Anna
hiding behind books
hiding behind look
at me, nothing,
please shelve the books
look at me, Anne
Anna – your ghost
you are the most
biggest, I see you Anna
hiding behind smoke

Kitty
mooshi
Mulan
too big for her time
too circle for her square
it away, box your books
address kitten across town
across worlds, across
windows, blackened like
soap-box, and your mother

I might be useful to you
There is a hair-tie on my right wrist
my socks are worn
Sometimes I like to listen.
You need your
bed made
bath drawn
tea hot
feet tickled pink like a
blanket  you’re  missing
me

my legs hurt
the tops hurt,
then the bottoms
I wiggle my toes
strain my feet
I'm hungry, I
eat and fall asleep
to the screen
yes it's
bad
for my
eyes
I can't emphasize that
my legs hurt
I'm hungry and
I fall asleep

if I had back steps
I'd sit on them, and sit with you
if I sat on the loading dock
if I sat in the grey slush
I wouldn't sit with you
I couldn't think of you without back steps
I won't think of you in the slush

slow slow slow slow
down
you're moving too fast
every place every person every day
don't go away don't
let me stay
slow down, ground your feet
let me be the person
you meet, and
engage.

oh my
oh your
oh our inside,
all insides, of us and them
again again again
it comes out and up and out
it's not an answer
it's just everything

foreign tropes
plastic bags
paper napkins
altophone saxo tenor-horn
you make notes into words
i take your words and break them with
harsh breaths, bent knuckles
Sometimes lets press play again
lets play again, play again
eggin me on
you off into spaces with
tenor saxophones, horns
alternates and alsos
too-high-hopes

hetero aliens
is there god in asparagus
is there god in a stump
we build bridges and
world
wide webs, spider webs?
dolphins can love too.

Show me your bear legs
Your bare legs
Show me your white teeth
your yellow teeth, bear
teeth bare your
teeth bare your
bear legs your white teeth
Show them to me

She never touched hands with her groom before her wedding day
We touched fingers on our wedding day,
toes also, but please don't tell
Anyone that is everyone, and vice versa, or
you all knew the first but did you know the second
The second our toes touched
the minute their hands
and hers knew his were his
they were them,

I could tell you that I love
reading books about people
or I could tell you that I love you
and let you find that out.
That - I like movies
I like triangles, I'll tell you that
but I could should
I - I did.

strung out on meds
out of your head
space – face – the smallest
bigger than one page into two
linoleum tiles, purple
greener than the body of
your executed brother,
how I met your
face, in a space – this

Just because she's all sentences and you're all dots
doesn't mean you're not both
or you're not both
If she is talking to herself
and you are talking to everyone
while she is talking to less than that many
it can still be one thing
it can be even less, or another, or another, too
Her foot tingles your foot stomps and stomps,
throbs, or whines
live not without warning
but never with in

I never got a body
just legs
I got a ****,
two feet
two eyes – everything
but a body all the
parts, one heart

my father loves coleslaw
slaw saw
slop
slipping
and he bought a new car.
and he loves to wear orange.
I want to buy him
orange cars
orange trees for cabbages
growing onions
mayonnaise, my father is
a mayonnaise addict
amazing at it,
we eat artichokes
I hope you choke
my father never would

I hate that there’s hair on my floor
I hate that you didn’t put it there
but you know what it is – I know that it is
brown and yellow, find another, eat a breath mint
where’s my mother?
yes – oh, tell me where she is – can I call
her, has no cell phone
pick up on it
miss my father.

you’re one thing on the job
I’m one thing on the you
but there’s no-one
thing, we’re all things
brains firing without the permission of
the NRA, fluoxetine, the American MA doc
talk, talk, talk to me
tell me your game
plan, without the permission, your boss
on the job, another thing – a second

i want to give everything
to a utopian ideal
to coffee and cigarettes
clean white sheets
six pillows, a window, you
Vintage bibliophile
filial commitment
contentment come on
home

Did you have to read it in secondary school?
Did you read it in eighth grade,
before the class, skipped the middle
The part he asks you to recall
Read it again
Read the middle, skip the end
end towards a mean to
the end.

Carry on my wayward son
I’ll be gone and you’ll be done
I don’t want you to
do what I tell you to but
do what I want you to
do it and dye your hair blue
your nails black and
blue like your eyes when you came from your mother
Do you need another, she
mother with eyes