LAST

What can you really hear
your blood, yourself?
what’s near – what’s far, I guess

Grey haired women fill the seats
and I can see myself
If I look down

This could all be said
in less

Taking away to anywhere other –
the balmy night the radio
the impound lot

We passed through providence
got drunk, my face too red in
the pizza light

I thank the flashes, yellow sponge paint walls
in a building that might hold
nothing

else.

What happened after that?
I’ll remember inch X inch
She said “symmetry’s important to me”
In the auditorium the pipes ascend
Then climb down patiently
Check, do you have your medicine?
Everything will keep rising,
Falling like this
That’s what makes it all happen
Like a battle song
River’s music that starts so full
Then tapers hollow
Everyone was at the apartment Bob said
Apocalypse Now was “garbage”
Everyone drank and drank and drank to
The marching beat

Behind the ear cage
Is an unthinkable itch.

SHADOW TAG

“Like Tolstoy”
do you remember after
your accident, your lie
what you told me to read?

I think it’s what you tell
everyone to read
not uncommon to read,
or recommend

I drank a beer
For help

The metal tables
Did not belong

And I did not feel at home

It’s just that by now
I’ve found my own
required self –
it’s not so hard

Samantha put shimmer on her lids
lashes flared apart
on purpose?
I couldn’t tell –

A girl has to slip quick
sink into her own shadow

I walk alone, that helps
and imagine the quiet men
who took the time
to consider my own brain.

unfinished

No not last for in not finishing one is always relevant, always loved, always a glittering beast at the edge of a velvet curtain at the dawn of a new era amongst the dregs of humanity in the heart of the sort of figure who records uninteresting things in a compelling way.

No, not last, not finished for the sake of aesthetic continuity, for the sake of always having a reason for everything, always justifying terrible situations, always describing one's self as such on first dates which one never thinks of as first dates because one never goes on dates because one is secretly the reincarnation of an ancient warlord who, of course, would never go on dates or finish anything that isn't a battle but now nothing is a battle, Thank God.

impossible to think of you without thinking about cancer

nothing ever ends

one day i told you this—
i told this also to samuel, and
also i told this to my ex girlfriend*
when i hoped it would not end, and
one day i told this to you—
one day i told you this,
endlessness would
mend us, rest alone or
at least for a while alone, or

when there's nothing left
there's endlessness,
memory doesn't forget what's best
or worst, oops, but
it's impossible to avoid a
"stupid bitch" here, sorry
every case, give it a rest

one day i told you this,
i told you one day
one day i told you this,
nothing ends, ever
for though your relation alters
it doesn't really change, and better
thoughts go on, never

doch glaube ich das nicht mehr, ich
meine, es geht immer, aber das
"nichts verendet niemals, nimmer"
wegen der gefühle, die verändert habe,

es gibt immer eine begrenzung,
ein limit: mit gefuhle, denken,
liebe, memory, familie, this brings me to say,
warum zurückschreckst du vor das Enden, anyway?

jedenfalls.

i thought this in another tongue,
when you wanted to be my friend
i realized, that doesn't work, but
i owe you this: nothing ever ends







*jene, jeder

ending

hating such self-awareness, such meta, such breaking-down-the-wall poetry
but all the same, in myself, i'm yearning, invisible- i wish we could go on forever!

so here, baby, one last time- all today i walked through snowy roads in laced boots,
neck scrubbed raw from pounding
loofah, red dye still smearing out below the skin, resilient, soap-resistant

she'd pulled off her costume to show me her piercings, licked her lips
sorry sorry sorry that i held right out baby girl, honey bee
but, i want you frustrated, i want to remain full of unsatisfied longings

recognized some kids from saturday night on the path today
they'd pulled on my arms frantically that night, you're bleeding, you're-
today they looked at me like, you maniac

i'd really missed the danger, the gasping of breath
-like the hardness of running drunk, knees fierce against gravel-
in the shower this morning, i found purpled, dimpled bruising,
sunrises!
i found scrapes down both backs of my legs
the discovery made me giddy although it probably shouldn't have

i've missed the danger, and thinking about it back makes my heart skip
i want to teeter on the edge of trouble, of heartbreak
a permanent fall

i want to fall in love
i want to love in limbo

i want to stay full of desire, of yearnings, of
amorphous things
that move and stretch, continuous,
into the beyond

the end

i should feel accomplished having written 31 poems
but i actually feel bad
knowing that a month has gone by
and i don't know what to do with the remaining 11.

i feel so much pressure
to do something else
i'm told to do something i want to do
but it has to be something that will secure a better future

the better future is the future i'm happy with
not the one that will bring economic comfort

not that money isn't something i want
but it should be about profiting from something i'll be happy to share with the world
or just do myself
though what makes me happy is making people laugh

i also want to be loved
i've fallen in love so many times this month
only to discover that there's no reciprocation
and that hurts

i guess what i need is a for someone to give me a chance
in all aspects
and i need to put myself out there as well
i won't be discovered until i've been seen, as crazy/sensible as that seems.

i wish my last poem hadn't been a confessional
i kind of wanted to simply say
"be with me"
but i can only be mysterious for so long

Poem 31

Absurd enormous tears of frustration!
These I wept during my recent illness,
a bad cold. "Wept" is incorrect. They
just leaked out. No emotion other than
frustration. Still, a sign of some excess.
White kids trying unconscionably to rap.
All I've done for the past five days is
talk about sex, with present, past, and
maybe future sex partners--sex people?
The subject is inexhaustible. The object
is to come to terms with it. The subject
is tied into every part of living. Tied in!
Is the object to normalize it in some way?
I was so repressed when I was an adoles-
cent and now it's endocrine revenge!
All of my friends, people in their 20s,
"dealing with it." (People of privilege
all of us in our 20s, "dealing with it.")
And living in New York City! This town
is uh full uh rats. I'm quivering with
sensation. I'm mastering oversharing.
There are cycles I can now name: taking
out the garbage. Bringing the garbage
back in. Exposure and immediate
withdrawal. Endless, endless capitulation.
Specificity heightens tragedy--accessible
specificity, and it also heightens comedy.
J. K. de la V., I remember you. You're
the one who grabbed me by the shoulder,
and you set that shoulder to the boulder.
And we never even got naked all the way!
You! You stole that kiss from me, and then
you disappeared. Now I want it back.
And I want them all back! When I think of it,
I can feel my body turn into a mouse body.

culled personal truisms from the month of january:

guilt is an important motivator

ironic consumption is consumption, too.

you already made that decision,

you already know what to do!

when you don't know, its not time to know.

it's urgent when its urgent.

everything is an example.

pruning the family tree.

what does success even look like?

the internet is space.

information under-represents reality.

I am not reinventing what it means to be human.

we are all capable of embodying the opposite of our self conception.

its a question of bottom truth.

complicity in everything you think is wrong with the world.

embodiment of an ideal,

misplaced morality,

lack of model,

smart body,

unapologetic as its own end,

it's a question of bottom truth,

fulfillment of an ideal,

persistent lack.

Things seen from fast and far (which may last forever some place)

"Forever," he said.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The black tarp huge and hanging from the overpass.
The truck in between and staring,
a light from within,
a bunk bed perhaps.
The church bell paused and poised.
The teens fleeced and awe-faced,
jogging into the night.
The couple, helmet handed,
shouting yellow-faced on the pull off
straight into the others' mouth.
They know there is something worth loving.

Pieces of something put together,
worth pulling over for,
or find somehow to roll around in them
while rolling on.

February first

let's find some glamour in this small room

a little sugar in our milk

it's been the longest of januarys

and spring is nowhere near

so I hold you like a sparrow

the slightest song in my hand

they say, you put vick's vapo-rub on your feet and then put socks on.



and some people can't do certain things like some people shouldn't eat tomatoes. tomatoes make my face itch, but vaguely, like it's still a choice, some things aren't choices, i guess.



and i think that when you say it's not bodies it's people, i think i mean almost the opposite, but it's that thing i go back and forth about before remembering.


the capital letters, safety quotes, don't look for it in India, it isn't in our bellies, but still.



we are getting a little post-post, and I'd been waiting without realizing it. all my friends are becoming the non-violentest of communicators, in the best way.



a truly golden German pancake, i cannot even tell you, the really tender greens. tenderness, in general.



a ponytail vision, a thing to fall back on, it's like having a type. i need to talk to you again.

Parties! Parties! Parties!

I'll go ahead and wait for the pot to boil.
I [ ]
returned, velour on velour, to dream of orange tiles
wooden cabinetry and nonspecific age groups
in ten minutes I'll get up, and I'll sit down, and I'll get up again.

I'll just go ahead and rest here for a while.
I haven't [ ]
and I just want to go to parties and sit down
my motivations are relate-able and all-wrong are
unsavory and unavoidable and I apologize in advance to
everyone I'll ever meet.

I'll just wait here, then, for that, and I hope no one minds.

You tell me Alice Walker says:

Let us bring attention to George's mother.

She who came weeping, and picked up the shattered pieces of her child,

as black mothers have for so long.

May you be free

May you be happy

May you be at peace

May you be at rest

May you know we remember you.

For learning to make rituals for hard things that will happen,

for those structures that explain but do not justify.

honoring aching in abstraction and in specificity:

This is a space where a poem was

for your patient who did not come in last week.

and this is for your father,

and for my uncle,

and for my uncle, and

for your father,

and for your father,

and for your sperm recipient's wife, and for your father.

KISS

In the deliriums of passion he promised everything, but when it was over, everything was left for later.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The tree in the bathroom grows in every direction.
The forest untamed above the toilet.
The rows of trees between my house and theirs,
that make one only think of ancestors,
do not grow any more, but expand somehow.
In some other woods wanders a Cajun
who has had to leave the corporate world
and rat race for health reasons
and has moved into a small,
Class B (van) RV
and simplified his life.
The thing we think of doing
but do not.

"I turn over to you the keys of your life," he said.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

They two, in shape and texture, twins,
wandering in loops and stretches
as termites in wood.
We sit sedentary
as scenes and centuries pass.
My sister can barely bend
to put on her boots,
a baby, belly wrapped,
in her way.
We wait: for the space to grow bigger
for the new thing to come,
to know each others as something else.

Born in the green light

I was born in the light of the green
where once 17 banners hung.

As a child I would visit the garden, walk through
bright colored seats
and watch the block!
swish!
of hands and bodies dancing
to the rhythm of the court.

I am homegrown
a fan
if you will
of that fighting Irish.

Through injuries
tears (mine and theirs)
I watched.
Hands clenched
sweat streaming
heart racing as they run
back to catch a rebound.

I was birthed in their green
and white light
and I always be in it.

Singalong

Death is the ultimate intrusion of nature
Into self, and subtlety is God's art.
Just as parents make children
Their demons make the demons of their children.
One should not marry without a good matrimonial bed,
And one always has time to die,
So play the space around you like a virtuoso.

To Sviatoslav Richter

Put a small piano on a truck and drive out on country roads;
Take time to discover new scenery;
Stop in a pretty place where there is a good church;
Unload the piano and tell the residents;
Give a concert;
Offer flowers to the people who have been so kind as to attend;
Leave again.

things i thought about today

juice
noodles
erotica
glitter
real dolls
kiss
cairo
spoon
blood
red food dye
naked snow angels
trash-bag sledding
sociopath tuesday

how our kitchen looks like a hurricane
who drank all my vodka?
the (sad) ending of the poems

the way she smiled at me last night
where you have disappeared to
and whether you're okay

Trouble

plain straight table straight weary old legs
old plain young woman straight sweet chin old
chair slats slump back dear Doris Day lump rise well eye and
Volkswagen packed and ready to go go go go go go go go go go

Some Day it Will be Summer Again. Not Today, Though

Unhelpful as I am,
hands that don't hold,
reasoning wrong and driven so badly,
a small-eyed jockey saddled in my mind,
still in the round I join in the round
the water still and night as I never see it
dark, I never see the dark, never have seen the dark
so still the water and to trust my twisting feet
to walk so slowly, singing, past the different darknesses
the day's failures
by the water, towards rest

another shame

shame, when
bouncing around on aaron's bed,
he runs into me
and feels the squish of my diaper
underneath my pjs

and every night, this fear—
that even though
i haven't done it since then,
i will, again—
keeps me up, and
going to the bathroom
ten times before i sleep

You and Me, Bess

And then, out of nowhere,
after a day of sandpaper,
I find my voice again, and
always in the strangest places.

Eeemmmooo

I love
the way Cedric Bixler
screams
at the end of
"Invalid Litter Dept."

I Guess the J.K. in Your Name Also Stands for "Just Kidding

I went to your birthday party.
Young love was in the air.
People drank craft beers
and talked about careers.
It wasn't just scary, it was a nightmare.

I went to see you cook at the cook-off.
Young love was on the grill.
There's only so much
awkward conversation
a person can take before she's had her fill.

We went to Governors Island
and camped out in the moat.
My uncertainties reached out for me.
They had me by the throat.

Oh, I get so damn frustrated.
I don't know what to do.
I just can't seem to stop running out of things to say to you!

Well, I don't want to hang out with you.
I just want to sit in my room.

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

And I don't want to make out with you.
I just want to sit in my room!

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

And you're never gonna return my calls!
And I'm just gonna sit in my room!

(Alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone
alone alone alone!)

Three Step Plan

Life is too short to be angry at exes.
Life is too short to be angry at anyone
other than myself. Problematization
of consumption. Problematization
of irony. Pathologization of
problematization and vice versa.
Also flirting--problematization
thereof. Depression & anxiety,
hand in hand like heartburn
and halitosis. Life is too short.
Step one for the 20s. Step two is:

I learned to sleep again. This is part of
a series of realizations: things can be
easy once you decide that they will be.
I have so many habits, but I
remembered at least how to take control
of my hypnogogia and turn them to rest.
My dreams are my dreams and there is
no reasonwhy they should make me bolt up
in the night. So many habits. Step three is:

Let's see me apply this to the act of speaking,
to the act of singing, to the act of doing it.

dangerous games

i wake up twice and i find that i'm exactly where i thought i'd be

but i don't want to be there
i was secretly hoping for something else
something bad
something that would have
done damage to us

but maybe it's for the best
that nothing happened

my mind takes me places where my body can't possibly go
and for lack of a better word
all i can say is
thanks

sad to see it go

i used to think
it was everyone else

that was missing something
but i think now

that i'm the one
who's missing out

on all the fun
that i thought i was having

CORVALIS II

The kind of town I’d like to show Stefan in Sofia
this is America 1 and 2 and 3

Sitting on the bench like I did
working a wedding in St. Paul

The stairs were wet I wrote a letter
the bridesmaids were more beautiful than even the usual beautiful

I wanted a coke the plastic cup
cracked I left a print

Oregon state university football
is a big deal and Jerry Garcia

Things like gelato, espresso,
Indian embroidered fanny packs

I talked to Ellis in a similar sunshine
a parking lot in what’s that town called where the Kennedy’s stayed

Friends in pairs bring paper cups to the benches by the river
friends in pairs and cocker spaniels

Our families floated down the river
everyone was upset

Everyone floated in a certain way
to show how much they cared

holidaze

starting the day dehydrated, elbow-deep in cupcake batter
mixing in pounds of edible glitter, stringing up christmas lights,
ripping duct tape to later cross over nipples

lace-clad mingling, leather crop, running fingers
over her studded collar
vodka, gin, whiskey, sparkle-dipped pretzels

give me your sequined bras, leave your furs on my bed
girls, bedazzle me! take pictures, dance with me, come here, fall down
with me, tangle into a mess of bodies like old times-

there's just so much flesh I can't choose
what I wanna grab onto

it's so cold outside (we're all so naked)
she wove her shirt out of dollar-store hair extensions, I think I must love her

taking kiss-risks

miniature red gems all over her lips
drinking wine through a straw

come on guys, just make-out and get it over with!
we have to move the party, the show has started

she looped metal cord round her dreads, crumpled tinfoil dress

he wore a tent, invited us in to drink champagne
dancing on the windowsill until he fell down

fuck, you're almost totally exposed! fuck.

swooped through like nightingales, at the show, pulled up onto the stage
by groupies' hands, eager and painted,
glow-in-the-dark eyes and boys and girls on molly pulling tentatively
on my newly platinum hair, rubbing hands down my leather pants

flirt-faced
it was all in her wink, insinuated shrug
fell right into her sass, lips on lips

i miss you, i miss you
remember we were lovers once?

sunglasses made out of plastic forks

her friend, my friend, long-time-lost, came to me
shy, smiling, her shining eyes, to pull lower lips
he grabbed my waist to pull me in

the lights were too much for us,
go-go girls, swinging in hot pants, butterfly kisses
bruiser in horns whispers tell them i loved them, raises herself over
the crowd that surges into itself beneath us

waking up still covered in blood, in a room eerie with florescence
fake eyelashes still clinging on, eyelids encrusted with rhinestones
steeped in thirst, amnesia,
satisfaction

We fell deep

At first
at the surface
where the land beneath is flat,
things seem shallow.

Walking is easy.
One step forward
another step
repeat.

Suddenly a foot drops
feet below.
Always into something
cold
or wet,
wishing that summer had dips like this.

That is the falling
we do when we do not expect it.

puff

the wedge,
of what, chocolate?
or sand? your history,
mine, padding the boundaries,
letting adjustments be.

he was all the rage.
he was a part of it.
she was belgian, and beauteous.
he was magical in mind.
she sapped his touch.
she surfed.
and he was glad.

BOFF KILL MARRY

IT'S WHERE YOU PICK THREE PEOPLE
AND DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THEM

LET'S START WITH YOUR EXES

IMAGINARY LETTERS

Files
looking 4 it
to be frank
I had a crush
parse down
cut
like vegetables
like cultures
fractured, conjoined
huddled in bars
sick breath,
secrets.

Rare to see
fire and guard truck
roaring down the interstate

I don’t understand the system that is driving
how does it work so well
and also fail so often

Dad tells me there’s a new young
universe, haven’t you heard

He was stuck in traffic when some
teens loped across. From this to that to this.

CORVALIS

Walking across the am/pm parking lot
it’s pm now, the light plum-dark
square jawed crack-up
skids his bike across
the Motor Inn parking lot
and I haven’t got the time
to not have the time

For 3 or 4 days now my face holds the drano feeling
salty waters, underlay of muscle marsh
we talked nature vs. nuture
girl at the am/pm smoking
moon face through the glass
pajama pants alien print
faux felt, faux raven feather hair

Corvalis

I was here before

Now people are coming into their rooms
on all floors there’s noise
rush of cars like bath water
simple metaphor for your
wink and blink
water for your eyes
new vision

And I guess I would be disappointed
If I hadn’t read somewhere
Maya Angelou likes to
rent out motel rooms
weeks at a time
lays stomach down
yellow legal pad and…sherry?

I dreamt of restriction
I could not farm my favorite seaweed salad
slow swim behind the skin, dream stain
when last night I drew
pencil on colored paper
particles so crude
like rotting fabric

Outside they hum “motherfucker” and shuffle on
in eastern Wisconsin
there was that bad motel
all the others full
from a dog convention
we slept rigid
and we were cold

I know that I am lucky.

sleep reception. or an e mail i wrote.

you there too there oh hi

i actually was just calling to propose a visit if

maybe fenders by then

and wanted to know, "you work until 3 tomorrow, right?"

still feelings are habits and i have a lot of those.

notes on a chart on/in a cabbage patch

The cabbage, my love.

enough food for a feast, an abundant bloom in shades of green and purple

utilitarian stalwart of the enchanted brassica genus,

those healing prodigies of the mustard family.

cabbages! and their ability to break down and become

exactly what my stomach needs to feel good

the food that makes it possible to eat food

who would think that such a pungent specificity would belay such edible altruism?

you, cabbage, are the center of my attention and then repay me, support me, throughout my every eating day.

oh cabbage,

In the popular imagination, what other vegetable still grows in a patch?

I am honored by my derisive association with your home,

don't be so cabbage patch must mean something like don't be so saccharine or so uncool.

but I am embracing you

I'll imagine my covers are your outer leaves and I, I am in a cabbage patch. sweet and exhausting.

I choose to immerse myself in you, cabbage. it's time I know you if you model me so well.

But wait, there is something exciting happening at the base of the Magic Crystal Tree.

Code Green ... Mother Cabbage is in Labor!

The sonogram is glowing pink, it looks like it is going to be a girl.

She has green eyes. Our intern remembered to fertilize the patch so this baby has auburn curls!

It's a beautiful Newborn girl. Would you like to help name her?

woah. um.

this?

fascinated, I preemptively apologize to myself for intrigue looking like irony,

guilt is an important motivator, because ironic consumption is consumption, too

and I don't know even of it is- which is a whole different story.

but what is the relationship between repression and the cabbage patch?

world of euphemism and false sanitation. are these my people?!

and how do I Own It when stating the phrase aloud makes me try to be tough and

ownership is a possessive concept that I don't want to foster too deeply.

and I do not like euphemisms, I don't even like metaphors

my vagina is not a cabbage that gets fertilized to grows babies while sitting under the magic crystal tree.

xxviii.

can't believe you guys don't like this fork
it's so cute!
it's my new pet

it's the handle
?
a lumberjack
alone in the woods,
whittling

a serial killer's
twisted oak,
firewood, puff of chimney smoke

fork
that he made
himself

flickering milk

flickering horsetail




flickering person

How Cupid Explained Psyche to his Mama

Oh, mama. She is the valentine clean.

sleep

Eardive in to the pile of coats in the back seat of the car, and sleep until the rest stops. There is not much safer than knowing I can tune out that inanity, mom and dad will keep each other company and I am the kid to be cared for, I can sleep.

I could: be attentive and time it just right, try and get it wrong, not try and get it wrong, not try and have it fine. Sleeping with your hand against my stomach, or lying there wishing you'd wake up for our routine. There is power in yielding to this contingency, there was power in letting it pass.

The returned luxury of not sharing. I find books, needles, socks, hats in my bed, and it does not matter that they were there all night with me. It's cold but I'm comfortable, and I'm grown here, relishing the absence of another set of luxuries, of a body to share gone and all the opportunity to be my own elation at myself swathed in blankets. Some nights, I sigh.

Headfirst in to my own lap soft spare sweater side of my teaching bag turned upwards towards my forehead. It's really just me here, elbowed in to the crowd. The comfort of asserting that I feel safe, burrowed on my valuables and witnessed unconscious by strangers. They come and go, and I am so somberous as we go over the manhattan bridge. It must be something I breathed in the city air all those years, I have never overslept and missed my stop.

Atchoo!

Chump at the zoo
flips a cig in a cage.
The animals chew.

Miraculous humans!
Lightbulbs opening,
Olympics, Rwanda,
molasses n’ arson.

Babe at the beach
gets pinched by a crab.
The animals teach you
to own one’s each.

no pulp

i've been invited to a party

and i run away

to another party

that i've been turned away from

at the last minute

because i didn't have what i needed

and i don't know what that is yet.

parades, lemonade
tired ponies laughing
little rhino toothaches, harpoon leggings and tangled cobweb legs.
We jumped headfirst into the frog pond and ate lilacs caught vicious between our teeth,
cantaloupe butter smoothed our lips and pillow juice drooled out of our mouths like true love.
Caviar dancing drizzled our tummies with fresh mockery.
Sleep forever darling child, don't awaken from this tale of tinkery your face won't fit like a jenga puzzle and your eyes will bake with teary coral.

Rambo Fantasy

you're going to grow up to be a bum
drinking 24 oz Coors
on strip mall lawns
smoking Marlboros
in the middle of the god damn day

no longer hooligans getting into mischief
adults of sound mind
making poor decisions

keep walking, son
we don't like your kind

i'm tough, but
i just want to be left alone
people have to learn the hard way
like in Rambo

Dill's Deli

loose ceiling fan jiggles
brown and orange coffee pots
iced tea, lemons
sandwiches
party trays
mochas and lattes
Freddy Mercury on the radio
under pressure

the smell of oil and vinegar
soup in a bread bowl
cranberries, fifty cents extra
avocado, a dollar extra
unless you order the vegetarian
big screen tv in the corner
hosni mubarak
will at least try
to remain president

order here
restroom
black mat
clock
exit
we I.D.
the president condemns the chaos
a plot to overthrow
aware of the suffering of the people

red plastic tray bowl
thin metallic forks
Tork Xpressnap dispenser
salt and pepper
demands that social networking be reactivated
keep the troops off the streets

rectangles of sun
shadows of homey kitchen chairs
concrete floor
cool air
sleepy tables
grey plastic register
microwave
toaster
kitsch trophy
tanks on the streets

Lays, Doritos, Fritos
Coors, Buds, Coronas
truckers
pink sweatsuit headband
helicopter photography of our town
Mount Shasta
panorama
far off riots
a threat
to you
personally

"Tell me something, lionlady of my soul," asked Florentina Ariza, "how would you feel if you received a love letter written on that thing?"
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A moment of dry things
spread out for touching.
A circle of chairs
and birds in throats.
The supermarket bright.
The shout from the dentist chair
heard in the waiting room.
The look of two things
next to each other.