In my house the men
wear breastplates for fun, and
the women race heavenly
on the speedway, the soles
of their feet caking with sand.
Yes, my house has a speedway.
If you close your eyes for a moment
it feels like a beach minus the tangerine
minus the birdcalls

minus the summer spit
frying old skin.

Dead roaches pool flat and limp
down the garage, the air
smells of tungsten and thick rain.
The river, she says, they’re
covering it up. New walkway.
Where would the water go, she says.

Then,

pulling from the tapestry of her
memory shelf. There are board games,
stationery, unused journals, bracelets,
earrings, a $25 Precious Moments.
If only I said,
Are you sure you’re giving these all away.
If only I said,
These probably have a lot of sentiment.
She would reconsider.
And I wouldn’t hold these fossils
of thinking about buying, then buying,
then lending, then using, then storing,
then forgetting, then finally
discarding. Falling into
the vacuum underneath
the lining of the heart muscle in charge of
letting things go.

Her daughter asks her to keep something.
Her high school diploma. She thinks about that.

The ride back home was bone-chilling per the rain, and
the driver babbled about a ****** encounter.

The road
damp, the windows ebbing with fresnels.

I pull my fingers and I watch Earth whir
past us like a conclusion unread.

España forgives the people trying
To find their way during Holy Week.

We go the wrong way,
and still end up here,
home, together.

apologizes
to straight boys whose perfect *****
have proper places.

Tight
in there, pulling
enough teeth
to doorstop the
night ghosts, who sing
songs of taking you.
Too dead then,
keeping secrets of
that time when
the mirror almost
sprung out a hand
to slap you awake from
self-loathing.
Here you come,
years later
on the floorboards
weightless.
Now that you’re made of light
only the shadow gets splinters.
Enough with your body, Carl.
Enough limbs have sunken
into gracelessness.
Enough, enough, enough.
Enough for reserved wounds.
Stop writing the instructions
on what it takes to become unforgiven.

In half the spine still a spine,
longing for its missing parcels.
Your body will rest
in the middle
of its punishment, but
still no tailbone.
Incomplete, you did that.
Now learn, Carl.
Pay prices.

There was love here before.
Some animal on a plank.

Didn't hold for very long.

Rain came often. No one saw.
Puddles formed and dried
at the same times.
Because there was no Occurring.

A restaurant chain
had opened up a franchise
in a stopover, alcoved
by gasoline parkways,
sheeted in neon.

I found it that night
on my way.
Great food.
Great place.
A time to ****.

Strangers cast curious smiles.
Some ask questions about
where you're headed.
I wish we knew
when small talk
butterflies into
big talk. Then we can know.
This is serious.
Someone will learn and,
if I'm lucky,
try on my plans if it fits.

The air conditioning whistles and howls.
Some stereo sounds: a horror show
about doctors malpracticing in purpose.
Gore gore gore.
Filthy good. Feel cranked.
I walk to my jacket and open the door,
sounding the bell.
Night greets me back
its smells.
Menthol and ****.

I am headed north.
But this was great.
Nice time.
Cheers?
Cheers.

I surrender to your chest
and press my face against it,
as soft as wool
clipped from a sheep
who couldn’t say
I suffer.

I dread the day
I’ll make you say
I’ll leave you. But that is
what I do. I find
angel boys and postpone
their holiness.

I teach these boys
there’s a space
between blood and bone
to store prayers. That
the whistling pressure that
sequences our next heartbeats
are disappearing acts.

I make them
piggyback on me
as I kneel on all fours in
glass shards and make them say
they like it. They learn to.
They ask if
it could be them kneeling
in pain next time. It is
around this time
when I call it quits.

I said I delayed holiness.
But some of them
Never claim it back.
There’s a river of discarded objects
under the skin of someone
who’ll die for you,
and those they want back.

Between blood and bone,
prayers are stored, yes.
Yet for now, the chest;
rising and falling,
my face against it.
The lung beneath you
a universe-ordered shape
as perfect as a handhold
dovetailed into prison rails.

Beautiful angel boy.
So soft and warm.
Do you hear how loud
it gets
when the moon pulls Earth
and Earth doesn’t say
I suffer.

But it was all
while in fugue, even
as a neighbor stood there
barefoot, the trilling cicadas
barely heard. A climate
rippled the calm like a
faint heartbeat
beneath damp ground.
I knew these people;
the sort to meet in stopovers.
Briefly, modestly, passively.
They carry conversations
by vibration, not talk.
Withdrawn moans,
grunts, edgewise glances
more potent words.
One night, I touched
him. He needed
to be touched.
To be so far away
to forget warmth, how?
He touched me back.
I allowed. His body melted
onto the floor, leaving only
a lit cigarette. I unlatched
instantly, like a derailed train.
His body gathers; the marrows
retreating to their proper places:
blood, bone, muscle, skin
assuming back a shape.
The town held a quiet night
the way newborns are held.
No one needed to know.
He will forget.
I will, too. The cigarette
belched a thin trail of smoke
until its fire ran out.