Return trip from the borderlands
and Maria, she's driving though
she's had a little too much based
on the tremors and the listless
drift of the party bus from left lane
to right.
I'm in my Chuck Taylor's,
the Warhols, the $795 collector's,
thumbing through my girlfriend's
Facebook timeline. She just bought
a Picasso, a self-portrait. I want
to stab her with the long end
of my ****-me shoes. They're
on the carpeted floor. Jenny's
on the carpeted floor too. I roll
her on her side so she doesn't
choke on her own *****. Hero.
The path lights overhead start
blinking and somebody, Kate
or Kristen, I get them mixed up,
starts screaming, "Strobe." We're
in the left lane going ninety, ninety-five.
The right lane looks weak.
Jenny mumbles something as I step over her.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Read the quiet book. Love the quiet book.
the whole human experience captured
in twenty-six scattered symbols."
Someone's in the ****** laughing.
We go into a tunnel and everything
goes quiet and thoughtful and black.
Breathe in through the nose and out
the same way. Click the heels together
and wait.

She ***** on a milkshake through a metal straw. Strawberry.
The place, Tom's on Western, is bare. Ash falls outside. It's
sticking to the glass windows. Glass and steel frames
and white paint and white chairs and ash outside.
A taxi cab goes up over the curb. A black woman in a headdress
gets out and tosses money, red money, blood money.
I'm here too sitting by the bathroom, noting the length
of Strawberry Milkshake's boy shorts. Is this objectification
or object reduction or reverse personification?
The siren in the distance winds down, sounds like it's melting.
Do sounds melt? She, Strawberry Milkshake, doesn't
seem bothered by what's going on outside. I want to sink
my teeth into her shoulder. Ash sticks to the glass, and a
kid, eight or nine, runs by, newspaper up over his head.
He's crying. I can see this, but I don't hear this. Water
starts leaking then pouring then falling in sheets. Ceiling
tile and insulation float at my feet. Strawberry Milkshake
pulls her wet hair back into a ponytail. I clear my throat.
She raises her *******. I walk over and tell her
there's this song she reminds me of. And a bomb hits just
down the street. There goes the glass, crashing all around
us, slicing past forearms and skipping through empty space.
The steel frames bend. She puts her hand to my face. My
face becomes her face, her hand my hand. She and I half-hum, half-sing
"Oh Destructo, you're so destructive. You're so destructive to me."

The conspiracy's got holes, water coming in, and
everything you say on the burner, they're going
to use against you in a court of law or as
a bargaining chip to go a level or two up,
but if you get caught, who can you give up?
Whose real name do you know? You feel
it all closing in. The black sedan whose
make and model you can never peg
is always parked off to the side.
Some days it rains, and you
try to remind yourself
to cherish this. You've
killed one man, been
asked to **** two more.
The sun sets uptown and
the jewelry stores close
and the bars open,
the ones with oak tables
and longbeards serving drinks,
the ones where they look at
you funny when you pay
in cash, the ones where
the women talk loudly
about their shapes
being real, about beauty
and food and thigh gaps,
their world entire.
What a funny set of problems,
you think to yourself as
the third beer hits your head
just right and headlights
come in through the window.
You walk out the back through the kitchen
into the neighborhood with
bikes left in the street. Two, three porch lights
on. Watchers east. Watchers west.
You break your phone on the hood of a stranger's car.
You run for the first time in months.
You run past the coffee shop and the frozen yogurt shop
and the artisan haircut shop and the tattoo shop with fair trade
ink. You find yourself at your sister's on 23rd. You tie off
in the living room while your nephew yells at the
Xbox and the LCD. It's curtains. Uneven.
The warmth and softness of synthetic women swirl around
you. There's a word for this. Maybe two. You swear when
you wake you will be hunter. No more defender. No more
user. Hunter King. Dark Secret on the Wind.

Billowed and pasted, rollicked and wasted,
the night takes hold and Samantha, you remember her,
she's smoking again. This is her last pack though.
Drinks poured. Drinks spilled. Kate and I are talking
like people with scheduled late afternoon love affairs. There's
a car alarm going off in the distance. I love this blouse. Is it new?
No. It looks new. I love your perfume. You aren't wearing any?
Must be a natural—and the first to arrive at the party, Chris and
Evan, they're the first to leave, and we listen intently as one, or maybe both, tumble down the stairs. There should be waivers for second floor
apartment parties. Kate, you deserve so—I know. I know. You've got this light. Jesus. I'm just saying. Is it radiant? Yes, it's radiant. And they're lighting their drinks on fire now in the kitchen, some concoction of amaretto and 151 and a kickback of Coors. The flames reflect in their eyes, their cheeks a soft amber, and most of them are smiling, not sincerely, but when was the last time you could give yourself over completely to joy? There's a siren in the distance. Someone says they're coming for us. I'm going to the bathroom. Do you need help? And there's this ceiling fan with LCD Christmas bulbs strung around the blades. A myriad of claustrophobic yellows and whites and blues. Have you seen that video of the ****** having a baby? And he brings it up on his phone. Someone says, Oh my god I love this song from the bathroom. I hadn't noticed the music before now. Drink this. What is it? You'll see. And Samantha she says she's got to step outside for a second. And someone drops a hookah coal on the beige carpet. There goes the deposit. There's incense. There's a Scentsy. There's Febreeze being sprayed liberally. Can you drive? Can you? Do you want to? You know? I've ate a lot today. The songs keep getting skipped. Parquet Courts, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Chvrches, Miley Cyrus—wait, wait put on some SWIFTY. We're going to fire up in my closet if you want to join. It's a walk-in. Evan's back now. He kicks a mirrorball across the kitchen tile with Chris, who's also back now. Where's Samantha? She's smoking. She shouldn't be alone. You remember last—That won't happen again. I'm just saying. Well, you can stop saying. Sirens again. Closer. We're in the walk-in. Kate tugs on my sleeve. I take a pull off the bronze pinch hitter. Do little circles with my head. ****, she says. What? It all starts fading out, the rush of dark, the rush of light. Someone says trash can. Sirens. I'm just trying to—Shut up. I'm just trying to—Shut up.

An overall’d uncle stabbed over homemade champagne drifts around the bend.
A commemoration quilt and the Adamsville population shifts around the bend.

There’s an old hymn torn out of Martha’s hymnal, an elegy, a black dress.
“These details seem important,” Preacher says in European swifts around the bend.

The rains come and wash away the things we bury, bodies and toy cars.
Lowlands become lakes and a lone, malaise blackbird lifts around the bend.

A boy, all elbows and knees, in corduroy everything, in the thick of it,
drives a truck with no wipers, no license, the stick shifts around the bend.

The homes with electric lose electric, and the newspaper floats off porch.
No news today, nor tomorrow these are philanthropic gifts around the bend.

The shirtless poet,
he writes on the fourth floor.
Corner of Bedlam and Squalor.
He’s running two experiments:
Ingesting only whiskey and
texting only ex-girlfriends.
He keeps a journal.
The title is
The Dishonest and the Deceased.
He’s seven days and forty-one pages in.
He’s sent 63 images of both himself and
empty bottles.
Three different women have shared his bed,
and each subsequent morning departed
with a similar sentiment: this never happened.
He’s drank ten liters, placed the empty bottles
on top of the cabinets. Proof. Yeah, I’ve been drinking.
I guess you can tell, he said. I’ve got friends.
Just haven’t seen them in a while.
He said he’s getting closer to the center.
Of what? Woman No. 2 asked.
Of myself.
I wouldn’t do that. Whatever you do.
It’ll help my.
Don’t do that.
My art.
This isn’t art.
I am art.
You’re drunk.
I can remember the first time.
I’m starting to.
What does.
Nothing.
You’re leaving.
No. Well.
The first time. Your grandma’s shed. 2007, 2008.
I’ve got work in.
I remember the smells.
The morning, she said.
The dew, the grass, the sweet wind.
Please.
Your husband’s no ******* poet.
I.
Let me remind you how poets love.

The air conditioner hiccuped.
A taxi door slammed outside.
A helicopter dipped past Squalor.
Through the window a beam of light.

But this never happened.
This never happened, he said.

I read a story the other day.
I read the headline.
It said: There is no god and we are his prophets.
We drive slowly on Saturdays.
At night in our home there are noises,
the dull thumps of ghosts.
We used to comment. Now we rollover.
I wake and return the blankets I’ve stolen.

In the mornings there is music.
A kitchen dance of tip-toes and arms at war with air.
The new car with its heated seats.
There’s a pace I like.
It’s microwaved tea;
it’s 11:30 a.m.;
it’s one more chapter before.

I listen to you get ready,
a chorus of tubes uncapped
and capped, of hairdryers
plugged and unplugged.
You sing softly.
I hear this, too.

Beyond this house,
a brook, a mountain, a trout.
Distances mapped.
Plans drawn with
parallel lines, listless and drifting.
Within,
there is no god, and he is love,
and we are his prophets.
You are my practitioner.
And I, yours.