A man once told me a wolf howl is the most powerful thing.  Within it is our humanity.  

I was perplexed and asked him to explain but he just smiled in his drunken face and his yellow eyes guided me to the picture frame in the barroom where a man was lying face down dead in the snow and he left me there and I stood for hours affected by drink and smoke and eventually saw myself within that frame cold lonely and screeching to curse him I could not move and pine needles filled my mouth and nasal cavity

there are certain days on the EL
Saturday or Sunday
and the sky is orange and different clouds
and airplane streaks glowing
and all above the city

Everyone is calm
And I look blank
and I feel weeping

For the fat black woman waiting by the doors
never took a seat
her eyes are skittish
like a doe
alert for insults
she shrinks her shoulders
when people enter
or when they leave

For the older white woman across from me
pills **** alchohol something
heavy mascara eyes resigned
seeing yuppies entering at Girard
feeling the contrast
thinking what could have been
croaky voiced and thin

For children laying on seats
staring at ceilings
or plastic windows
white hair beads clacking
eyes like rocks
parent clicking at phone
yelling at phone

all pushed in an EL car
and I love them all

and together we ride

Walt Whitman was a ******.

That's what we say when we cross his bridge
from South Philly to Jersey
and see what he would see:

the river solid waveless with trees green around
feeding from the water on the left and far beyond
the watertable real for a minute from the arched metal
and the city visible wholly with warehouses rowhomes
inches apart and glass buildings and all burnt orange
by four o'clock sun but clear on blue sky

but you know he was a ******?

and the city all one in your eye if you want it to be
and the languages together between the buildings

all the blacks asians whites itlalians irish polish
moving together and talking and eating the food
working and riding cars and buses around
the liberty bell and independence hall

it is brooklyn ferry it was his prophesy

but you know he was ******?
a big jersey boy *** yea

I wanted to talk to her the way I used to.
"isn't it nice we both wear contacts?
We can see the leaves so clearly,
and they're changing color now."
I used to talk like that to her a lot.
I think she liked it, and it made me feel good.
but, but I couldn't say anything like that now.
I just looked at her. My body language illegible,
Chest leaned forward. I had never seen her shirt
before, or her bag. I felt anxious and wounded
beneath her gaze.

it was underneath brown covers
that you gave me everything
and I gave you something
for a long time

until that something was really nothing
and you told me
with tears in your eyes
that the brown covers would be for my body only

I used to love this halo,
a little light above my head
illuminating the darkness.

I was always in the light
my robe would radiate
blonde hair tan skin glowing like an arcade.

I was really something else.
I could have been on top of those
big Christmas trees you'd see in NYC.

But after awhile that halo starts to get hot.
you feel like a lizard in an aquarium,
cold-blooded and dead-eyed.

I was always lit up and the dark looked so
inviting: And the snow.

The snow looked so cold. so cold.
But it would just melt when I laid in it...
snow angels really are the saddest thing I've ever seen.

Don't go to Alaska

I think the mountains will pierce your eyes
and the wind will kiss your neck
please
I'll melt glaciers of ink for you

Don't go to Alaska
You're far too sentimental

I never knew or thought or felt like
my body was eternal like a cloud
I held my hand in my hand and waved sloppily

I am beating a drum hard as a heart
or like soft tissue perhaps that you
wrap around a vein or something
I am skinborn and boneborn and hairborn

Just water and air I guess
lined up so I can look at  the
sky and wish it was below me
or within me

Kite-tongued or painted-lipped I thought
maybe my face my head was above my body
against ice or seafoam like a pulse
but I held onto my teeth and nose and eyes for so long

Dagger-ribbed or bullet-spined
moving on a field of nothing
like a field of something while
while my matter is so simple and nothing

The land was a body.  Aching bones of mountains limned with boreal forest
       veined with iron.

Men dwelt on the body.  Erecting altars, howling and dancing round fires
        their patriarchal beards knotted and waving

Men killed on the body. Waving crude axes  like ancient trailblazers of war
Would wave mammoth club-like femurs

Bodies slay different bodies so they may die somewhere on this body
That heaves with the rock

I felt you today
Paddling in nothing
Between my neurons

Holding pain impulses
By the hand
Tugging them across

Was it for a badge?
A ribbon?
For cheap dharma?

It makes me sick to see
The bodies of women
I’m so Ensnared. So Enraptured
So Enthralled
by the bodies of women

My breath quickens. Chest
Tightens. Tightens. Tightens.
My eyes dart from what they want

I’m frightened to see
The bodies of women
I know I only need to hear a word
Or two
And I’d **** my obligations away

Oh
I could be so impulsive
If I only was given the chance