I’ve filled all of the balloons
with cigarette smoke instead of helium,
just like you asked,
and when the children come crawling,
peeling themselves from pavement,
we’ll take needle-points to latex
reshape their tracheas into factories
Soon our home will brim with smoke rings,
I'll place a finger to them
only to ruin the perfection produced by small lips

Thumbs are to erasers as tears are to pencils
I swear to you I try to keep within the stencil
but saltwater weeping, shallow breath, and tobacco smoke
don’t seem to stay within the lines as well as I’d hoped
If I had another way I’d draw terrible pictures,
stick them to the fridge and insist “mom, take it with ya”
                                                  
I’ve been ripping out dictionary pages and
nailing them to various foreheads,
yowling, “we need knowledge, we need verbal expression!”
Though, I don’t believe I’ve made much progression
because a woman turned to me today with a
business suit on her back and a chewed up heart at her feet
She fastened a note to the top of her skull that read:
“ignorance is bliss” then she waited for a car to bind her to the street

DDD                                                ­                                                              *(3­/14/2013)