The city reeks of decay.
Buildings crumble like
so much daily bread.
My heart swims through
the murky depths.
Glub, glub.
Struggling towards a
source of light.
Yet walking down
steamy streets I stop.
A gentle fragrance like
morning sunlight
hits, hits, hits.
Eyes flash and find…
a window box garden.
Gardenias of spring
blessing the day with
small blossoms of radiance.

The ***** of yesterday's
plans fell out, rolled down
several diamond-laced gutters.
You laughed, smiled,
said it was my fault.
Rosemary breath and
tinted windows kept
us from seeing the truth.

The truth was stolen
by a few members of
a dawn-worshiping cult,
an organization based
around shafts of light.
Unfriendly to insomniacs,
they constantly carry
alarms clocks tucked
within their pockets.

Pockets within the
hot-breathed earth
hold liquid sanity and
solidified fear.
Blind, ****-eating
worms guard these treasures
with myriad enchantments.
Unfortunately, modern science
has not allowed us
to discover these things.

Snap, crackle, pop go my synapses in
the morning light.  Or maybe that is
just my cereal.

I can’t tell in this fuckstorm of a hangover.

My eyes burn black and
the airy space behind my forehead
radiates. Twisting, melancholy.
Pulsing knives, throbbing toaster coils,
wrap me in soft, dark wool and
toss me overboard.

I will float.

This aching in my fingertips does
not translate well. When I
read the morning paper, I pray the
ink will bleed knowledge through
skin to inner vessels. Soak.

I might remember everything.

There is a boy who walks down the street,
9th street to be exact, my street to be exact.

He pushes a stack of buckets
on a little red wagon.
There is a bell that rings,
sounds like a cat collar,
jingling along.

I pass him by as I walk down this street.
I glance quick, sharp,
eyes flashing like a bird's eyes,
gleaming and metallic.
I try to find the source of
that jingling, tingling, ringling sound.

But I cannot find it.
It eludes me, it escapes me.
I look into his face, look into his eyes,
even quicker than before,
but nothing is revealed.

So instead I imagine a bundle of cats
inside this stack of buckets,
all clawing, purring, mating, scratching,
fighting their way out.
All madness, and sadness, and a little bit of badness,
but good enough to want freedom.
To want out of the bucket and
into the world.

I imagine myself walking past this boy,
knocking over the buckets,
freeing those purring, mad
cats, and laughing as they
scamper away, damp and dismayed,
but finally, finally free.

I want to say this poem with –
dripping harmonicas
and dying birds.
Please. Don’t think me rude.
I’m just the girl
who never felt friction
until your sweaty hand
touched my blue jay skin.

Most marvelous piece of luck,
I died.
We ran through fields of mirrors.
Reflecting
Reflecting.
My feathers burst into flame
and I bloomed.
Beads of light,
fractured dew.
I learned the secret feeling of music
inside your teeth bones:
just bite down.
You said.

All the knobs of
your warbling voice
sparkle and echo,
endlessly.

the sky looked like
a fish bowl
this morning

when

you told me
you were
leaving

I tried to mind,
really—
I did

but that sky.
you could swim
in it.

You told me that you were too wide-eyed for flirting at parties. I agreed. Thought of your eyes. How they reflect starlight. Depths so unfathomable that nothing shallow can survive. You breathe truth but trust nothing. I don’t understand how the two coexist.

The boy down the street celebrates “Darwin Day.” Calls himself a humanist. Proud-wearing his secularism. On his sleeve. I laugh at him. Don’t answer his knocking. Philosophy taken too far is no better than religion.

A woman buys apples and four rolls of toilet paper. Tells me: the only difference between a poet and the rest of the world is, poets tell jokes and leave out the punch line.

You take an astronomy class. Start sleeping under the stars. We sit on the balcony.  You smoke Kamel Reds from Russia. Imported. Talking of matter and halogen. You claim the moon to be a mirror. You can tell how the sun shines if you look at the moon reflecting its light.