I was given, at my first birthday party,
a gift sublime, a lovely, lush garden
I played among its fonts and flowers,
traded baseball cards with Atlas and Athena,
rolled in high grass with iridescent dragons

Then one fine day through leaflets high,
I spied a fat juicy fig, haloed by Summer sun
The tree was poison, I knew, its sweet fruit
most likely bad as well, but in my arrogance
I climbed the trunk, got tangled in its branches

I lost control, lost something never truly held,
and fell, through viney snarls and vicious thorns
Fell farther than I ever rose, to putrid death,
moldered slime beneath the canopy
of verdant paradise on gentle hillside above

I crawled about in mud and earthen warrens
Slowly, year by year, learned to walk again
But arrogant I remained—had not my
lesson learned, and so I doubled-down,
made mockery of this chance for redemption

All the sweet virgins did I ****, and teach
our children sin, in crystalline waters
I did shat on mulched fields, amber and green,
with cigarette butts and baggies blowing
listless on Autumn winds

When Winter finally came, as winters must,
to **** off weakened souls, and make
the garden ready for new attendants,
I did not learn, I did not take the blame...
It's Him, I cried, I have not power to do this!

But then my youngest daughter sobbed
She watched, sadly, out clouded, grimy windows
and, looking up at my limpid, sullen eyes
crawled into my arms one last, lonely time
to face what I could not...

Behold, the Silent Spring

There is a certain moment
in a man’s life
when the *****
of ladies
around him suddenly
and irrevocably
evoke the image of
a stray feline
from his childhood.
Rigid, near the bushes
with a sharply arching back,
engorged ****
and ***** tail.

Their watchful eyes, playfully intent,
reflect
the drops of rain
falling from the naive face
of an eager boy approaching
too close.
Paws haltingly skitter-gone.

Since this observation,
the hallways of our campus
tend to sway,
like the leaves beside
my grandma’s house
with the plastic window-well covers
not yet shattered by the hail
on that spring evening
after the little league
when I nearly had one.

The windsock next door
on my father’s farm
let each subsequent summer pass,
undetected on the heals
of a breezy, desert thunderstorm.
Before it was so tattered by time
unreplaced and frayed
next to the yellow, coregated shed
where you can still see the dent
from my sister crashing that old golf cart.

Years from then, she did her small, black
Honda in Colorado
with a T-Bone
on a U-Turn.

And my dad was in the hospital that winter
but all I remember is a pointless half-time
football toss sponsored by a cola-
company during a Nebraska game.
The people, trained like chimpanzees,
to test their skill one time
and get that life-sized check.
I remember thinking
"What sunken imprint on a folding bed
does it refill?"
After Dr. Pepper's rotation had
ended.

And these books I read
are shaken branches
behind the fleeting beauty.
Their words, silent admonitions for
desire.
The invitations
from those inky bodies,
their full form and sharp curves,
are not meant for my eye.
Momentarily,
their presence ***** my head and purses
my lips,
beckoning
another species--
a life-form
less aware.

I am glad each cat slipped past that
unread sign-post
and made it to the horse pasture.
Unlike those three moldered fur puffs
each bunny became
beneath my bed.

I hope they had their litters--
and their offspring had their litters.
And the nation of cats had its litters.
And the world of cats had its litters.
And the universe of cats had its litters.

But it must stop somewhere,
with cats.

My blood is not red anymore
It is not even rufous
It is achromatic
I’ve seen it go to a watery grave
with moonshine

It drowned
for a foolish fluid  
one so dimwitted
it forgot the word “No”
could be spoken
to bring their negligent ears
into *******

(And not me)

My blood rushed out
In it’s gloom
I wanted to emulate it
and exit my body
just as they entered

What a theft
What a “five-finger discount”
Literally

It was a perfect portrait
A gun kissing the crown of my head
and my indifference
towards the money in the cash register
that I called my soul-case
If I’d even had any left

My lips moldered shut
They don’t like parting anymore
Two buds charred sorely
as a pen
that speaks only in black ink


I searched every crevice of that washroom
for a noose
I found my reflection
and thought that close enough

So there I hovered
hung up on my mirror image
suspended by two claws
honed with dejection

My eyes slammed taut  
My pulse ******* bones in my face
and gnawing itself
with prowling fluorescents

I grazed the scuffs on my thighs
I hadn’t put there
for once

Then I remembered the nausea  
snarled up in their cheeks
Their words like spiders
I don’t know where they’ve gone
and I don’t want to

“Is it that time of the month?’
said the shorter, more truculent boy
and he sniggered

I stood submerged
in hard edged a laugh
that liked to wrench my ears
and make rounds
on nights hot and heavy
with languor

and perhaps,
had I not been so small
or weak of muscle
had I worn a different dress
or forgotten to coat my lashes
had I sipped on tea
instead of *****
I could’ve flagrantly pushed them away
Darted not with my eyes,
but my legs
I could’ve screamed “Get off me you scumbags!”
until my throat shriveled up
into a dried cranberry

But I didn’t

Instead I’m screaming
on a piece of paper

Because the worst that happens here
is a paper cut.