Before sleep I knot a cardboard tag
to my big toe with baling twine.
Sometimes I think of stapling it -
ritual wants a clean edge.

She tolerates my oddities:
a posterboard of errands above the sink,
tea mug with its brown ring I refuse to clean,
I stand too close when the train arrives,
or climb ladders with one hand full.

Last summer a rogue wave flung me under;
I surfaced broken, collarbone split,
came home wrapped and aching.
She kissed the bruise and laughed,
as if I’d slipped the ocean’s grip,
as if the sea had lost its claim.

I call them accidents to sleep easier,
yet I flood the stove with gas,
strike a match, laugh at the plume,
convinced the fire means I’m alive
even as it scorches my hand.

At night she circles the bed,
tugging at my toe tag
as if it could bind me to her,
carrying me into the cabin,
a weight she won’t release.

Plywood braces windows,
palms rattle fronds against siding.
gutters spit as the wind climbs.

My grandfather on the phone,
his voice a flicker in the storm’s static.
The lot crowds, then scatters.

A ball, caked in sludge,
drifts into the gutter,
a dog leaping after.

It’s hard to tell laughter from siren,
shouts from wind, or hold his words
no matter how tight I press the receiver,

its plastic warm in my hand,
cord twisting at my wrist.
He calls because the Gulf is darkening,

because he knows the water climbs,
because I have spoken of moving west-
a desert- another gulf between myself and family,

closer to safety, farther from familiar.
Land ought to hold steady,
not wash out from under you,

he says, not telling me to stay,
not quite telling me to go.
As he speaks, the clearest sight

is the aluminum door straining,
blinds clattering like bones, then thunder-
a crack like plaster, like bone, its greyness

everywhere the air will go.
This beginning is weight-
pulling me west, to where

his universe bends uncertain.
In the pause between thunder
and his drawled breath,

not the words
but the weight
he meant me to carry.

Stacked green crates by the futon,
records quiet as buried letters,
each sleeve longing
to be drawn out into daylight
by her small, thoughtful hands.

I just want to play that Nick Cave again
teenager’s resolve in her voice,
she drops the needle on "Tupelo",
traces Peter Murphy with her thumb,
holds Kate Bush to the light
like stained glass.

She laughs
at the ****** box on the speaker.
I tell her it’s never going to happen.
She grins, unbothered,
says she only came for the vinyl.

I watch her tilt each sleeve,
never touching the grooves,
brush the dust,
lay the needle like a secret,
slide the disc back without a wrinkle.
Each time I’m surprised
by her precision.
It’s the third time
she’s dropped by.

She makes mixtapes.
Pressing pause, pressing record,
stitching songs into a spine of hiss.
Once, to me, or to herself,
she said her father wanted a tape.
She’d mail it when he had
somewhere to send it.

She follows me across the bridge,
talking about her brother,
an ex-best friend,
mimicking her professor,
how he wags his tongue
when he writes on the chalkboard.

I haul a duffel:
apron, uniform, boots heavy with grease.
She skips in the rain,
strumming cables, humming
the last song played, still floating.

I unlock the door,
steeped in garlic and kitchen sweat,
boots leaving grime on the boards.
She isn’t there-
only the crates, stacked neater,
jackets squared, spines aligned,
as if her care was meant for me.
The room settles with her absence,
yet holds me upright
in its small, thoughtful hands.

Was it you who called me?
The message never played.
Another year is passing,
your letter never came.

On the step you pulled me close,
your skin was cool with rain.
You crossed the line I dared not touch,
complicit all the same.

They warned me love was treason,
they burned my home, my name.
I slept there in the ashes;
your letter never came.

Now I kneel in silence,
your picture in the frame.
You asked for proof I loved you-
the letter never came.

Take an aspirin and shave for the show,
drink black coffee, rehearse the grin.
For office light's embalming-glow,
take an aspirin and shave for the show.
Staple the tremors, make blood flow.
Bleach out the sweat for the boardroom spin.
Take an aspirin and shave for the show,
drink black coffee, rehearse the grin.

two minute, thirty second read-time

1.
The head stank of fryer grease,
onion left too long in the sun,
sweat soaked into its seams.
Etienne Boudreaux, ‘Ebo’
to everyone at Tiger Roll,
pulled it down,
one eye watering,
the glass one fixed,
cold and bright as a marble.

"Everyone takes a turn," Boss lady said,
"-record is three minutes thirty."
clipboard scepter of the prep room,
polo shirt crisp, androgynous,
in the fluorescent buzz.

Outside on Magazine Street,
autumn leaves skittered with plastic cups,
Saints jerseys lined up for combo trays,
children sticky with hibiscus snowballs
waiting for the mascot hunt.
The sushi boat golf cart revved by the curb,
its speakers spitting static jazz.

Ebo bolted,
dodging the crowd,
a flapping brush of faux fur at the legs,
the heavy cork molding of its chest,
giant red tongue flopping from its mouth
bouncing with each lunge.

Stumbling past a busker in the square,
The plaza a haze of fried shrimp and beer,
stoops littered with jack-o’-lanterns,
their grins collapsing into mush
pigeons scattering with refusal.
For a moment he thought
he might break free.

Then the chopstick, equaling tranquilizer,
slammed his chest, emptied him.
"Two minutes fifty-six!"  Jasper grinned.

2.
On the St. Charles streetcar,
the duffel slumped in his lap,
the tiger’s stupid smile
jutting from the zipper.
His glass eye caught the window’s glow,
unblinking while the other blurred with tears.
The oaks along the square
rushed past, black against amber sky.

"Is that yours?"
The woman asked, radiating.
Lafayette Street tilted.
She led him away.

3.
Her apartment was a jungle-
walls tangled with vines,
green jars of pressed leaves,
plush animals stacked in ranks on the bed.
They did not look soft.
Their button eyes glittered like coins
spilled from a grave,
awaiting a verdict.

She crowned him with the tiger head,
tightened the fit,
her pupils wide with hunger.
One hand on his neck,
the other sliding inside her robe,
"You are the most glorious Shere Khan."

In the mask,
he believed.
The plush ranks shifted-
armies kneeling,
a kingdom bowing.
ascending was a Demi-God.
Her body arched under him,
her voice breaking on the name.

But he wanted her mouth.
He wanted his own skin.
He tore the head off-

and the slap cracked,
hard enough to sting his glass eye.

"What are you doing?"
she hissed.
Her robe rose like a curtain.
"Just go."

He fled into the night.
Loyola Avenue slick with leaves,
canal water sour with rot.
He raised the tiger head high,
a skull to be flung into the dark,
banished.

But the deposit.
Always the deposit.

He stuffed it back.
The plush eyes of her army
still on him,
the tiger’s grin
fixed, laughing
watching from the bag.

I lap from puddles,
tasting of blistered bark,
teeth green from moss
the deer abandoned.

fed the fire with Walden,
its spine snapped
like a rabbit’s neck.
Ash branded my palms
with unread philosophy.

Soon it will be winter.

I’ll freeze stiff: a fallen carcass
unless poems hatch inside me,
larvae splitting bone from within.