me uncomfortable
there is something not correct
about this
you scoff
tickle fart
this does not belong in a poem
but we do.
By Amy Simone Piller
PROBLEM POEM (Revise You Start to Get Mad)
To change you I would need to become you
to become you would be impossible
to change you therefore is out of the cards
Why did I want to change you from the first?
I am the only way I know how to succeed
change does not happen systematically
Beyond me there lies only [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
Once upon a time
meaning came
from brain coils exposed
my solutions to pain
seemed valuable.
We’re from the same place
different charge
New York City sprawls
and this is not the part
with memorized answers
these are not the halls
of my test-in school
no Park Slope streets
neat with jogging strollers
Yet, no war rages
here or there.
To speak your names means less than bells’
sound and reverberation side [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
I will let dust procreate
in the name of meaning,
eat everything in sight,
fuel my torment,
believe in doesn’t-matter.
Forget paperwork:
ungraded papers,
stacked, sing
independence.
I strangle anxiety.
The blank page
will not phase me.
By Amy Simone Piller
Today I will not clean the apartment
before getting started
I will let dust procreate
in the name of meaning
Today I will eat everything in sight
before eyeing the calories
fuel my ticker-typing torment
believe in not matter
Today I will forget the paperwork
before noticing the due dates
my desk ungraded papers stacked
will sing their independence
Today I will strangle anxiety
before glancing the blank [...]
By Amy Simone Piller
The quiet intimacies
how people do
not touch
The angles of middle age
couples
Child asleep at the table
folded over two chairs
dressed up in tablecloth
trombone in ear
She rarely sees his hand in hers
the secret things
not meant to be
seen.
By Amy Simone Piller
You and I are in counseling
rather we dream in dream
about being
in counseling.
You refuse eye contact
I stare.
A show plays, a bicyclist jumps
building tops
on his bike, uplifted by balloons.
I lineup to attempt
this stunt
reminding me of Christmas
a tree decoration my mom still has:
a tandem bike
they rode their honeymoon.
By Amy Simone Piller
I told you once
you would blue
before you heard me
saying you
are beautiful.
I’ll say your name
again and again
as soft as it takes
to tickle your neck
making my breath
echo these walls
long after gone
constant
where’re your ears fall
almost by muff
aloneliness overcome
by confidence
instilled
eyes unaverted
legs spread me wide
asleep
you still            riding
head above
feeling
what you only reflect
deep, deep love
drift to sleep
thinking
shit
how lucky
that guy was.
Morning you [...]