i scalped a false ursine prophet, all golden
and colorless, to pour honey
into your wounds, dripping with cold sweat
and natural monosaccharides of glucose. entertain
sweet thoughts in your head (my own were a sickly
yellow). if it doesn't dry, honey won't be too sticky
and your skull's hinges will be quiet.
rust might have been better.

one halcyon summer, when
we strung ourselves out on fat couches, wilting
like thirsty, overheated forsythia, one
hundred or more crimson carcases found themselves
turned upside down on my floor. ladybugs discarded
from the designs of nature. i swept them under the bed.
i promise, when you die, i will not flick you out of sight
with a careless index finger (there will be sorrow, outrage, and flowers
picked clean of aphids).

smooth son/sun, you're a holy roller
no fighting hedonism with a cold shoulder
smolder, ignite into a ******
baptism of divine alarm
because fervor is louder than alms
so you could be a rolling ball of burning fingers
kissing and singeing sinners who hinder
what you want to tear asunder
so blunder, reckless in abandon
or you could be no man's son
and everyone's sun and the one's son
father, the world weighs a ton.

our forebears split him with dynamite
nile magic, scattered like stones, own the afterlife
and he's got a son, so bright, light
got a silver dollar and a star studded collar
and the ring of fire, burns more than the rest
stuff them all down inside a god's chest
now the son's got a cold dish
aching for one last wish, match, set, game
vengeance on chaos, and sand in his throat, in his father's name
**** some brother of cain and able
way back when, when seth was still an animal

obsessive compulsive, no demons in the cosmic sieve
demons are angels, in his last breath the son wants to live
but he's got to be some kind of doom
cosmic boom, keep people straight in a narrow room
pretty tunes, ancient runes, weave the world on an almighty loom
while the sun's high, and the son's high, and it's high noon.

stick a nickel in your mouth because you like money
melt it down and let it coat your tongue like honey
and you still can't taste food two days later
because you've got a solid metal tongue that can't taste flavor
coin tongue click your teeth for Charon to deliver
and cut your tongue out to pay him to cross the river
when you burned your last nickel in the furnace
it dissolved like the sun as it churned and spit
solar flares lick your eyes because they love you
fire only wants to kiss you like doves do
doves do burn too, feathers like ashes like carbon monoxide
they were plastic so you passed out when they fried
a little molten rubber with a little bubble
and a prize inside, pop it because it's trouble
and supple, with evaporated eyes
no doves just trinkets and magpies
a little bit of gold is the same as mass hypnosis
dove or chicken nuggets or gold nuggets for strong doses
of oxytocin and candy corn, serve them together on halloween to children
because they need thick skin and ritalin
in them to keep them quiet, and so everyone's got a little disquiet
in their stomachs, because we're all high
on coins coins and brightly lit rooms
and when we have to turn the lights off at least turn on the nickel moon

i.

was it underneath those algae covered rocks,
whispering, green creatures that delighted in

making a naked foot recoil in a moment of panic,
all the world collapsing into dust, as slime made contact?

was it beneath those stones, where a nickel lay,
a burning sun next to Lincoln's rusted beard, unseen

to our child eyes, looking for what was brightest
amongst a forest of grime and stone?

we dove in with such a fervor, a keening
to collect what was tossed by grandfather’s hands.

it was beneath those rocks that we learned what it was
to search for lost, or never found in the first place, things.

when the lake pressed against our chests, daring us to remain
below the surface, while our lungs begged us for just one

breath of air that was lingering five feet above our bodies
taunting and calling to us in our very nervous system,

we pressed on, fingers scraping desperately for a shiny token
until the void in our lungs flung us back into the bright and sharp world of oxygen.


ii.

i had a blue box with a galloping horse
cubed by an inspired painter. in it was
a gold brooch with stones like dollar bills
all shining and red once i dug it
out of the ground, and when i washed it
there was a chip in metallic paint on plastic
gems. in the box there was an arrowhead that told stories
or committed murders, with a chiseled point. they say of good
sculpting that you can see the artists hands in the piece.
under the horse's calico eye was a lost bead
that might have been a choice pick in a kindergarten class.

iii.

the dust under your bed doesn't make a scene
unless you stir it with a probing broom, little stalks of fingers brushing,
crowded together so that what's found is stolen by some next door bristle.
the vacuum cleaner will only reach so far and leave
an unthinkable spot that can't help but be thought of because
it's the only one left.

iv.

you will miss, the first one thousand times you try
to lasso a horse or a tilting bull that seems to be
yearning to scratch an itch by backflipping. or maybe you will
catch a firefly (you probably will never get that bucking animal,
so aim smaller) just once and look into a phosphorescent
backside, glowing like one million lamps under a full moon
on the Chinatown streets. fireflies keep well (poorly)
in jars with tinfoil hats that are poked with holes to let in the air
or let in the drowning raindrops when you leave the insect,
enshrouded by glass, on a checker-clothed table in your back yard.

fireflies don't have lungs because insects don't, but
you don't know this. so you will wonder if it felt
what you did when your itching fingers scraped rocks,
so green they were almost alive, until you escaped a dimmer
and quieter world and breathed again.

rezuma, el noche, con el
humedad. una cosa del estomago
del tierra, esto vida,
esto respiracion como el espacio
intermedio las alas de un halcon. me siento
la marga que tiene todo el nocion de la neblina
dentro de su atomos. esto marga tiene mi oreja
y me susurra sobre las raices muy pequeno y
paulatina de la hierba. sobre como en la brea que
llamamos "el noche" o
"la profundidad" es un parte de nosotros
que rezuma, que no nos gusta, y que
mantene lo que somos.

in an old diving suit, nobody can see your face
and the fish don't know you're human.
someone wondered why you would need a veil
in an ocean, no one would recognize you.
maybe they heard a mumble rise out as spheres of
carbon dioxide; or maybe you took off that
diving mask and said how the ocean is dark
and it is safer to be faceless.