He's tapping on the hardwood floor
to draw me out of the cracks, the
slender peels of sun stretched down the
hallways, arcing across the patio,
the way hard working men
rap their fingers against the walls to find
studs, stick pocket knives in the frayed wood
beneath the house--

shakes me out of the sand, viciously vibrates
me into his palms, tears me from
deep considerations
where i've already grown
where my roots have struck out
in all directions, says not in this place
not in this soil
not in this way

and I go where he pleases, kicking or
weeping, sometimes with ankles smarting,
raw from the whipping

not this place
not this soil
not this way

I'm pretty sure I die with you every night. Miserable souls always seem to last the longest in this sent from hell world. Here comes the manslaughter, the impending doom of it all, the sideways games and glances that leaves my seat wet and my neck hungry for your hands, here comes the tragedies, mistaken suicidal attemptants at kisses that stream tripping in between sets and hollow stairs painted down my hips with the fire of you. Here comes the luster that doesn't lack. I think. Today would be a good day for everyone to disappear, including me, into you but you won't incline your hips into me 'cause last night I told you I once tried to **** a real good song so that I could own it's rights and lefts while spiraling into your lungs like a jail's black tongue. Here comes the poems and cults that Shakespeare shot down my inner thighs as you tattooed my lungs with the **** of your cigarettes. Here it all comes to ridicule me deeper into the middle of this crisis, here it all comes to take a toll on the planes of my mind as I shoot up high into sage tainted milli-universes. Here comes folded dollar bills cupped and lined against the tusks of my milky breath toned to the centerfold of your abdomen, here comes the part that hurts just a little bit more each time you come around. Here comes knowing you.

yesterday a seventy year old man
named Stan slid a crumpled receipt
across the teller counter and asked
me out--and James from Faricy had
his manager give me his number
on the back of a deposit slip

and I told Ryan that I was positive
he had caught me off guard, that anything
more than friends is not doable so he
thanked me for my honesty and
stopped responding.

and a whole slew of other men,
other apologies, other dancers
and sweaty palms, all lengthy,
wordy paragraphs ending in
too quiet or christ, just take
a break but -

i am falling asleep. upright, at
the bank, to the sound of cashiers
checks sliding out of the printer
an angry little girl knocking at
my door, a child from too long
ago who's never been in love
slipping in and out of a
subdued conciousness
I give up my idea of
the perfect man,
I give it up


i give it up.

Jessica said she was jumped by two men
down by McClures, they followed her down
Main Street and caught her in the alley way
behind the apartments, grabbed a fistful of her
long brown hair and pulled her to the ground--

I said you should have called me 'cause
I am two streets down from there, two minutes
walking or 30 seconds flat if I ran, and she smiles -
says I can do laundry at her new place because they're
fixin to get her a new dryer

asks me about that kid I was seeing and I tell her
he's not a thing anymore, ain't no thing
I leave out the part where I pray for him
every time I see his name pop up -- and it
does a lot.  Prayin' don't always mean good
things happen, no one ever said it did.

And we discuss other boys in light voices
yeah, I think I hurt him. and she doesn't
deny it, just sort of nods


yeah, I think i hurt them.

i was half asleep on a kitchen counter
curled up around the steak knives and
soup ladles, threaded through thick duvets

when you came and tucked yourself into me
with your burlap jacket, but I let you under the
covers--and I distinctly remember pressing my fingers
under your shirt only to feel how deathly cold you were
as if you had just come from the outside, or had risen up
from the snow drifts, opened your ribcage and let the cold
seawater fill the cab

but you were whispering something, a secret I couldn't make out
an undiscovered motive, slight of hand, slight of breath
you were lieing and I was letting you in, letting you in
beneath the weapons, beneath my skin, into my body
and you reached in for a handful of grain but I was a
barrel of cords and twine

meshed and tamped, you found the soft damp earth where
I grow and we somehow managed to make it seem ok
make it seem ok
you're out there ok
crimped and furious
a mean cuss on your lips



touching still means too
much to        me

i had this dream that they
had thrown me into a hole,
and by a feat of bravery I
had managed to escape,
out the window and through
the azalea bushes--

but I returned with a raging
hatred, an unquenchable vengeance
that manifested in red clay that
settled over the creases in my palms
and poured south in waves shaped
like old angers and great mountains
giant bison that snorted and plowed
forth--

but I was the bison and I was the clay,
greeting visitors with crushed eggs, yolk
weeping through my knuckles, the voice
of a hundred i'm sorrys creaking through
the speakers in the living room,

and i'm wiping blood from the meat in the kitchen
on my dress with the yellow fade near the hem
telling visitors yes, come in
yes, come in
when they shouldn't
and I shouldn't

but I could shake the earth, father, I'm so angry.

I could shake the earth.