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.

we built a teepee in the woods out back,
hoping for a fortress where we could avoid
my parents' calls for us to come inside
and out of the pitch black of a tangled forest.

it wasn’t perfect – there was no hide
with which to cover it, decorated with
red and blue creatures of the earth, dancing
upon geometric patterns.

some of the branches we used to craft this teepee
stuck out, thin, pliable fingers
with budding leaves instead of nails, gently swaying
and conducting some silent melody in the breeze.

these branches were leaned in a circle, supporting each other
with circles of young, green sinew layered beneath their bark.
we bound them together at their peak, unwinding a ball of string
that would fray and disintegrate with every rainstorm.

we failed, also, to consider our chosen place for this Indian home.
rather than soft grass or spongy moss, we sat
uncomfortably and shifting, on layers of dirt
and dead, dry leaves, decaying beneath us
as we stared into a leafy ceiling,
framed and outlined by the gold sunlight,
before the fiery sky turned to purple and red, and
mosquitoes bit at our ankles, driving us from the forest
and into my home.

there we lay, staring up at glow-in-the-dark stickers
mimicking Orion and Ursa, Libra and Gemini,
on my plain and darkened ceiling.

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).

you had this many broken bones
like that time i left for an hour (because
i was learning to work some never fractured fingers
over black and white tabs) and came back
to find you in a chair, clutching your arm
like it was some project of masking tape and tongue depressors,
imitating architecture, as though it might fall apart at
any second. and i wondered what it was
to have my calcium I-beams snap under my skin. was there
a feeling, a radiator that burned against bones
comfortably, when the edges glued themselves back?

brachiosaurs were tall,
so they got hit by meteorites first.
but ichthyosaurs died slowly in water that
isn't warm anymore, because a blanket
of grey hair (there will be mammals soon)
knocked out the sun in a prize-
fighting match. i took a shard
of space rock in my belly that
tunneled into my backbone (the ancient
arthropods died too) but you got frozen, by
that ashen sky, slowly, while
your ocean got colder.
the sand shivered too.

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.

why did - somename - do that? ******* *****.
nearly knocked the mirror off my
honda civic when he wiggled like a missile into
my lane. getting in front of me so important?
somename's father is having heart attack in the
hospital.

by my window, a fir tree didn't know that
we cut off a branch. the gleeful hum of

a chainsaw in a cherry picker droned
with the rhythm of an obnoxious dirge.

the branch popped off like a lego cowboy's
arm and hit the ground with a thud, like a sack

of potatoes or a coconut. the fir tree didn't
feel as sweet honey poured like blood

from its armpit. the only first aid was the heat
from the spinning blade that cauterized the wound

and sticky sap, a bandaid of resin. the pine cones
didn't know that their brothers and sisters fell with the branch.

a fir tree by my window still tries to scratch at the pane
during windstorms. but this device of Edgar Allen's

got chopped off. if this fir tree stays drunk on its
honeyed blood, it won't notice that it has lost an arm and it

will stay strong and merry, so that we can
chop it down and dress it up for christmas.

i broke two necks tonight, because
chicken soup doesn't make itself.
i snapped bobbing necks with pitiful
***** of skin beneath pointed beaky chins,
scrawny, feathered twigs. you
halved sticks with fingers that were vices
stripped them naked, pale
brown wood, shivering under your fingerprints.
i am not noticing this anymore. chicken
necks are starting to feel like twigs. snap
snap snap

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

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.

the whiskey burned my bones dry (they
were soaked by rain) and
the whistle of many voices stammered
in my ears and cleaned out the rattle
in my head (it was shaking a frantic
rhythm). that rattle was a death
rattle of drenched bones, clicking
clacking against each other (there's my
many wrist bones and my teeth
dancing on my shins) the toy of a small lump
or a baby. or a frightened snake. a rattle
rattle (i'm tired) that keeps me awake
but distracted from other thoughts.

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.

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.

you broke your arm last week because you
fell out of a tree, because
you are a ten year old boy. when the bone
cracked you cried and were loud as a howler monkey
when he can't find any fruit to eat. but now
you have your cast on, and you are dangerous and
cool. there is a fire of adventure kindled
in your eye, right? you will tell the story about
how you had to use magazines and rubber bands
to hold your arm in place, before you could get
to the doctor (don't tell them your dad set the makeshift
splint for you. don't tell them how you sobbed
through the entire car ride). you can do anything now,
daredevil. weren't they jealous when Christine cooed over how brave
you are, when you pointed out the branch that you fell from? (they
don't need to know you fell off the lowest branch)
she's your girlfriend now, because you are so brave, but
she will only kiss you on the cheek, because you are a boy.
you are hot **** (you learned to curse when your father
exclaimed a new vocabulary when he saw you fall). don't tell them
you fell out of the tree because you slipped on
some rotten bark, and if they find out? the worms wriggling
inside the dead wood attacked you like a more potent
hydra than the one you learned about in class.

i know how it would go, if i were to die of old age.
i think i would start to hear a ticking
like a kitchen timer, with a few hours left - careful
with the roast, it's hot.
i think i know how two unseen hands, with
cattle **** fingers,
would gently **** me in the side to keep me awake,
a child at three a.m. on Christmas eve,
waiting for a "clump" from a fat, old man's boots
***** with soot, white beard a cloak of charcoal,
before bolting downstairs at first light
and into my reaper's hands.

it is dark, in here. and there are
drips of acid to break down creatures.
is that one of them, the fawn with white spots
becoming a ***** as drips drop?

the walls of this cavern are
a fleshy criss cross of a kitchen sponge (soaked
in yesterday's dinner) and a tight strip
of rubber.

if the beast opens its lips and shows the pine trees
that root themselves in enormous gums
(needles pierce the inside of the demon's mouth
and spread a sickly green all over) then the light spills in.

who taught you to growl when
we tried to climb up the tendons of your throat,
to shake us with a thunderstorm of bass
back into the ugly pit?

there was no mother that could love
this beast. so it kept us forever
amid soaking carcasses of last year's supper.
(vocal chords rumbled) and we know we are small
and we can't climb through the forest of teeth.
so we might as well stay forever and give
this beast our love.

his bulbous eyes stared and clamored.
they bulged like cartoon animals do when
a fist throttles them. we hurried past him
because he told us something about nineteen eighty-five
and what if he has a knife in his coat?
the blue and yellow neon lights bathed his face
in commercial light and illuminated
his anguish. he didn't have any money, probably
because those men stole it from him when he was sleeping.
you know the ones he talks about - their suits are always
clean. we hurried past him, and his caffeine eyes
finally went to sleep even though his addled brain
prayed for consciousness. the suits would come to him in the night
and fill him with drugs again.