red nails, never fails
to pluck hair from brow and brush aside
the daily do's and don't's, the stray hairs and fears smudging her rosy glasses.
tall boots, grown-up girl suits parade her down the aisle
of the supermarket, purse balancing canned mangoes and fat-free soup.
she's an now girl, a strong-jawed orphan saving apartment buying
woman.

we live by a system of equations,
where
x plus y equals z, a zygote, baby boy.
and x plus x is also a zygote, a girl, indistinguishable from her brother
thus by these rules we simply must assume that x and y are equals.
for who are we to say that a does not equal a, that fifty does not equal fifty,
but rather, something less-than?
it's a system of equality, just as
it
should
be.
who are we to change this? who are we
to take that single cell of potential
and diminish it to something less-than
and who are we to judge a girl before she's born?
look at the sister, the brother, both beautiful in make and model
and dare to raise them as equals.

this is a portrait of a painter painting  a duck,
and as an honest man, i must disclaim
i am no painter, no wordsmith, not even a back-alley beautician
or smoker drawing letters in the air.
i'm a man, a not short nor tall nor distinctive in any other way
utterly invisible. however, as an honest man, i need to say
you are the sole, indescribable, incredible wonder of this park.


you're tall, i think, slim like the long-stemmed brushes you balance between your fingers,
and i think i hear you sing
as you paint that duck, that undistinctive, ordinary,
incredibly lucky duck.
i don't think it knows how lucky it is to have your gaze,
to be captured, immortalized, in your clever fingers.
it quacks off-beat and without thought, and i think,
"for shame, duck, bad on you"
because even someone as naturally invisible as me
knows when to appreciate a spotlight.

the ad on my kitchen table asks,
would you consider donating to
dolphin causes? orphan briefcases? factories for bread and water and those
miracle pills that cure a country in just 3 small,
prescribed,
doses?

would you change a child's life for only $35 a month?
begs the ad rolling in with the mail.
his name is roberto, five foot four, a good kid
who likes baseball and summer days.

a doller a day: a woman begs from channel 6,
donate to the children's hospital of saint something-or-other
have a heart, she says, and help the baby who has a defective one.

a doller a day, or if you're feeling generous,
round up to 5 cents an hour.
how else will you get rid of your rich world guilt?

margaret and I can walk on top of the snow today,
and this is why: after days of
freezing and thawing, melting and wringing and drying stiff and small
a thick 18 inches, we had in january
now just a dry february husk.

margaret and I can skim over the top of this husk:
we pretend to be dexterious; the rule of the game is
you break, you lose
I never lose, and margaret neither, though she tries
to hammer and pound the snow with her tiny ballet feet
I cry out to stop
but she does not stop until the husk, the rind of ice
has broken her.

I cherrypick over days that I don't understand and
when I walk into class an hour past nobody asks why
because the truth is we could all have *** up our sleeves in the time that it takes
for a drug-sniffing teacher to say "marijuana"
but today I wasn't crushing a blunt in the handicap lot
No,
last night my alarm clock died in its sleep
bless its life
and bless my rest, sometimes
I can let life do the cherrypicking for me.

we need to stop cutting for the sake of cutting
and remember how beautiful
memory loss is.

and sometimes it is because the words dry up on my tongue
and sometimes it is because I do not know how to say it

more than often I do not write
because I am afraid.

Dear
Lacey,
I should tell you how much
I hate your name.
too close to that ringing moniker of the dead girl in Colorado.
I didn't see you in her
didn't see anyone
and of course she wasn't more than a face laid out in
ink on a page
set to dry like I'd never said a word to her
of course.
I'd be a fool to think
that you have anything to do with
that look on in her eyes when they slammed her to a wall took out a gun and

of course you didn't know, I'm just a poor soul
looking for a living on the streets, don't think I'm one to
jump to conclusions.

Dear La
cey
my fingers hurt to type,
I don't want to talk to you, it might
trigger, you know.
People sometimes say I have
problems with other people.
please forget my number tomorrow.
and the next day and the one after
that.

L,
I leave this note on the hood of your car, you'll see it
before you drive away
don't look for me
I have a gun for you if
you do.

metal cools and hots, Lacey, your name is Lacey
and I cry to you.

[it happened on a sun-cracked highway at 65 mph]

when the house creaks from falling icicles
and the snow has been scraped from the driveway far too many times
that is when we sludge upstairs in our layers of greying sweaters
that is when we take out the box of summer vacation photos.

in them the grass is thick and deliciously green
and red squirrels belly up to new branches swaying above our heads
and we touch these beautiful things to our red and chapping noses.

and then I swear
just a bit of cool summer air
floats out
and lends a bit of sun to the midwinter.

there was a record spinning music slow
and a rusty alley-cat voice from the 'phone
on this dead city night in detroit.

[he made me stop]

[my chair broke underneath me]

[nobody can really sing in a place like this]

—my voice was cowardly.

always someone there
to look at rainbows with
at midnight.

something slips from her handbag
as she crosses 5 lanes.

we went to the vista
in september.
and after we'd travelled the path
along the edge
Lorie stood to look at the view over the
mountains, and I bent down
to find the tiny iridescent snails
sleeping in the dust.

and we stayed for a day

and it fit us so.

today you wrapped your hands around my waist
long fingers over thumbs, your nails were red and
chipping at the tips
You called me pretty names for pretty things, but
I’m Sylvia P. today.
look in my hand
count the beads between your fingers, tell me again
how I found my name beneath a crackling bush.

it was sunday [i remember] and my god squeezed the earth
between her thighs, crushed out water
clouds sank, my eyes lost the hem of my dress.
old man with the bell gave me a
reddish smile, his face cracked
he say a penny for the poor does a soul good
I slipped one in my
back pocket then
patted it tight for a rainy day.
you talked much too much, voice floated through the fog
and I heard too much

I was wringing out tears from my dress
when it fell like a note ringing out
and spoke to me then
and I spent my penny on a life.
I bought my life beneath a crackling bush.
I walked with it, down streets and up streets
and the hours turned my skin black and
my nails chipped off but my life stayed,
it did.

beads one, two, three, it starts with an S
ends with a
choker. absence of breath.
in moments like this
your words on my neck reminds me I'm
still alive.

a penny's worth of string and beads and
my life was bought on the lord's day.

Been sitting on the floor
For all my life
They talk me up
But don't hide the knife
They say pray to their god
And he'll tell me to walk on the straight path
[Such a great path]

Tell me what's truth and what's lies
And I'll sympathize
With the youth
Tell me that all this is real
At least I might feel
Something there

I've been there and back two times
In this life
The final scene
But I've acted twice
I cry pray for me God
but the only thing for me is silence

I'm shouting out
Through the stone in my throat
That those angels of lore
Should carry my out —
Carry me out —
Darling carry me out and away —
Such a poor soul

Oh oh oh
Tell me what's truth and what's lies
And I'll sympathize
With the youth
Tell me that all this is real
At least I might feel
Something there

I'm looking to feel
Something there

Looking to feel —
Somthing there

she told me so many lies &
they were all so
beautiful like she was.
she told me
she didn't mind meeting behind the
woodshed in the hours before the sunrise &
after dusk, she didn't mind
passing her guy without a word for the day.
she told me so many beautiful lies &
i told them back with a kiss.

brown skin, cat eyes like those models &
she said she loved me, loved me true
through the window the door
leaves blew on the wind &
sticks rattled hollow against the wall of our shed &
we
forgot
in the moment of things.

miss those days, before pickets &
red-faced neighbors
before

well, you should have seen the headlines &
cat eyes are gone.

spent all last night cursing his name and
finally yours, when i'd gotten over pounding that
dent in my pillow, it's because
you're blind as a ******* bat and can't you see past that
nose of yours
i question you?
that night you languished in the dim light
of the all-night pizza shop, bragged about
all the cheerleaders you'd like to bang if
they'd actually date you
and i cried laughed watched your eyes
on the cracked red bench of the booth
we sat.

of course, it's because
you turned a clouded eye to me and when
he slammed words on his computer just for me,
i'm a *****, laughable he said, you never
looked and you never saw to stand from your
drunk rat stoop to say
a word for me

spent all last night grinding your
name into my pillow, you didn't know and
never will.

she liked sending her wishes
silently on the roof
of a passing car
cast out from a drifting line.
[she told me she's always believed in the green glass
bottles drifting on the tide]
I called her an oaken darling
something to hold to
[fast we did,
arms on arms and crossgrain]
her wood
tough when bent
She
Screamed
Only
one time.

green locker
a new violin
barely fits


grass on knees sun too bright laugh


rush hour
crossing the street
she spills her coffee


discovery of a pond
she killed a frog
that fast

moving day—
children pick
at the curbside

she says turn down your music like

oh ****, let's just

twist the volume from

here to here

and everything's gonna be all right. like

those big-toothed snakes we used to dream of gonna

creep to her bedroom when they hear this

beautiful thunder in my window.

like if i turn my guitar to a whisper of static everything's

gonna disappear

in a puff of smoke and

—heavy hands be gone—

we can all breathe through this

tepid air

without something else to wrap around

and through every shivering

f

       r

     a

          c

              t

    u        

    r

       e.



because that's never going to work on me

again.

you want to pretend that

these red-ink scratches are your kisses,

pressed into paper with your sweet perfume,

sealed with a wish.

— dearly beloved —

you used to call me something sweet,

falling like summer rain, and

pink glass buttons and butterfly wishes

and dreams could come true.



but rain falls to mud and letters are

trampled in the gutter, trash

my words, trash

you knew you'd be heard behind your whisky veil;

artillery doors don't hide secrets.

when the glass broke harlot-red lipstick

stained the rim, whisky ran through wax

and her skirts flew with her to the back room

to meet with her next little boy.

god, you were such a fool for  

breathy promises and clever fingers slipping through silk.

god, I was so stupid for you.



and now

you want to pretend your kisses are mine

that you can scratch x's in a row

to make me smile.

and I could scream and cuss and carve you a letter with knives

or I could turn a blinded eye

and cry.

I am a thing of many heartbeats

many walls, many minds.

and some men mark out the ways

ten by ten

by twenty-five

that I can be laid out on a plate

losing count at organelles and

organelles in the tight dry skins of

the mothership organelles.

I’m not in these pages, dearest,

flattened, candied red and blue.

but still you reach, tweeze apart bones

for tiny minds, for glowing truth in lives

crushed flat on a slide of glass

trickle acid on my cuts just to burn me more

and dearest

I thought you said you loved me before.

Bones



I can

unscrew my arms

from their sockets in

my shoulders, scratch

long lines in the mud with the

splintering ends. Pry apart

radius & ulna and let fingers

dance across my lap.

Twist ribs together, explore

the smooth inside of my

eye sockets.

I'll laugh at your fear

with the music of 32 teeth.



2. Flesh



With this knife, carve

the muscle from my calf;

peel a scarlet & stinging & twisting

ribbon from curving neck.

Blood runs a river,

scooping my stomach out,

a cave for children

to dance in.

I'll turn  from

the way you cry at me,

& you can see

my gloriously stinging smile.



3. Blood



Sharp fingers gouge,

scrabbling at pulsing veins,

peeling off a spidery

net of dripping blood

and sinewy strings.

Pull them tighter

around my throat,

bursting to fireworks

in my eyes. Rip the threads, release

an avalanche of bitter &

slippery red.

I'll win at your game

with paint of victorious red

still wet upon my cheeks.

She described herself as a raven

laughing at the world in that

quiet way.



I miss her voice

and echoes aren't bread enough to fill me.

wisps of hair & you &
                                       your eyes, I just can't
think with you around. you call me
something ---------------- tied around a rock,
it has an E an S an L L L L  ---
                                       I just can't
talk|think|breathe|swear to god you're

intoxicating.

I remember the schoolgirl days
when Sister Anne led us out in rows of
blue and white
                 [mirrored in
                 the Dutchware my father painted with
                 quick, uniform strokes]
to the school garden,
pointed hands to plant the
violets.

We breathed their air,
colonies of their gold dust
                 settled in our lungs; sometimes
we carved out twin plantlets
to grow in our window.

And for all those years
I never saw the flaking autumn nights
when Sister Anne stooped,
nunnery cast behind a bush;
crushed a violet stem between
2nd and
               3rd fingers
lit one end
smoked her eyes
                                blue.

dirt creased into your knees, bruises beaten through

bones. callouses split open

on the splintering post of the shovel.



whistling grass thrives in these tears;

you're growing a

wild and twisting meadow.



his grave is hidden.

these are the days of headaches
of calloused grips from writing out the square root of x, y, a million and ten
and erasing, revising
double-checking with a strung-out mind.
these are the nights of skim-milk dreams
with romance [gone sour]
with magic [tricks and mirrors]
with money [down the drain]
and all hours are the same
[all hours are the same]

and we wake, rinse our hair
paste on faces that say Ready to Learn
and work our fingers
numb and
so
tired

all in the name of wishing
to peel off twenties from the paycheck
and slide [folded neatly in
one thick ***] under the edge of
the carpet for something
sweet.