I know I’ve always said
I’d make a better puppy than a man

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

I always walk away like the ending of a bad movie
With a dusty roaded hitchhike thumb

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

Let me sing your song of profanity
Like a compulsive howl at the moon

I mean,
This poetry is so much sound

That I might make a better wind instrument
Than a man

My lungs feel like a one way accordion
When you smile because of me

You perfect pedestrian
Dressed in slow moving smoke signals

Push all my buttons again

It won’t matter what keys you press
I am always loud, obnoxious, bitter music

Off key like the ***** twang
Of my harmonica exhale

Nothing pretty comes from this

Even the music

I’ve read between these lines
Enough to rewrite paragraphs and pages

Each version
There’s still you in the middle

Still you at the end

And If I were a man

A good man

I’d pick up the confetti
That falls

All inked up bits of paper
From words I chewed and choked on

Trying to tell you

If I were a man

I’d love you like one

I know I’ve always said
I’d make a better puppy than a man

Run your fingers through my face fur again
You sweet demon

Touch my face

I always walk away like the ending of a bad movie
With a dusty roaded hitchhike thumb

Only I can drive myself home

I know I am so much smiles
And bad words

I like bad words
They feel good

So much passion in them
Like a Tourette’s prayer

Let me sing your song of profanity
Like a compulsive howl at the moon

Or we could *******
Or something

I dunno

I just feel more like an animal most days
More than I ever do a man

Touch my face again
With your rough love

And then I can walk away

Robert comes in and tells me about how a bunch of his classmates killed his teacher
It was a freak accident
He says her baby died too
His eyes are deep brown wells
That drain when he is confused

I don’t understand
So I call his school

It was raining
A truck carrying steel poles for construction
Lost one on the road

At the same time that she never saw it coming
She saw it coming

I ask him why he thought that
And he tells me that he goes to the Freak School
And freaks have accidents all the time

When steel meets steel
There is always a fire
Always a spark
Always pressure
Snapping
Grinding
Melting to make harder

The process of building is violent

When he is upset he smashes things
Maybe in the same way people who want to learn
Take things apart

It is in the putting back together
The we understand what it is to be whole

He smashes his own head through a wall
So I hold him violently
His head hits mine and my nose bleeds

Every fight I have ever been in
My nose has bled

With my arms around him
I slide his boots off with my feet

His feet are large
He lumbers with them

I hold him as still
As I can

He hits his head again
Maybe so someone will
Put it back together

He says
Why is Emily so mean to me?
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers
Sisters are just supposed to love their brothers

I call him Bootsie
Tell him I love him
Though I am squeezing him so hard
He passes out

He apologizes two days later
I tell him
Brothers are always supposed to forgive their brothers

I toast to him in my head

Here’s to becoming whole

Allan keeps forgetting that his knees are sacred
There is not always solace granted from the bodies he prays to
Neck craned howls for love
Some deity’s fingers running through his hair

Allen is not good looking
And he forgets that no one ever hated a man
Who wanted good things for other people
Forgets that true beauty lies in the hands
And is seen by what they do

Your hands are beautiful
She said,

They can buy someone coffee
When it’s cold
They can make people warm

They do more than his mouth can

They speak languages
Entire languages

In the 7th grade
Christy Turtch slapped him once
For making eyes at another girl
It made his face warm with pain
His eyes wet
Allan bought her flowers
Glued googly eyes to the petals
Gave her a note
See. Only ever had eyes for you.

What Allan doesn’t know yet
Is that to get into heaven
Peter checks knees for scars
Checks hands for beauty
Checks eyes for everything else

Allan’s knees look like the moon
From the ways that he prays
Spotty gravel craters
Dimpled with the fear of
Maybe I won’t feel so lonely this time

His hands can hold someone’s head
His own head
Can make someone fall asleep with them
Can hold them so tight
It keeps them from leaving

Allan keeps forgetting

He pushes against the ground to stand
Brushes himself off
Wipes his eyes
And smiles
He forgets