Abigail slides the glass door shut.
As beads of water percolate off her body
and land on the faux stone tile,
the smell of chlorine from her swim
and the smell of coffee from my brewing *** blend.
My uncle, Abigail's father, and my mother
are seated at the sticky, spilt soda kitchen table beside me.
"Go get ready for dinner," my mother's brother says, sending
Abigail's bikini'd frame through doorway and around the bend.
The brew idles, and I'm all porcelain and sugar substitute for a moment,
then back by my uncle and mother.

"Abigail has gotten so thin," my mother says.

"Is she eating?" my mother asks.

"I know it's tough for girls her age. When they're looking to marry," my mother says.
I want to bash the smoking cup into her face.

My uncle says she's been training for a marathon.
My neurons get tidy and taper off.
So, it's out of the kitchen and into an empty living room
to park my *** on an empty piano bench.
I set the coffee on top, and press eight of my fingers down
on black keys.
I hear toes-to-heels, toes-to-heels.
I gaze over my shoulder.
Now, Abigail's in a black, black dress. Mid-thigh.
In her left hand,
red ****-me-shoes with a heel that could turn a curious man blind;
in her right hand,
black pantyhose and cherry lipgloss.
"You should have swam," Abigail delivers with hushed precision,
like she'd been reciting the line throughout the duration of her swim.

Abigail has long brunette hair,
and it's sticking to her neck.
Deep permanent dimples frame her lips.
She's a nurse in Waco.
Each time I see her, I think about
Bukowski's 103-pound "Texan".
It makes me rash, violent, a heady monstrosity,
and trembling sick.

"I forgot my trunks."

"That's no excuse."

I would respond, but she's sliding the hose up her leg.

In the living room.

While my uncle talks a second mortgage around the bend.

Her right leg crosses her left,
an overpass and an interstate.
My forehead overheats in a flash,
and I feel like she's staring back at me.
When my leering eyes shift from
her toes to her eyes, the pupils beckon:

"All roads lead to me."

fishnet pantyhose
mexican dinners
men with a big noses
competing, being the winner
women scented like roses

words of praise
cats
getting a yearly raise in pay
the sound outside my window and knowing it's bats
calling in sick to work, and spending the day at play

seeing stupidity and smiling
the laughing of my nieces
writing a good poem without trying
hug by my fiance and falling to pieces

You rip me apart
like the ladders in my
stockings
which I try to climb but
never take me
anywhere
other than closer to
you

A quiet life
A country life
Where the grass sways in the breeze
And the hues of green signify the beginning of balmy nights
A far cry from the city
Gone are the endless vibrant lights
Gone are the 2 a.m. trips across town just because they make the best doughnuts
In this place of air almost too clean to breathe
They stroll
A traffic jam is four cars at a stop sign
Battling rules of the road with polite hat tips of "you go first"
Fast feet and hot dog carts
Italian ices on every corner
Fifty-six blocks to a destination
A world of choices
A billion footprints at a time
Stoplight crowds of sneakers and pantyhose
Everyone is invisible and naked at once
The green haired freak and the business man
The limos and the gypsy cabs
The excitement only felt in a world of possibilities
The difference between pick up trucks and bike messengers
A hundred miles for supplies
Or fifty-six blocks of everything under the sun
Soot filled pores and too much traffic
Street sounds to sleep by and a world of opportunities
Crickets and junebugs
The world closes at eight
Nightlife turns into Wal-Mart and Taco Bell
The slow pace of growing grass
The warmth of a winterless Summer
Wishing for a trip across town at 2 a.m. just because they make the best doughnuts

Volume up,lights out
Tolerance up just to drown him out
Everyone's dancing in circles
She's stuck in the perverse perimeter,so no one sees her around .
Hopped off on circles & hallow cylinders just to survive when shes around
She used to come alive in the moon light
When the high beams shined she used to see the light .
Now she's struggling w strategies to leave .
Trying to find an amusing excuse to satisfy their surprise
Something like :
"I'm a vampire I need to get home before the sun rises "
Pass her a lighter , So she could add
fuel to the fire ;makes for better burn holes in her pantyhose
Chain link boots ,skin tight leather coat
Mustang Sally , make tonight your own..

The esophageal chill of fresh rain paired
with Bozek's tire stove undertones
slipped through the chain link tennis court.
Love all, love-fifteen, love-thirty, love-forty, game.
I love you, service box Suns, fault one fault lines,
Grandma's crochet centerpiece. Cornucopia coping
with deuce, add.  in, deuce, add. out, deuce,
you get it. Lost ***** in the transformer pen beside
the playground where I watched my classmates
fall off the monkey bars and expose themselves daily.
Racket strings like pantyhose girls surrounding
the sink applying lipstick and stabbing each other dead.
They don't need monkey bars to show off.
Slice serve pizza at Pudgies to kids barely making it.
Grades lower than the pepperoni from the seedy
gas station they sit in and thumb-spike quarters
into each other's knuckles. The "grown-ups"
buy instant lottery and feverishly **** the tickets
with misplaced pennies, and then toss the moneywastes
when they score a free ticket. Free ticket to what?
The tennis match in Addison so far away?
A clear view through chain link?
A wet, elm bench some kid made in shop class?
An alternative to what we waste our lives on?
******, marijuana, drinking at the basketball court, and
flicking cigarette filters into Berger Lake like we're hot ****.
We are ****, not the ****.
Just ****.

see I float around society like a plastic bag sometimes
unseen unless someone needs me

and there are so many truths I've seen
about women

these are the undeniable facts:

Beauty: women love beauty. they are consumed by it. it feeds them till they die, clutching stylish cases and well-worn tubes and knuckles bruised by constant forcing, or they sit in darkened obscure corners waiting for a no-name prince to charm them into believing lies, avoiding mirrors along the way.

Intelligence: it's okay to be smart but not so smart that a man feels five inches tall against the length of the word you just uttered with smooth unaffectedness, if you do that he falters, feels as though his life has been false, and then he tells you to stop reading your books. and you do it, because you fear you may lose him. women hide from the monsters of science and math, drown in the seas of history and literature and pretend all the while, giggles in every breath's pause, that they just don't know. because no one wants a woman who can recite Chaucer but can't even press a decent crease or bake a good cherry pie.

Hard Work Ethic: women were born to work. they work to maintain an illusion, they work to get a man, they work to keep him, they work to make him feel superior, they work in cramped cubicles and then in cramped apartments, making them uncramped, and then in cramped bedrooms under cramped sheets, trying to hide their leg cramp so as to not disturb his concentration.

Confidence: women hate other women who are confident. because those women have learned to disregard every lesson from charm school, and everyone else struggles to find the perfect hair flip. secretly, women love another woman with confidence. because it shows them they can be that reckless one day.

Dress: women want the short skirt in the window. but the directions on the tag are as follows:
DO NOT WEAR WHILE DRINKING. DO NOT WEAR IN COLD WEATHER. DO NOT WEAR WITHOUT PANTYHOSE. DO NOT WEAR IF OVER 130 POUNDS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE COMPANY OF DRUNK MEN. DO NOT WEAR TO SPORTING EVENTS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER WOMEN. DRY CLEAN ONLY. women leave the skirt on the hanger.

Strong Personality: women tell other women to be quiet and keep their heads low. that is all they know. when they were little girls they used to shout. then they became teenagers and were taught to whisper when they wanted something. whispers are saved for secrets, lies and things women want.

Competition: women want men. women want other women. women want people. women are told they want men. women fight for men, because they are taught men are the ultimate prize. women win men and are disappointed with the terms and conditions that apply. but it's too late. they've already won. women wonder what they were fighting for in the first place.

Affluent: women wish money didn't matter but when they're counting pennies for every man's dollar it's hard to ignore.

women are told by men their mothers their sisters their teachers their bosses their world

that they are too loud ****** ugly fat hairy ***** loose slutty uptight frigid emotional stoic competitive timid.

women tell other women these things and think their world will love them for it. women love other women, but begin to believe they don't.

biggest problem women have is with a world that thinks they can't handle their own ****.

i recall
with a fondness
blurred by years
the town of
my formative years

in the mountains
the heart of the table lands
dissected by a highway
it crouched, along the sides
of a shallow valley

i remember a greeness
that came from the trees
eucalypt and pine
most prominent
in my mind
and the grass that grew
lush and tall
only to be mown
each Saturday morn

i remember
churches and schools
the wide expasnses
of playing fields
and parks with
hurdygurdys and swings
i remember the pool,
that too turquoise
rectangle,
that glistened
with wet invitation
and on the highest peak
the stolid grey water  tower
lording it over all

i remember rough tarmac
under my feet, running from
light pool to light pool at dusk
and frost on picket fences
in early mornings,
like delicate sugar candy
solidier braving the early sun

our house, small on a large block
with hydrangea at the front
wisteria overtaking the fenceline
an at the back door a concrete slab
painted fire engine red,
but faded to overipe watermlon pink

poplar trees garding the back
and the smell of onions
burning on the grill
hill'*******with tennis ball
and pantyhose
standing  to silent attention


and in the forground
my brothers and clans
playing football, league
with passion and
burgeoning skill

all this comes to mind
on a cold winter's day
i may of come a long way
but my heart still
ties me to there
and the memories
make the knots

There's horns and heartache in every direction a ***** smile in the sirens that echo through the alleys bricked or stuccod into self martyrd silence at a world that is only a glossy poster of its former self an hour glass up everybodys nose some torn pantyhose hope I'm smiling in my 4x4 a beam watching the people turnstyle through despair and ecstasy I'm painted white but I'm full of termites and I love this mirage world despite all the anyways and brick roads that lead to cliffs and cliffs that lead to lovers and lovers that leave for sunrise and railroad ties  me unholy headed in every direction that leads to nowhere everywhere but like I said I love this mirage

If she is hungry

Then we'll let her starve

For longing

Is a beautiful expression

On the face of a pretty, young girl.


If she is cold

We'll wrap her in white

Over her paper-doll arms

Dancing-girl legs

Porcelain-baby face.


We'll spare her from mummification

By peeling away those first layers

Just to reveal more white, adorned underneath

Pure as ****** snow.


We'll never speak

Of those dark shadows

Over smooth, breakable skin, so fair

For we shall make a gentleman wonder

If she wears proudly her shadows

If she has on her pantyhose.


If she becomes yours

We'll show everyone

If only for a moment

Just what a prize you have won.

Such a lovely, hungry, pure, feminine face

Beneath that age-old veil.


But don't you worry, son!

As soon as you taste those wanting, red lips

You can lower that veil as you wish

Decide the form she shall take

As one who is yours

To feed, clothe, flaunt, hide

However you please.


But until then...


If she is hungry

We'll let her starve

Just to make her wait.

The Smile worth more than a million words
The Eyes that seem to recite this verse
The Ears that hear no more disrespect
The Nose that crinkles like fresh pantyhose
She's no Mona Lisa, no Marilyn Monroe
She's not Farrah Fawcet, don't need golden globes
She's all I'll ever ask for, and oh so much more
She something spectacular, A daughter of God

On the first day, we are all just hydrogen and time. Filling these hands—
this one mirror angle, one small wrist. One afternoon’s picked-over bones.

The second day, I spun ten times. On the grass, sky turning
its cosmic ballet. The axis of the world, there in the front yard.

On the third day, a hangman’s rope of pantyhose. Easy choices
like stop, and get a ****** or don’t stop, and get a family.

On the fourth day, tick-a-tick-a-ticking. Since I learned
to tell time, cradling has been inescapable and immanent.

The fifth day, I wanted an ovipositor that would glide
and bed, know it’s way around a dark brood pouch.

Day six, caught stealing ancient definitions, stuffing my pockets
and shoes. I’m told zülf  is the wisp of hair falling over my eyebrow.

On the seventh day, I shelved myself and gave back one rib, honey
spines of snakes. What tiny handprints they’d leave if they had hands.

Sitting on the bus
my Israeli Paul Revere seminary nightmare steps on
armed in pantyhose, eyes stretched
wide by a thick black headband
Dense Brooklyn accent, perfect Hebrew.
Laughing on the phone, she
tells the details of the most recent terrorist attack,
a family of five murdered in their home,
a baby stabbed in its cradle
She said she’s just come from the memorial in Jerusalem,
where hundreds of Israelis stood in the streets sobbing and
screaming for vengeance
A sea of black hats, writhing and angry
She said they showed everyone
pictures of the bodies,
so they would know the horror of what happened
And as she sat there smiling, broadcasting the news like
a recount of a primetime television episode,
I sat
on the verge of tears
and watched the rest of the bus sit stony-faced,
distracted and desensitized.
We drive through
a market place.
An
old woman gets on clutching
a challah swaddled in plastic, sleeping salty.
(The bus is full off babies,
but none of them are crying.)
Meanwhile, in Gaza
the murders had another crowd
of people filling the streets,
dancing.

rag tag *** hag grocery bag in drag
maxed credit and bragging about having a stag party
farty party girls in shart coated pantyhose blow wasted kisses
to fisters in trousers bumping mump victims blisters
hitting wristers like the Williams sisters
coyote trickster with a brand new mix tape waits
with his **** taped to his own leg like Ricky Lake
on her fist date
another Cosby **** escape hot-plated shared space
I’m no racist cause my skin is white and pasty
I’m tasty and **** like Britney sans the braces insatiable
and my testicles are reckless needing spectacles
done wrecked the hull Captain Pickard
and a test-tube girl –

Nights under stars
Sand between toes
Drive-in movie cars
Freshly fallen snow
Raggedy dresses
Waterfall rainbows
Socotra trees
Ripped pantyhose
Unmatched socks
Leaves in transition
Innocence and sunflowers
Lighthouses and words written
Familiar kitchen patterns
In a stranger’s house
New Orleans architecture
A cemetery mouse
Flip-flops in winter
Zebras and block parties
Cinnamon and cloves
Whiskey and Bacardi
Candy in pillow cases
Static electricity in the dark
Barun Valley and painted faces
Houses made from tree bark
Wrap-around porches
Neon city lights
Lightning-bug torches
Thunderstorm nights
Epicurean summers
Lapis Lazuli skies
Youth prayers in rocking chairs
Heterochromatic eyes

Crooked nose,
**** pose.
I want to strip you past your pantyhose,
and prove
how much I love you.
It's extreme:
this feeling you're giving me
like someone's on my team
and I'm on my knees -
begging you not to leave;
screaming, gleaming,
shining, whining,
we're playing this sing song game,
winning,
weaving your words to my innards.
Dancing,
spin her.
glorious spirals and swirls,
you look at the girl
like she's beautiful,
even when your eyes are on her evil.
I am the church,
will you be my steeple?
We can be the pretty people,
better even,
antichrists.
Will you be my wife?
No.
That's little ****,
we're bigger even.
Past the dimension of tension;
free to learn the lessons
of each others' teachers.
We can be world leaders
or animal breeders,
silly kissers,
fishermen.
I'm just wishin' you're with me,
every moment is waiting for you
to kiss me.
Even when it's happening,
I'm missing you
'cause I want to live inside your chest cave.
Closer.
Closer.
I'll gladly be your slave.
Slay me.
Take me away.
I want to be the game you play.

Like an upside-down stage curtain, steam rises
over a half-empty cup of ginger tea,
obscuring the dreary view of yet another rainy day.
The woman leans closer to the window
(she’s certain there’ll be an oily stain where her nose
makes contact with the icy glass).

Raindrops are mutating over cracks in the window,
their shadows filling in the blank
blotches in her eyes, camouflaging the liver spots
(themselves otherworldly mutants)
over her hands— sewerage on plumbers’ gloves.
She drinks her tea and whimpers his name.

Scalpel-blade shivers creep over her back,
over the folds in her pantyhose;
chalk marks on the road become visible—
she remembers it like yesterday
when she cradled his broken body in her arms:
police car and ambulance sirens

conjured a dust devil that reeked of young death;
it clung to her designer clothes,
and complemented the purple stench of brake fluid,
petrol, and the god-awful breaths
of bystanders who’d gathered like a swarm of flies,
the soft susurrus of their conversations

intensifying till pencil-lipped, beast-like groans,
ready to feed on the hole in her soul,
salivating to take a bite of grief, and replace it with remorse;
she recalls the sound of her car keys
on the hot tar, which took a chomp out of her left knee,
and warm blood seeping into her every fibre.

Steam and chalk marks fade away into the past.
In front of the refrigerator,
on the grimy vinyl kitchen flooring, a ginger meows;
the woman ignores its pleas,
and reaches for the upside-down picture on the window sill.
A liver spot sprouts from her neck.

Down Tempest Lane
I wish they could turn off the search lights.
Smoke and mirrors interloping
back at the Copters
through the blinds,
blades weeping in symphonic sympathy,
before the Pantyhose and Plunge bras peel off,
some of us can get it on for real.
Others' frigid halves
fake it, like blades of grass,
who is the real snake
the appointed shooter or liar ?

I like the wasteland
Frees my brain's storage space
In great big nothing
You have so much room to create
Trees and grass and houses
If that's your thing
I rather make up my own world
Listen to the whales sing to me
Through cracks in asphalt
A bubble grows
Snakes do cartwheels
I drink lava through pantyhose
I have no box to fill
No tan lines on my wrist
Wading through the portal's lagoon
Blow my paper swan a kiss
Look upon the rolling ground
It looks like moldy carpet
I hop into my taxi cloud
Get off at Martian market
Place one ear to the ground
I hear my records' rumblin' sound
Contort my body till I'm rubber
Fling myself onto another
Great big nothing

I ate a nasty sandwich last night
Standing at the kitchen counter
In nothing but my pantyhose.

A woman in Jersey last night,
She tried to help me find my way back
I bought her two "Natty Daddys" from the liquor store
Yo, they looked disgusting.

But she drunkly jabbered on
Telling me tales of how she has sunk knives into people
Watched her brother blow his brains out
Got shot when she was 4 years old
Had 7 felonies
I listened like it was all nothing
Nodding my head gently in the freezing cold
She told me she would call me Penelope,
And I nodded and nodded and nodded,
Hopeful smile
As if my best friend and I simply waited for the bus.

But I bought her the beer
Because I was not about to **** around.
She finally went away
Clamoring out with: "I can't keep living in fantasyland here--I have a real job!!!!"
But stopped to look back and inform me that her boyfriend was 6'9".

An ambulance soon came
And an under cover cop
And I guess this is one of those moments
Where I could seem like a stand up comedian and stretch the truth
But I don't.

I don't know if it was for her.
Or for her 6'9" boyfriend.
Or hell, maybe even me.


Legs up on the wall, talking on the phone until 3am
But Long Eyelashes needs to talk because he is sad
But I gotta go get high and bowl tonight
Everyone needs to just calm the **** down.
A sleeping friend missed our hang out time
I can give you candy canes.
Southern sun and eggnog will soon surround me
Here's some art, I hope you like it
I think, deep--in my mind.

Super Super, why you look so down? Super Super.
Super Super, you can fight jets, Super Super,
With your battle axe of a housewife’s civic duty to her husband made of the dust collected from under your Victorian couch. Super Super.
Super Super, it was just last week when I saw you shine at your dinner party, your masquerade of fine dining wine, needy guests that **** your humanity out of your frail bones with dramatic recollections and vanity.

And yet, I ask again Super Super, why you look so down?
The sun’s a shining today, beams of radiating crisp, clean dreams for your bubbly, day-dreaming delight.
The earth’s a spinnin’ for you, rotating. The ebb and flow of life seeping from everyone’s front door is enough to bring real tears to your eyes, Super Super.

Oh! Super Super, tell us of your upbringing, of your life. Tell us how exactly it is that you became someone’s wife! Oh, and tell us about the time you strangled your mother… With filthy, worn out pantyhose that you found in the gutter.
Oh, Super Super.

Super Super, I know it’s rude to stare but I need to see your truth.
I need to see your Freudian slips and how your blood drips, do you bleed like me?

Now, Super Super, don’t be alarmed. You know that curiosity killed that cat, which technically means that the cat killed itself, right? SUPER Super. What exactly does it mean to live in your never-been-worn looking shoes, expensive clothes and chemically altered body? Do you find comfort in the little things? Super Super.

Super Super, why do you look so ******* sad?
There are far worse things to be than a suppressed housewife.
isn’t that just super, Super?

I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind                          but no matter where I go I see them same old hoes

                                                                 BRING DA BEAT  
                                                               c’mon, c’mon, c’mon

                                                                     HERE WE GO

                                                                  YEA!   YEA!   YEA!
They be warin old clothes, exposin them busted *** toez
in fishnet pantyhose
They be standin in rowz, striking that silly old pose,
workin them same two Joes
So the rumor grows, and everybody knows, that her name is Rose,
we know Rose blows

                                            DOUBLE BUBBLE, BUBBLE TROUBLE,
                                                                 YEA !      YEA!      YEA!

She got fired from LoweZ, ’cause she stole a garden hose,
spent all the money at Moe’Z
Yea - Moe’Z ** clothes and fishnet hose, down at 52nd and StrowZ, traffic really slows when she bends to expose, she get dirt on them knees, when she blows

                                             DOUBLE BUBBLE, BUBBLE TROUBLE
                                                          YEA!       YEA!         YEA!

                                                        AND   THE   COP   SHOWZ

                                                      UP, UP, UP, EVER’BODY UP,
                                                                     C’MON UP  
                                                                     C’MON UP

                                                      YEA!            YEA!                YEA!

She putz the powder up her nose, didn’t pay the fine she owez,
gives a discount to the bros
Ever’body froze, then the streetlight glows, that’z the way it goes,
for all them bimboz
Same for the hoes, az it is for the bros, all the way from Melrose,
to the Chicagos
And it’s still the same for the Souix and them Navahos,

                                                             UH?  YEA!     UH?  YEA!

                    SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY PEEPZ IN THE POCONOS
                                                             YEA!        YEA!           YEA!

                                                                         I’M OUT…
OUT  ROLLLLLLLLLLIN’  ON  THAT  8  MILE  ROOOOAAAAD

Imagination is
Woooooooo.....

Sit here,
Nurse Brandy

pantyhose, God
So strange.

.******* NURSE BRANDY.

...or nursing brandy,

...or *******; Brandy.

Perhaps,

*..too much brandy?

This summer was missing school, feeling it ache in your chest,
and feeling like a nerd
but also sad.
It was staying up late, your face lit by your phone screen, blue.
It was skype calls at 11, hearing things you know you would never hear in daylight.
It was a bolt of lightning curling down your spine at the notification noise
hoping it's
someone
in
particular.
It's not getting texted back.
It was your mom's friend yelling at you,
when you ran from the playground,
bare feet on the dusty road,
after a cop car pulled in.
It was bubble tea and fuzzy navels at the local fair,
pulling hair and carving our names into the ferris wheel seat
with the broken end of my glasses.
It's sleeping on the floor for a few minutes, but then
crawling into bed with your friend and giving up there.
It's long showers when I sing the way I wish I could
out from under the water.
It was walking down my road, so paranoid
I think a car is a giant man,
to the starbucks, and then the movie theatre,
and then the curb, where I wait in the warm dark.
It was jumping into brown water, screaming.
It's the hum of my computer.
It was feeling the bass of a song ricochet through your feet,
vibrating the floor,
and traveling down the street.
It's downing a cup of hot sauce.
It was Portland, Maine,
walking to record stores in your lunch break,
a bagel sandwich cooling in your backpack.
Seeing a girl hold another girl's head to the ground, and screaming at a man with dreadlocks,
"That's the father of my ******* baby,"
while a woman with a cat on her shoulder
films it.
It's sitting in the library in ripped pantyhose reading comics for an hour
while your dad's at work.
It was Ben and Jerry's, and Chinese food,
walking in between dumpsters to get there.
It was waking up at noon and missing church.
It was eating cereal at 12 am,
6 pm,
11 pm.
It was blinding, white-hot sadness,
blinking and confused,
wondering why I felt so rainy inside,
while outside was sunshine filtering through green leaves.
This summer was
long, and lonely, and sometimes rainy,
and dark,
and sunny, and loud, and hazy.
This summer
is almost
over
and I think I'm okay with that.