threads of salt
drowned land
and sea
brisk on the shore
to the vine
of the tree
not fruit
not sweet
but
check beauty
check redolent
check dog named after
and sea urchin-robbed

the steps taken
through the pink
the sunken ships
the little women
with big hair
the jewelry that
weighed them down
to drown
drown
drown

the flower
floats like
a headstone
from the hand of
a daughter
to the mouth of
the sea
where God still
reigns
with a crooked shaft
and a helmet
long struck
by the sky

pink

the ocean loses its way
through the flowers
thorns and
all

rain
mud and grass
common prayer
good weather
good people
art
and umbrella bags
because who wants to
get wet?
unless it’s with you
I could
I would
jump into the lake
for that rock
sew
cleanse
initials made in sharpie
and unclamp
we run
around the park
the afternoon surrounds us
the woman in the bikini
passes
and we laugh
iced tea
decaf coffee
cake without teeth
and that airstream camper
you always wanted
I could live in your
backyard
I could live somewhere
not here
in silver
prostrated
with my back to the
moon
like dead
like a mummy
like a mirror
and life would make sense
life would be beautiful
like this run
with perfect amounts of sweat
and conversation that runs
waves in the sand
and tells the squirrels
goodnight, tractor
see you tomorrow
and the land that billows
is dug up
and chewed
like a goodnight poem
this run with you
takes rest
on my soul
and I crack my ribs
to take the spring’s
twilight
aroma

let this be proof that on day
***
I am alive
and kicking
with nothing but a
caffeine headache
and a good
twenty days of
September
in my back pocket
but now
the cross breeze
comes and
I lament the past four
autumns
how they left me
cold
broken
and seeing women jump
off buildings
God!
Sovereign soldier!
Sinner!
Saint!
let me live more than
20 days
I am a good person
I only **** when asked
I eat spaghetti with a fork
and spoon
I once tried to jump off
a cliff
but that was then
and this is now
and the breeze is as cold
as winter
don’t think that I ever enjoyed this
time with you
don’t think that I won’t ever
try that again
I promise I won’t float
in the air
no
not this time

the river is
drinking it
sequins
blankets
the river runs past
hobos
unidentified
water fowl
two trolls
taking shelter under
the bridge
there’s conversation
in another language
fiendish brains connecting
fiendish yet
beautiful
thunder
tampons
a turtle
a naked boy
on the patio
rain
definitely
rain
unmatched
and the steam
coming from the
bridge
once there was a troll
on my face
and I swatted it
with a broom
but it came back
it came back
with you
laughter pounds
with the rain
laughter that wears
emotion like
skin
soft
elastic
still pink
bouncing
on the river’s surface
breaking
absorbed
sustenance for
the trolls
like fiends with faces
like minds with names
these two connect
with spark
and the rain
falls
the stillness under
nature’s
machinery

bat-tastic lung
collapse
fragrant raspberry
leaves
gas exchange gone
wrong
little sailor
slivered ocean
reverse gravitational
sinking into
blackened angler doom
new age
humanitarian
loves others
loves discovering
new
truths
loves
plummeting through spaded
blinds
insanely unappreciative
red
the new harvest
the magician blinking
the the sky
imagination finally
makes
sense

my bones stick out
so much
I should feel good
like fat
like privilege
and power
but these things are fleeting
like my body
like the conversion I had
with you
I never meant to bring
up semi truck
cabs
artist’s sketch
tables
I only meant to move you
into the city
like a good friend
like a walk in the park
or a trust fall into
the pool
blues
I say
this is the strife they
sing about
and everyone loves it
and eats it with
peanuts
allergies?
no thank you.
green smoothies?
no thank you.
a good morning text?
well, maybe if I still
like you
if I can still stand
to be in the same room
with myself
to go bowling
to go on hikes
to meditate
all these things
I hate
and my bones
they’re smooth
and splinter when
bitten
and my bones
they glow like
uranium in the
mirror
good morning blow
good morning blush
good morning white boy
good morning,
Andrew

this is my excavation to
the days coming along
running hands with laughter
throwing it down on the table
straight
flush
okay, cool

sister, these things don’t matter
when we’re twisting into the sun
with pants that are too short
the fountain rich with
iced chai
tangled with the peculiar
the beautiful
through these moments
I commend
our hearts for finding each other

love is always on the move
as sure as shoe shine
as mahogany
like timidity to relinquish
to let the universe take hold
and instill this emotion
into my body
fit it all in my heart
O, singer of love
fit it all in my heart
the knell
the reverberation
the cotton that lands
on your hair
the sunscreen stuck in my ear

we are a sketch of two travelers
sleeping under stars
the fire
finally dies down
the rapture of the universe
is overwhelming
everything flows
everyone is connected
and this music we hear
is constant
like gentle waters falling

this too, sister
makes my cane solemn
and I draw you in the sand
only to watch the tide
wash you next to me
the emotion
wrangled in English
simply means good
simply means
a full listen and
dear sister
because everything begins
and will be remembered always
as love

a crocus opens and
closes with the stream of
midnight moon.

the playmate of exhaustion
crosses the room
in his heavy, black boots
to close the curtains.

goodbye, light.
goodbye, pride of lions
and boy transformed
into a werewolf.

a scratch
of larceny,
the cuddle of
maple leaves rotting,
the magnet spinning
in rocket-ship orbit.

all secrets held in
feathers,
in hair compounded
into strings of
black opal,
and limbs stenciling
comets around
five feet of woman.

nothing in the talk
can suffocate—a quick
and easy birth of
ecstasy and the emotional
sidestep into the dark
of slumber,
seemingly feminine but
dreams strong as
barbed wire.

when to sleep?

a question finger-written
on my chest.

I could not accept you—star
incarnate, carved and swollen
in the trunk of a fustic—

*****-yellowed and preened—risen
and alive I strap my
saddle to your back. My heels
dig to the dark side of

a price yet to be paid—an eye
of a coursing, being scrubbed
into the spots of grain—heat
eaten by earth. Star set.
Star rise.
Star be

livid and leaven

whispers the cowboy
sitting in a lawn chair on the
front porch—his hat falling
off from crowning, bald-headed

tilt. space and all its wonders.

everything is on sale
and I eat and eat
and yell at the couple
arguing in the ATM line
and smirk at the pharmacist
as I toss my meds in the
can behind the counter
king soopers
my realm
of crushed potpourri
honeycrisp apples
black cocktail dresses
stuck
shut with
peanut butter

I love grocery
shopping.

this table in the
shade
these commune hippies
in the river
I wrote a poem
in my sleep
I looked at the mountains
and thought
rain
staccato
metronome
irrigation
and caps
melting
but enough of this
nature
let’s go back
to the concrete
mouth
where we walk
through the city
full of cake
bloated like
balloons
but rolling
because
cake doesn’t make
you float
no
cake only makes you
fat
the conversation turns
to the stench
there’s something dying
in the air
we leave
and roll joints
spot magnums
on tree branches
and think
only monkeys ****
in trees
and we would never
want to see
monkey ***
and ******?
no
we’d never try it
and the homeless man next to us
puts his spoon
away
but god
why do we sleep
when we just wake up?
why do we sleep
to dream
such ******-up
things
where celebrities
feed us salami in
back alleyways
and we see our mother
pooping on
world maps?
time rips of
lyrical grass
conductive smile
soap bubbles
these beautiful
dreamtime mornings
spent thinking of you
in playhouse mountains
like a child
you smile
like a friend
I offer you my hand
and we walk
to the white
together
bill withers is there
he is singing
in his yellow
turtleneck

starlight snaps your
cigarette awake. the imperfect
circles of earth’s motion orbit
around your breast. the moon
chimes
from your ears.
north and south run
the rivers of
smeared mascara,

you stop. listen to

the man
playing fiddle with
half-hearted
bar light.

a haw and saw.
a thorn.

fruit: it is ecstasy
never bit and
undeniable.

you slurp—a cat licking
its paws
ruby and clear.
moth and cloud
drape over fruit,
make up sparkling nectar.

love is sickening.
you spend five dollars on
a rose at a bar for
a girl you will never see
again.

she will take the flower and
throw it in the trash
outside with the hundreds of
other roses.

no matter.
they have fruit, and fruit
concludes. it is life
cut with claws.
their beauty, seemingly to
be always in the clusters above.

*******, rose. **** your dew.

they seem to say. that’s when
the light hits and microbial
bleeds to miss ruby.

JAZZ!

at night retrains
beauty, makes it edible.
the rose, changing the color
of its dew—black pearl in
this drape of mystery-shaped
night.

the good book says
one to tame
another to handle the whip
and groan at the horses
as they pull the
freedom carriage

freedom from what?

freedom from fields
of wheat and grass
freedom from
dirt and potatoes
freedom from the
bite of the whip
in the sweltering
Georgia pits

lord
this good book isn’t
very good at all
these horses can pull their own
but I am weak
tamed
invisible
I am a pipe cleaner
bent over and over
until it snaps
to quote
I don’t want to live on
this planet anymore
I don’t want to live at all

this is the sun breaking through
this is the vain bee trying to pollinate
this is my rose under glass

quake if you must
earth
I have been shattered already

we had too much to drink and
you saw your mom crouched in
the corner smoking a
cigarette through her
neck hole

you missed with the marble
ashtray and shattered the mirror
with the hand-carved gold-leafed
frame

Melissa screamed

I followed as you tore through
puddles of sunken sidewalk
until you sat
at the bus stop and buried your
eyes

I put my hand on yours and
felt your raining pulse

we got on the bus with the
red and green stripes
hopped off at Wong’s and
bought 3 dozen eggs
to throw at the

lighthouse

this is a medical emergency ossified
in utero part the hair to cover
pink earwax scar innervated this
cochlea this ******* that steals
the spotlight and rooster’s comb
braised sockets for teeth wired through
the rafters kissing corner braces
shallow chromium double-eye poke
like a pile of face bones stacked
paul bunyan forest slide and jump from
the peak to the pool shallow and
undisturbed to dunk your face and
see future pure voodoo spirit board
and voice box locked with tongue-ectomy
removal of cough through neck hole
cardboard cut stickers in half to
write ******, I’m done.

who knew you were filled
with gold!
when I stuffed the dynamite down
your throat and ran you
through the casino I wasn’t
expecting a jackpot
maybe a princess piñata or a
party popper
but a corner leather and a
fresh haircut?

no, we’re not
in the 50’s anymore
but your vault was guarded
like mob headquarters when you head
started sputtering
quarters

you the
light-skinned pin action
movie star
looking highly alien
you
my diamond studded
chain

Smell of lilacs bloom
to no end—a nebulous glow of
purple, perfect, and unperturbed—your
poem of lilies with caution tape
snug in my backpack—
your pollen hundreds of miles
away—a firebrick orange
sung again and again. A cotton
blow unlike anything colorful
—a white puff of dandruff before
the rain—a bouquet for
your spring stitched
stem by stem.

I walk through campus wearing
black leggings and those faded, leather
boots. I’m even wearing an
infinity scarf I bought full price at
Anthropologie and a pair of tiger-striped
cat eye sunglasses. ****, I look good.

On top of it, I’m smoking a Parliament
menthol, my red-lined lips whipping
smoke into the dead air, creating
a grey cloud that some would call cancerous and
others, ****.

But no one notices me, and, candidly, I
am okay with that because I notice me, and
I am a big red dance button that demands to
be pushed. So, I push myself and
groove down the brown brick road all the way
to classroom 114 in the science building.

the tiles that encompass me
are falling like dominos
this is blackness at its zenith and
I have a coneful
lucky me
it’s like the summer of ‘96
all over again
and my friend’s dad jumped
in front of a coal train
we ate ice cream that day
in the dank Minnesotan heat
everyone was dripping
the mosquitoes were flocking in
green cloud
ignite
flame
ignite
and the crunch of bones
like this water falling on my shoulders
wash
wash
again
the sticky syrup from my chin and
poor Dane’s pants smell and there is
**** pooling at his ankles
enjoy this chocolate-dipped cone
or possibly this one with
patriotic sprinkles
no
I think I’ll pass
I’m watching my ten-year-old figure
you see this paunch?
it is my heart
it is so fat and ugly
take it from me, god
enjoy it on top of your
sundae
I always looked better red-chested
anyway

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute my tv
so I can hear
the pain reverberating
from my nostrils
like I am being
clamped together
in the fetal position
until blood squirts
out my ears

I try to cry
but I can’t
I mute the dog by
giving her a bone
I mute the sun by
drawing the shades

I try to cry
but I can’t
this muted pain
it’s locked in the attic
deteriorating
I mute my neck by
taping it to the fan
I mute my breath
with my belt

roll down my eye
to my lips
I want to taste
this ******* stupid world
for myself

I’m the perm of a
Poet
I can choke
I can breathe
I can drink a cup of coffee
And you
Are a murmuration
A flock of afternoon
midnight
I will let your
Black mass love me
However
However
However
It can
I’m reaching for you
Little bird
Take me with your arrow
The streets of this
Pure piano
And I introduce the yowling
Trumpet
The dead skin on
my back
Flecks with the quiver
Of flying with you
By choice

the clay patio was baking
just hot
enough for the dough to rise and crisp
and for you to spread your blanket
in the sun
perfect for a picnic with the kids
and observing the man on that really tall bicycle

it’s times like these when you think
why doesn’t everyone just shut off
and bake in the sun
with a glass of peach tea and a pair
of well behaved kids
who share life like it was their job to love
each other
their mother
dad
and especially
the old dog

even the young lovers get jealous
as their gaze from the park to
your front patio
witnessing that there is something more to love
than just body heat
chocolate-dipped strawberries
and jazz clubs
that children grow like spinach flowers
in mellow
medallion
heat
until the training wheels come off
and they feel earth’s balance for the first time

and the peaches!
they shackle the branches
like juicy bombs
and you decide that
mothers are like fruit
unbruised
unwashed
and perfect
something that God
herself
keeps in her finest
crystal bowl and replants
in the summer

mother
sister
friend
shoot me some of that peach tea
you’re drinking
that sun you are soaking
that air you are breathing
the world needs more of you
and you deserve the last taste
of its summer light

found
grounded bird closed in
ribboned-box and buried
underneath a willow snapped back
to finally relax
to decompose and nourish
by the lake in drooping shade
the felled leaves pile
candy wrappers gray snow in
parking lot corners
with pumpkin spice scented candles
with charred letters skirling up
the arm dropped to sizzle and puff out
white beanies
flannels
leather boots and jangly bronze-leafed wind chimes
I sit on the patio and listen to you speak
the chill of your words
perched like a squirrel barking on a fence top
hibernation preparation and breeze
the gospel of your autumn

it’s lovely.

she described it as ice
in her chest
like
a lance that tightroped from
her chest to mine
fought over at the breakfast table
because her end was bigger than mine
or mine had more blood than hers
or she always got to look at my good side
and why couldn’t I look at her without laughing

mother always said it was a blessing
that two people were so close to each other
not through birth
but by journey
and life
and happenstance
two people that tasted grilled cheese the same way
that heard the same voices of joy
loss
despair
but always stuck to the roof of the mouth like peanut butter
and not the generic brand
no
the 10 dollar organic stuff

two people that couldn’t help but
crack jokes at the dinner table
when everyone else was talking about
death because
what is death without life?
she would ask
and everyone would go silent
and float up through the
limitless sky
while we stayed grounded in
the life that whiskey brings

sister
if you ever hear me calling
know that I’d give you the bigger half
every time and that
you may borrow my three-hole puncher
without asking
because
I love you
and love stitches time without holes
and moments without the train station goodbye
and the rocks
well
they will always be rippling the stream so you
can go whitewater rafting and I can write poems
about how you fell in and found
a fleck of gold

sister
I have this glass in my
hand
ruminating
glass
glass
without
sparkle
I found it under
the park bench
where I lay
drooling on the
bricks
sister
this glass reminds me
of you
this glass reminds me
of earth
blood
the shade where
sand melted
love
sister
I cut so
smooth
so correct
is this blood
I spill
for
you

stars and radio master
intercloud motion—1000 light
years in most directions. However,
I am still blind to anything
but you. This

dark matter aloha steps
off my mind’s plane
into the muggy air. A string
of flowers is placed around
my neck, and I look up—
starbursts
spit their rings violent and
central—your body
in music. Now, tropical
space—population

one. A tear rolls down
my face onto the
runway—I can’t remember
the sound of

your voice.

Before I lit a match,
I turned on your light.

Before I bought a book,
I took you into my arms.

Before I had her printed
on my skin,

I knew she was you.*

It was night. There was
nothing in the sky—not

even black. The world
was a pale gray, and the

bats—the color of smoke.
Then you came—a woman

from space, dusk
with yellow armor. The

moon resting on ocean. Your
halo, a burning wreath of

gold. You, finally. You who
I’d been waiting for—the girl

who sneezed the black, the one
who said, “goodnight.” You,

my moon and stars.

I know the flowers better everyday
their twisting stems
their curtain petals
their floating spice

I know the flowers better everyday
their capillary roots
their plum faces
their purple stamens

I know the flowers better everyday
their shaking seeds
their modest thorns
their unabashed lust for the sun

I know the flowers better everyday
I know the sun will rise
I know the clouds will rain
I know my daughter will laugh

I know the flowers better everyday
I’ll draw a fence for flowers
I’ll draw a muzzle for the sheep
I’ll draw a number for the man to crunch

I know the flowers better everyday
I know how lovely it is to feel
grass in between toes
the breath of a boa
the embrace of home

I know the flowers better everyday
I am forty
I am a mother
I love fearlessly

we are monsters
from the boutique to the
embroidered throw pillows the
pen dashed around the neck
stage 5 bone cut
sawing ossification to the
hollow core

we are monsters
hooting in tunnels lined
with bats coming out to feast
creation
to scrape the streets
shimmy the walls
bust the coffin and
succckk

we are monsters
who can't enter under the
doorframe
fearful of being burned by
the sun silver stake
rat poison holy water sickle
and windmill ash

we are monsters
sewed stapled dead meat
skin hair plugs ceramic
teeth tested and tasted by
rats

we are monsters
jumping high over white
fences frenzied explosion
running through corn
angrily bled in a field shot and
hunted like embarrassing
waterfowl in the jaws of
mammalia

we are monsters
of flaming brilliance flashing
in your inbox
read us and gnaw
braised
roasted
grilled limbs
watch
as we watch you
be scared and
stab
I promise we don't die.

sundog—small and incomplete
half-***** rainbow.
light.
at least once a week for
the clever dreamer,
the girls with no eyes,
the men with small *******.
there is

fortune in the river—it swims
away when I take you breath
down to it in a bucket. and my hands
quilt flawless wade of
nighttime water.

*where is the colored light?

nowhere, sundog.
nowhere.

I may have gotten into the
stupidest argument of my life

it was about men painting their
nails
yes
men painting their nails

I want to paint my nails a
deep burgundy
because
well
I feel like I really don’t need
a reason

she said
it would turn my nails
yellow

I said
I don’t give a
****

she said
men don’t wear
nail polish

I said
I don’t give a
****

she said
she didn’t have any
nail polish

I said
*******
I’ll go buy my own
then

when I walked
to the front door
with my car keys
she stamped her
feet and said
FINE!

and she walked upstairs
to her bathroom
where she kept all the
polish

I say blood
marbled floors
and boats
somewhere on the Ganges River
Africa?
no.
wait—I think it’s
sadness
that flows out every hole
onto the plain
into the water
out of the well
all of the elephants swallowed
and digested
down to the bones
on colors
on sky diamonds
on lovely wax and wane
this river
these people
blood and guts
cooking
tradition
knowing
that it’s the last meal
to throw to the gods
in the water

let go, brother
let go of your forest
your ocean spray
your frantic
manic
tendencies
the ability to wipe it all away
lost somewhere in the wind
let go of your rain
let go of your shaky hands
and hold your pencil straight
with your teeth
don’t fret, forest
don’t burn, brother
hold
hold tight
the hallucinations of what swims
a polished stone skipping
in one endless encephalon cycle
fogged and
fogged again
the forest smokes
and the rain to put it out wanes
steam

I was born on this
back porch
I was born
with a lion in my
brain
I was born with
you, dear sister
300 years ago
in a little town
on the Italian
coast
we played
in the arms of
the Mediterranean
reaching to the light
we saw in each other
never clawing
sometimes crying
always found in the eyes
it was called
a miracle
it was called
unusual
it was thrown into
the fountain
like a rusted penny
dormant joy
buried in a wish
to find you again
and now
here we are
the breeze that died
300 years ago
warm
calm
and smelling of lilacs

the shock
of bodies—
a sound
rippled in
cheetah lightening
to wings of blasted
flowers taught
red
yellow
lavender sky—

butterfly wound
festering pollened
breeze to
where your
mouth
is opened
breath
tongue
and twisted cord—

opaque bee
twirling with
opaque stamen
lit
in a wall of
rushing
waterfall—a
perfect contrast
of forgiveness

Rodin: My love, I am on my knees facing your beautiful body. My mouth is drinking your fire. I ***** us in stone. We are indissoluble.

Camille: I am heaven and hell. I am goddess and fire. You are my chauvinistic art-boy concubine.

Rodin: My dear Camille, can you not see my love for you is rooted in passion not stone or clay or bronze? Can you not feel my tongue lapping at your feet?

Camille: Foolish man. My feet are broken. I walk over you on stumps.

Camille leaves for England. Rodin follows.

Camille: You are boring.

Rodin: My love, can you not see that I am in a depressed mood. Can you not see that your capriciousness plagues me?

Camille: I love another.

Rodin: How can you say these things to me? I give you my heart. I give you my soul. I give you my artistic genius!

Camille: You’re right. You are a genius.

Rodin: Shall I write us up a contract?

Camille: As long as you don’t touch me.

Camille and Rodin return to Paris separately.

Rodin: It has been written. I will mentor you, write you in newspapers, place you in museums, and find you buyers.

Camille: You will not love another? You will spurn all but my art?

Rodin: I will. And you will marry me in return.

Camille: …

Rodin: Is there something wrong, my love?

Camille: Can you not see I am being facetious?

Rodin: My dear, you are my flora and gaiety. You are my chisel and stone. You are my breath and lungs.

Camille: Learn how to breathe without me.

Camille exits. Rodin crumples at the feet of Eternelle Idole.

Rodin: What have I done wrong?

Camille re-enters, her hands caked in clay.

Camille: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Rodin: Shall I get the handcuffs?

Camille: No. The lion’s cage.

*Strong tides and wet fuchsias. Camille enters the cage forever.

my hands swelled
blue and purple

to match the
glassy doe-eyed

stagnancy.
I saw a pair

of cocoa
moon rocks

heavy with
music and a

queen bee trapped
in a flash

of departure.  
mine and yours

one in the same
corpulent and

greased trembling
at the lips.

I have a painting of a purple-haired
kurt cobain hanging in
my bathroom so I can feel the
nostalgia of being a broken
head shadow
put in a
anechoic heart-shaped box
a dream split inside myself
halved and halved
again
like I’m living on a tiny
blue sun stuffed in a jar
filled with vinegar
shooting speedballs
in a lukewarm bubble
bath

you
modified magic lantern
incarnadine
soul
puppet show
short dresses
free
cocktails
little swords
and
big drama
where we
make love
in the
dressing
room

I watch you
don
the sheets
and cut
eye holes
while I grab
the light
and radiate
your
behind
the audience
better not
see
that
***
I’m
protective of
my baking
flour
*****

you had me when you
skinned my hide—the future
and present of squiggled
intestines tilting with the
rotation of earth.

I am macho—no nighttime.
the summer constellations
throw me a bone and big crunch
as my molars snap with my
jaw.

it takes a year to go around the sun once.
it takes a trawl to fish properly.
it takes a dog to chase the brightest
star.

*Sirius.

you went sledding
with the kids
while I filed the paperwork
and cried

I used to be your lady boy
shining in green pit-bar light
as you kissed me like
the kids were with my mother
stuck at the bottom of the
treehouse slide in a pile
in mud
laughing
when

in reality they were
just budding inside of you
fertilized with apple liquor
and the perfume smoking
from my chest as you
unbuttoned the first few
revealing the scar left by
my brother's first pocket knife

the skin of my young years
the skin I am wearing now
cut by these ******* papers as
you freeze
tearlessly
in a pom pom hat
teaching our babies how to make
the perfect snowball

I laid an anemone
on the mask of a crying girl
the young mother
the crouching woman
I am beautiful
says the sirens
says the ever-youthful vegetation
of God

I mixed my blood and nectar
on the mask of a dying man
the decay of kiss
the resurrection
I am beautiful
says the anemone
says Adonis in his grave

I burned their leaf-stems
on the mask of an artist
the eternal springtime
the life-death-rebirth deity
I am beautiful
says the martyr
says girl as she wakes
to the sirens

I am beautiful
says the head on the platter
I am beautiful

and the woman descends
the bronze invading
the bronze high-handed
the bronze opening
to the gates of hell

I’m sorry
I was devouring you
with my eyes
your liturgical eighty-eight
your curves and robes
raising my alter
to this pinnacle of
worship
something holy
to take slowly
into my body
love, I wished
sibling love
not to be mistaken
for religion
for surgical jazz
for something else
love, sister
and my promise—
I won’t go to the pyre
without
you

it started with a jaw
twitch vibrating ear
to lip side to side up
and down like I was a horse
shaking off a fly I
saw her legs spread
scissors in hand
as her head popped
and popped
and
popped
like a jack-in-the-box film
screening 3 inches in front
of my eyes until I hid
in a barrel and kept on
driving
north to wherever
lights off and
hooting like a madman
to visions of ariana grande
standing
out in the snow with a purple
beanie and frozen mittens
waiting for me to pull up
the driveway tumble out
the car door and say
you were right
so she can pour hot chocolate
on my face and walk back
inside to stoke the dying
fire

god meets
mystic: the
swing of winter
and lakes frozen
over.

god meets
Judeo-Christian sinner
whose eyes sought
lead along the lake’s
shore.

heavy.
heavy.

god meets sin:
a welding of
metallic vines and
out of tune music.

god meets underwater
Vulcan as he swallows
a laugh. gasoline
tops the lid
of the lake.

god meets the
fire that wicks the surface
until the body bubbles.

rest, girl
rest, mother
rest, red disco queen

rest, white willow singing
rest, wind chimes
rest, redbone dog

rest, black sky
rest, yellow moon
rest, opaque stars

rest, *** on stovetop
rest, toes cracking
rest, boy typing

rest, sister
rest, child
rest, soul

rest

the sun machine
is coming down

rest

the children are
watching fire

rest

the thunder is born
with the night

rest

you too will know me,
sister
you will catch my wind
it smells of

tea tree oil

rain
little girl
rain with
hair
rain until
the sun chokes
rain with
your dis-attuned nails
rain
running Pisces through
my head
rain
another word called
rain for
some mallards
rain on
boy
rain
rabid 90’s hip hop
we listen while driving
to the theatre
rain pounding
in the car
in the eyes
rain
the sky seems to
penetrate
my car’s roof
and this poem
breaks through
water uprising
your grey hat
your almonds
and my chin
rain
I wish I could make it
for you
nightingale
I wish I could hear your
breath
in the morning

I see a ****** of crows
parting the sky with
a ******* V

it hawks and blecks
down as if to say
good afternoon
to the child wheeling
across federal
on her
pink bicycle—

a travel
that rots and witches
the sweet, grey air
sailing into clouds
of pounding tide—

jewels

colorless
and divorced
drifting
across the
blue-domed
pearl of
missing you