if i was a mystic
if i had strong magic
if i were born inside a star
& you weren't already
my older sister's best friend
i would trap time forever
inside the hourglass of
your green-eyed memory
holding a skinny ultra can
shoulders deep brown from
catching two sunsets in a row
standing chest deep in
a clear water river
with the ***** bottle coozy
& your torn-up shorts rolled
halfway down

i was a six-foot-something anxious baby with
wavy blond hair and blue eyes when
you gave me a triumphant pinch inside my ribcage
under the table at dinner one night
my chest still tremors when i remember &
when the brave sunlight touched my knees
& bony nose after a long night with you
paralyzed for ten hours tangled
nestled so tight together
the nerves in my fingertips
& eyelids went numb
like waking up in the middle of a first kiss

i remember our
fun-drunk voices echoing flatly
off the popcorn ceiling of your apartment
when you giggled & told me
i'm better than all the ballcap guys
in all the dusty saloons you've tried
sloshing free ones across the bar at you
or bouncing their farmer's tans against you
& off of you on the wooden dance floor
i grabbed your waist tight & whispered
you're better than all the girls in
all the hash houses & hookah bars i've seen
absentmindedly holding a ukulele on their hips
smoking & yelling over the boys swarming around them

i want to catch every warm
slow second of the sun or your lips on mine
i want to taste the dawn &
your sweet skin fresh like rain
i want to smell the dew being burned
off the st augustine grass outside
& when my forehead glows sharp
like feverish red sunlight
you will press whatever part
of you is coolest there &
all the muscles of my body will
relax & sing to you

it was dawn when you
mounted me for the third time
wearing $600 cowboy boots & nothing else
except the red lipstick you found
under your messy bed
naturally you practiced
spurring me with the heels
& hollering like a wild bird in the
big open fields of america
as the colors bled through & into
my forced closed eyelids
turning them pink like
the inside of a curved seashell
or the curtains of your bedroom
your daughter came in
rubbing her eyes with tiny fists
& a healthy smile her cheeks
rosy with warm sleep & sunshine kisses
you dismounted quickly & swung
a shirt over your shoulders

i stand stretch to yawn & scratch my chest
as you both run away screaming
about sausages & pancakes
i'm left there feeling like a heart transplant
you swore we'd never stop dancing
& there you are sure enough
boot-scootin' around the kitchen
in just my workshirt & your lace *******
checking the cabinets for champagne
to sift over the last bit
of florida's natural o-jay

but you really are
my older sister's best friend
so i should just forget it because
you like to scoff at me
& make half-jokes
that you have terrible taste in men
or i couldn't afford
you anyway

you cough your fake blessings
on paste paper targets

word execution
we watch the city strata
die in it or die by it

my own hand in accord
with your hand burned
I abide.

banjo strings frayed by broken fingernails
fistful of downers to sleep this night away
i open my eyelids out of dream, singing ladies'
eyes downcast thru fear & tobacco smoke
wake up, roll joint, get this day started.

They say it's deer
Deer that change shape
An ancient Whitman
they say
caught one once

The woman who would not wear fruit
to hide herself like Eve on stage
refused to wear the shoes a
hermaphrodite gave her

She ran thru front yards she
ran thru bedrooms the
shadow she gathered from
the oak will keep her

sanity so long as she holds
the right note in her chest

those gods like rotten meat
end up in a dump
buzzed over by
flies

scratched and left over by some canine

'cause his master said
"don't eat that rotten **** you fool!"

there are worms
they don't think like that
if they think at all

but be modest, Charlie

give'em some credit

for they never complain for
making a fertilizer

now will you  look down that bridge

there lay a dried up whale
exploding boiling organs all around

and there hides
the entire city
behind the stink

now we wait, Charlie, 'cause we are patient

wait for some Kublai Khan
to interpret as he wishes
'cause, Marco Polo does not speak the same language

the language, the illusion it is.

and god is still
an ever rotting meat.

Drinking like savannah beasts at rivers edge she
is left to ferment
lethal like wine in an hourglass

she denies death and is weaponized
she defies god and is made a woman
she aims and in doing perfect harm is made

stricken with regret your running target stems
consequences whose stomach is filled by feather
memorials bound by leather turmoil

Shells in my face says Henry the eighth and Rome
will burn gladly on
a nest of Palestinian violins