I hope you cancel me,
I’m sick of you
and most everyone else.
They talk
too **** much.
Except for the mailman,
who comes
to my apartment building
everyday.
He puts every letter
in every right box.
He has made other mistakes
in this life,
but has never put a letter
in the wrong box.
And some of the letters
are regretful,
love letters
that in 2 years
will find themselves
in the fireplace.
Maybe a birthday card
from Buddy,
which will be kept forever
because it is the last one
you ever got from him.
The best letter I got
was from the queen
of Cap Hill,
and there were
no words written on it.
Blank piece of paper,
I wrote a poem on it
and threw it away.
I’ve seen the mailman everyday
for 28 years,
and he never says a word.

Tell me about how how you are a just a tourist everywhere you go.
Let me pick you up from the train station,
and drive you past
balance beam sidewalks
you once walked on
to get home after
you bulldozed the night
out of the sky.
Our lips tango
at every red light.
When they do,
I forget myself.
The light turns green,
I change the song.
I the mouse.
You the cat;
playing youthfully
with the terrified dinner you caught.

It was the kind of love
where when her heart would beat
blood would pump through my veins.

What good are these words
utterances
noise
in my ears
in my head.
They are always on sale,
and always on back order.
Words
surely won’t
bring back
the Amazon,
they won’t save
the pig
from the knife.
They will never
wrap themselves around
how much I miss the
girl I’ve never seen,
let alone met,
let alone kissed,
let alone left.
How I miss
the moon
that never set,
how I miss the words
I never said,
the place I’ve never been
filled with streets
I’ve never walked,
full of puddles
that reflect the green stop light,
the neon light
in the old star drenched bar
I never visited
to quiet
the words
in my head.
The words.
Always on sale,
always on back order.

I think it’s finally time
to get glasses.
Maybe I’m just getting older
or maybe I’ve stared
into the sun
for too long.
I can’t make out
her face
as she feels
for ripened avocados
across the produce section
from me.
But maybe I don’t want to,
the mystery,
curiosity,
I dream
pleasant fallacies,
I’d rather not know
the color of her eyes
or the mess of
old newspapers
in her skull.
The second
I’m close enough
to be able to make out
her smile
I’m done.
I don’t want to see
her
ugly
yellow
crooked
teeth.

In a past life
I think I was
an elevator operator.
Like one
back in the olden
days.
Going up.
And down.
And up again.
Back down.
Talking about
the weather
with people
who were somewhat
strangers,
even though
I saw most of them
everyday.
And when I first started,
I liked the music,
but anything played
over and over again
starts to sound like hell.
It was an elevator
I had never gotten off.
And I know I was
an elevator operator
in a past life
because it wasn’t
so long ago.
Now I’m somewhat
more of a crane operator,
or a train conductor,
the card in my own
back pocket,
or the time it takes
the occipital lobe
of a child
to register the light
in the pupil
that paints the picture
of everything new.

And I’d go to church in the mountains
and sing praises with the crows in the pines
to a god most misunderstood,
rarely seen or heard;
the lynx of the feeling in my sternum,
the missing word in my vocabulary that
has bought permanent real estate
on the tip of my tongue.
And then she looks at you
with Medusa eyes
that turn you to stone.
You lie there naked
arms and legs woven together
like sacred silk,
the warm blanket of god,
the purring lynx.