within the binding
within the cover
the unseen pages
stitched together
silence and memory

I could have gone to the cemetery,
or back to my high school lab,
find him lecturing from a podium,
bony finger raised,
demagogue of the dead.
I could break him down piece by piece,
cram him in a duffle,
a femur jutting the zipper.
Ignore the groan-
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

Instead I found myself
in the carnival lot,
The dog was long dead,
the sign kept guard.
Rusty rides slouched like tumbleweeds.
Cotton candy in memory-
blue tack crunching my teeth.
Lewd.

Skeletons fixed on poles,
spiked up through pelvis and spine.
Use ****.
Grip shoulders. twist. lift.
When one slid free,
he collapsed into my arms
all bone-light, lovely,
mine at last.

I just brought him home.
Sat at the kitchen table.
Named him Curly.
Zoom howled: WAG’s gone weird!
What’s his name? What’s his name?

His name is Curly,
I said, but I knew
his name was You.

We drink wine by the pool.
He never sips.
Sometimes I pour a second glass for the glint.
Sometimes he tells me Danny Elfman
wants to play his ribs like a xylophone.
Sometimes he sighs,
he hates Oingo Boingo.
I laugh. Obliging.
So do I.

When the wind kicks up
he smells of sugar and rust.
Sometimes he rattles the glassware.
Sometimes he won’t sit still.
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

one of a few, mutterances;

you're "killing me!"

every poem of yours delights, enchants,
you are blossoming
and i ear and eat your poem petals,
your white rose petals,
so tritely perfect,
to the hard word floor,
freshly enlivening,
freshly dying,
and hope
my, my mind stays quiet.
though my
breathing pounds,
an overboard sailor,
washed ashore
by the surf in a
Baltic Sea storm


i read you,
and I am there,
i read you,
and then i'm gone,

taken,
i'm taken,
i'm taken away
but my body yet lies,
a fallen victim to the power,
your word~ly empowering,

to imagine

That bubble of a moon is
playing peek-a-boo behind
the wispy night sky.
Confirming to me
everyone's lunacy.
Words stick to the
roof of my mouth
like peanut butter.
It could have been
a better world,
I should have been a
better man.

January snowflakes
are like guilt falling from
the sky.
little frozen starfish...
cold and raw on
the soul, and tongue.