The little ***
You gave

White with red
Flower-

Kept it so long
The glaze cracked.

Bet you are
Improved too

By a few
Laughing lines

another nail driven into the bad news coffin
another nail driven by our hands -
inconsequential as it may be

the rusty patched bumble bee has been marked for
endangerment.  and though Rusty Patched
stretches his wings over vermont

way and though I've never seen a vermont
sunrise I know that it does.  and I know
it's the same as carolina's.  and I've

never met a person from vermont in
person, but I know that they like
flowers, blueberries, tomatoes

and that Rusty is a good friend of
theirs because of that.  planting his
pollinating pixie stick into receptive pistil

and flowers flowering, blueberries
blueing on bush, tomatoes tip
toeing to life on the vine

thank Rusty.  and vermont, Bernie
Sanders and all, thank Rusty with
a new spot on the great pesticide

death list.  whose bright idea was it
to grow our food with ******?
I think I missed that city council

meeting.

**** poetry when I could be in a bed
with you         no unfuck poetry
because how else could I enumerate
your tidal wave hair rising and crashing
under the light of my moonbeam fingers?

**** tv when I could be at tate street
coffee        on saturday morning livid
with jazz hopped up on the best **** cup of coffee in greensboro sharing bass notes with a caricature of iggy pop and you.

no unfuck tv because that's the way we spend our tuesdays          giggling
up in high definition with a freshly packed bowl and your head on
my belly tired as tires pushing 85 on 85 for 85000 miles but netflix leads to chill leads to naked leads

to my tongue to your belly's favorite cavity leads to **        ly **** hallelujah! if anything **** god and
the devil **** yin and closed fist yang **** bodhisatva **** dharma and the other things i dont know **** the big bang because the
universe we **** into creation is a rainbow balloon

bursting candy confetti compared to the one we leave when I, all hands and ribcage, am allowed to share your bed.

and this morning, like most,
found you sprawled
out taking 3/4s of the
bed again.  don’t get the wrong
idea, I am not complaining.
I’ll take a sliver at your side
over mountains of blankets,
pillows, alarm clocks and
emptiness.  you can tell
my jealous mattress I prefer
to sleep on your floor
because 7 AM sunlight
will never look as good
as it does stretching over
your bare *******, shoulders,
belly.  I lie with a thin
sheet between my knees
tucked between your
legs and a curtained window.
I think about kissing you
but I’ll wait until the
jade buried under your
eyelids come to
meet the morning on
it’s own terms.  until
then…

before the bubonic plague, men would
choose their surname on their career path.
this is where we get our smiths, hunters,
etc.  why'd this fall out of fashion?  I'm
still waiting to meet a Jonathan Chronic-
Masturbater or a Bill Potfarmer.  I guess
that last one would fall under Farmer,
but you get what I mean.

I realize  that when you asked me to  feed your two calicos
while vacationing, I wasn’t given title to  pluck four large
tomatoes  from  your perfectly trained  vines.

The tomatoes were Christmas red, unbruised
and husky. It seemed criminal and unfair
to my palate not to devour them
by dusk the day I stole them;

in my shallow defense
both of your cats
repeatedly hissed
at me when fed.

If ever
I get too old to laugh
**** me

                   By Phil Roberts