Robot shipping arms:

They’ve been reprogrammed for hugs.

For sale. Never used.

And the steam is gone,
Clean now — everything.
But the tub.
Dirt days and dirt of the day
Ring around the tub,
Stays, a conjunction,
And, but, Baby is gone with the water.

We notice the dirt, the after bath aftermath,
Or I notice the dirt, because it is just me,
And the steam is gone.
Draining is slow:
A clog of pocket watches;
Lovers’ tresses;
First communion necklaces;
And flecks of sparrows’ wings.

The sparrows know better,
Bathing in the sand, brake dust,
The gutter grit.
The irons,
Dirt-day rings around my ankles, a conjunction.
Too fettered to flap like the sparrow,
To shake-shiver filthy clean.

Lysol the package

Packed and shipped by robot arms

Now close the front door

I met him at a dust-bowl bus station
In Mobile, where buses wore dust trail capes.
Roaches clicked in the water fountain basin.

With charisma he denounced
The muddled spray of birth and spring,
The spermy apocalypse brought forth by an
Army of mad babies with syphilis-splintered brains.

He had gambled for three nights,
Wonder and reason backing his chips —
Small blind, big blind.
He had the shoulders of a man who locks the door
And hides the key — an invisible traveling carnival
Trailed his gait on a pace-worn floor.

Bed bugs had made Braille of his arm.
He was going off to a camp south of Cabbage Town
Where he would sweat beneath the sun,
Surrender beneath the stars,
And dream of the ten women he’d made.

He told me he hated knowing he was in control,
And that it was the saddest part of the darkest hour.

Every time I eat here,
I wonder if she’s still in the restroom.
I watch the cakes orbit
On refrigerated turntables—
a silent waltz for the ballerinas running omelets and coffee.
Back when she excused herself to the restroom,
the hostess was probably still in diapers.

I knew
Friday night TV light
Trailer kids
Bottle-rocket sizzle
Quick gravel crunches
Giggles behind a fender.
 
Day-night amalgams
Video poker and ****** fog
Sidewalk thermal vent nap-takers
Torch lighter hisses
Boulders sublimated to smoke

Toe-curling sigh
And crying at the dawn.
 
I want to know
Tree house daydreams
Kitchen curtain springtime
AC hum in iced-tea twilight
Spinning
Zoysia grass between babies' toes
You laughing, and I:
 
The mad man, white beard laughing,
Praying in the shrubs
For the breeze to move the curtain
So that he may see.

Said I’d watch the baby.
Found her piggy bank.
Sweats. Shivers. Shakes.
Back in twenty to meet the man
Pocket full of quarters.
The baby’ll be fine--I'll be fine.

I never liked Jonathan until
I punched him
And stole his tooth.
I got a dollar
From the Tooth Fairy.

We bought a new painting. It looks like…it looks. The little girl. The dog. They appear dripped on but look out with life — at my life. Sherry bought it. I nodded. That’s all I do. I don’t go into that room because the girl might cry. The dog might bark.