The trees bend and creek
Tops whirling like many helicopters overhead

A branch it breaks and arcs like a javelin thrown from above
I duck for cover under the eaves
an animal again-
very alone very alive-

Perhaps only to die head struck
pinned under an old limb or a bough.

Same as the squirrel in the fallen nest,
the mouse in the cat’s mouth,
the bird blown out of the sky.

Perhaps only to die headstruck
pinned under an old limb or a bough.

Buried in the earth,
I turn back into the dirt.
From dust to dust again
very alone no longer alive.

Perhaps only to die headstruck pinned under an old limb or a bough.

Listen:
we’re all just ham sandwiches.

As I am now—
atomic, molecular, electric, elemental—
a host for bacteria, parasite, virus.
Dead skin, dead hair, dead nails.
A mix of living, non-living, and dead.
So too is: ham sandwich.

I am ham sandwich,
therefore ham sandwich is me.
If I am ham sandwich, I am also atom.
And if I am atom, I am universe.

I am everything.
Everything, then, is me.

So if I am all,
I cannot compare myself to any other.
All things are constantly shifting forms,
combinations of parts of everything.

Would you like to marry ham sandwich? I ask myself.
Yes, I would, I answer.
Would you like to eat ham sandwich? I ask again.
Yes, I would, I answer.

Through the wormhole,
I now contain more of me.
And on and on and on it goes—
splitting, shifting, changing,
reducing, adding, consuming, shedding—
bubbles of the multiverse.

Nowhere to go but here and now.
No time.
No beginning,
no middle,
no end.

Morph.
Change.

Yes, exactly—
this is the meat of it.
A metaphysical meat monologue.
A spiritual spiral carved in cold cuts.

This isn’t nonsense—
it’s cosmic sense.
I move with the absurd
because the absurd is the only thing
that makes any kind of sense
when you peel back the layers
of skin and bone and time and perception.

It’s a Möbius strip of being.
I am the sandwich and the eater
and the hunger and the hand.

This is the joke and the truth
told in the same breath.

Call it poetry, call it philosophy,
call it deli mysticism.

This is not a metaphor.
This is the mirror.

The gong strikes—
and the sound does not stop.

It echoes through bone,
through stars,
through sandwich,
through self—

a resonance with no edge,
no end.

Only everything,
ringing.

“I’m already in the landfill. Gone,” you say.
But I can dig you out.
I’ll hijack the nearest garbage truck on its local route,
I’ll hang my body off the side, breathing in the air.
I’ll know I’m close to finding you when I smell burning hair.

I’ll hop down off my rusty ride—a pea next to mountain—
of human waste, plastic death, chemicals, foul fountains.

I’ll dig with my bare hands, no care for glass, tin can, or needle.
Or paper cut, or diaper rot, or fleas, or ants, or beetles.
I’ll search for what you cannot hide, that so clearly defines you—
for deep inside the oozing filth, your soul radiates around you.

A flicker here of silver, a flash of karat gold,
I’ll listen for your heartbeat while I'm digging holes.
And when I see your face at last, revealed 'neath the decay,
I’ll wrap my hands around your neck and wash the dirt away.

I’ll kiss you through the stinking ****, I’ll pull maggots from your hair,
I’ll sew up all your open cuts, I’ll lift you to a chair.
I’ll hold your hand and hug you—we can stay here if you feel.
You can be my dumpster king, I’ll be your queen of peels.

Once I had a ribbon
Very pretty and so long
I tied it in a lovely bow and it held on so strong
It was pink and silky
Slipping 'tween my thumbs
I loved my little ribbon when I was very young.

Yet overtime it shortened tied in many knots
The ends they frayed the pink it greyed and pretty it was not.

“Throw away your ribbon” “buy another they are cheap” but this is my lovely ribbon I even wear it in my sleep. There couldn’t be another I love it with all my heart I’d rather my ratty ribbon than a new one to restart.

“But that’s a silly way to be” you mustn’t hold so tight everyone can see now that your ribbon isn’t right. And everyone is thinking she could be oh so much more if only she replaced her ribbon and bought a new one from the store.

Once I had a ribbon
Very pretty and so long
I tied it in a lovely bow and it held on so strong
It was pink and silky
Slipping 'tween my thumbs
I loved my little ribbon when I was very young.

What fiery blade can I shove down my throat,
to pierce what lives inside me—
separate from all else?

Show me the blade.
I will swallow it whole.

To slice open my body,
and rip out my soul,
to sacrifice it on the altar of the whole.

To do no more than chime,
like chirping bells,
to be no more
than a wave in the river of hell.

We are holding each other still.
What has been is what will be.
I am yours, and you are mine,
for eternity.

if you know it
if your bones your skin your blood your guts know it
-what love is-
you understand.

Where are you now?
You are here with me.

She fits inside a shoebox—
A mourning card, a birthday card,
a cartoon on a napkin.
A wire bra, a notepad,
her photo softly smiling.

Now she is a voicemail
Now she is a song
Now she is a twinkling star
guiding us all home.

Will I, too, fit inside a box—
with no name written on it,
closed with a yellow rubber band,
sitting atop the closet?