decorating the tree
with
chemo fingernails(green) like
                                        fair.ies

circling around- laying[like the]
laurels on our heads. trashcan lids:
padding our ears like boxing gloves
love to tap the side of your.trialware
breathing.  my .     looks,brittle as hard
candiesshattering in our unleveled
jaw.lines hoops of you puff over myhome// chimney
tongue/ / . past unshoveled driveways
grassgrown and mowed down

months ago.

its going to be

(cleanlike lungs filling)
good as garden decorations
free as pulling quills from dogs' noses

      [untucking pictures from a shoebox in the closet when you're gone]

my legs crumple against your
belly.ending all
the hair on mine_pin each other
to the hairlessness
and dark
of
your sil t
.
as i break stoney voices against
yourlips like archival spaceshuttle  
recordings
each part _in the
answering hiss

my path,
dividing
outside your body


fingers are finding nothing left to
finger .
it's been
treason   in these years

the plexiglass is yellowing up
betraying it's artifice

the cold has left my feet alone.but
my head is layered with fossils of swimming
lessons and
purple shorts


you.glance at your scarred belly-
marring you with wisdom
.i hold my breath
you flash your ****.
we careen off of eachother's cliffs,
holding harmless in
the
moondampened.

.bare ankles whurring deep inside the forest of night. in dark vale of
cambridge apartment.the window is stuck open; the handle is torn off. they are blowing smoke outside. the floor is wet.and churning below shadowy dionysian heads. muses: finger-laden in the gloaming caverns- are dying. there is a shout. there is a stringing out of things. there is a relative stillness.
happy in the cult of youth. ankles deep in the wastey-water

if you die - gilt bronze colossus :
                chinese take-out
                  chicken fingers
                  box open
right in the middle of town.


everyone will know, what
you knew

it's the kind of self-loathing that just radiates
it's like what i imagine leaving a spoon in the microwave would be like.
it's like wearing a sweater in spring- when the day turns out a lot nicer than originally forecast
and i am just left sweating and fuzzy

"i know that smell"
he said
"those tweety-bird treats from the ice-cream truck-
with those weird gumball eyes
i haven't thought about those since my little-league days
i always ******.

i was young for my grade and very thin and gangly-
i ****** except for that one year, when everyoneelse moved on and

me and that one other kid who was also young for our grade
stayed in the league.
we killed it that year
i'm not proud. but it was our chance to shine

it's amazing how these things can come back to you."

i said yeah

a bit later on my way to the train station, there was a homeless
woman
with oxygen tubes and a wheelchair
just slumped back in that chair. supine. directly in front of the door to the stairs
eyes closed
baking in the (late day) sun

i didn't check to see if she was alive.
i though about it though

he was hit by a tour bus
dragged for a few dozen yards i think
then it rounded the corner and left
him there

thedriver didn't notice.
how could she, so high up there
hand on the PA
eyes on her passengers in the rearview :


•30 or so chinese students in some sort of program
•one fat and badly sunburnt family, the mother with a sloppy drawl
•two older russian men - beards both of them
• a reasonably well-adjusted looking couple with matching hats


meanwhile he there in the road, no longer wore a hat

the other pedestrians were not happy.
less grieved- but more just angry in that generic urban way
cursing and imagining that it could have been them
(no body uses the walk signal anymore)