Tonight I am an astronaut
in between an old woman
who smells like ink, sudoku, and *****,
and a window with a full moon
that is held in the sky by a wing.

I'd like to tell her
what everybody thinks
when they fly.
I'd tell her
what it would be like
if we crashed
and I had to choose
between her
and myself.

Selfishly I would choose myself.
My mother could not outlive me.
Yet, she could be my mother's mother.
She could have seen the full moon
from the backseat of a Model T
or from her back in a desert
that is now Las Vegas or Phoenix
or full moons from ninety years or full moons.

But this plane will not crash
and I will not have to choose
yet I am still repulsed.
I'll too be old. Soon.
Tomorrow, maybe.
Yet, I promise
I will not smell of ****
or fly in a plane
without a seat
next to a window
so I could see the full moon
from outer space.

She gets high.
I get high.
She gets drunk.
I get drunk.

I get high.
She spills sapphire.
I get drunk.
She spills unleaded.

She gets high.
She gets drunk.

I get high.
I get drunk.

I slow down for you.
I am a tortoise.

I arrange caution tape
from one dream
to another
until I'm afraid
to remember dreams.

I have never seen a body turn from life to corpse
hung from a chapel or tree
or a two year old girl stop breathing
because mom can't afford food
or clothes torn off a man on fire in heat
as he stops drops dead  
with final thoughts of spring rolls
of laughter of the buffet filled
to the belly like bullets
in the chest when you can eat
no more fish she said
to write a poem as a fish
hooked and dragged
like ******* soda cans
on the back of a limousine
on your wedding day
off he goes out to the lake
to fish to socialize with Ted
his brother as strong as his fillet knife
I bite the jig and wear the hook
to the surface I gasp
thrash and hang from eight
pound test and turn from fish
to fish flesh as a fillet knife
empties my guts from gill
to tail.

Thaw

Today I cause erosion
I angle sand once perpendicular
to a half frozen lake
to a beachy slide
softened with shells
with starfish three hundred
miles away in an ocean
warm as the lips of a moray.

Earth stills below me
ten percent snow
thirty percent mud
fifty nine dirt
and one percent soles.
I carry a stick
I drag through earth
like a rudder through waves
and a clearing I swear
looks like it once
housed a UFO.

Remember the summer
in a three foot grass field
we used plywood and a rope
to make crop circles
that nobody would ever see
and had a fire
next to a creek and listened to water
scratch and sniff the shale.

Sometimes I wonder why
I write and what the reason is
for breaks and lapses in words
and writing and why I would write
about an Elvis pumping his neon
with unleaded and myself
at the pump across the way
with my eyes fixed on this Elvis
a forty something burnout
with too many relapses
who returns my stare and says
in the most average Elvis voice
"How ya doin"

How am I doin
I think to myself
okay and think about why I write
and why I would impersonate
an impersonator in words
for my own consumption
or for the one person I will have
read this or entertainment
or just a way to get from eleven
to midnight to one in the morning

it seems my dreams
have taken over
my life
I sleep like a dolphin
with one eye open

it rained yesterday
and i spent
three hundred dollars
on a ******* juicer.
because i think
like a goldfish
that forgets
every five seconds.  or is
that *******?
is it every three seconds?
but regardless
i know i can juice orange
and celery and apple
and a nice spice
like cinnamon
or ginger
to make the perfect drink.
**** it.
ill save three hundred
and by the perfect drink
every night
for two dollars
and fifty cents.
a *** and pineapple
or ***** tea
or sanity
and lime.
and talk to someone.
anyone i wish
about ****
and ****.
and ****.
****.

The most ****** colors
exist in flowers.
In orange lily
and white crocus petals,
colors that arouse insects
into an ecstasy of pollination.

Have you ever seen a bee
make love to the pistil
and stamen,
or see a bee dance on anthers
as light as it's buzz?

I once saw a field of sun flowers
never take their eyes off the sun
while a weightless hummingbird
kissed each one on the stigma
with eyes fixed on the yellow
of the flower it loved
for just a moment.