I like accelerating
As fast as it can get there
(Because even if it is a Saab,
It's still a sports car)

I like accelerating in the fog
Pressing forward into the unknown darkness
Past the hanging anglerfish lure
On every street lamp

I like to think Keats would like it
(Driving fast in the dark where you know
There's no speed traps)

And I like the word "like" in poetry
Because love on the page means something so
Different from what I mean
(It's a word that
I don't want you associating with me)

Unless you're here to cast me as your Last
Duchess because I love you as much as
I love driving in the dark as much as
I love this song as much as
I love your shoes and I love your eyes

(but I really do love your eyes)

So I don't like the word "love" because it
Implies some kind of favoritism that I'm not
Willing to give you if it means
I only like this song
Means using that word all wrong
Because you're not better than my Saab-
(you just have nicer eyes)

You don't know
As much as you think you know.
Life isn't an episode of FRIENDS.
Six people can't be happy like that
For ten years.
And a small coffee shop
In New York
Can't stay open that long
Anyway.

Les Mis wasn't based
On a Shakespeare play
And you sound like an idiot.

You can't rhyme.

Dr. Seuss is not your favorite poet,
And you're allergic to artificial sweeteners.

And, I kid you not,
You're going to turn 17
To find that your favorite TV show
Is an MTV adaption of "Teen Wolf"
And you won't even be sorry.

You're going to tell your name
To strangers on the internet
And they'll give you a new one.

(And it will be
The best decision of your life)

You never get over Paris.
Or road trips.
Or libraries.
Or oreos.

And on
January 9
Next year

The sun licks a warm honey strike
Up the back of my head, heats the
Hair there like a hot coke you
Left in a closed car on a beach day;
Catches on my fingers, too
Curled fingers cushioning my skull away from
A plastic pressurized wall.

And it's peaceful, and misleading:
I could drowse believing my body
To be sleeping against the slattered
Windows of a San Francisco street-car

Until all at once the engines scream excitedly
And throw our little toothpaste-tube
Forward and, improbably, up

And that shadow on the
Water could be a toy plane
Surely we're bigger than that:
This close to the sun, we ought to
Shadow a city block

But above the cloud layer, we are
Nothing. The sun here burns so
Brightly it bakes the very sky
A hard, kiln blue, and I know now
Than man was made for the sky:

Clouds sitting like icebergs in this,
Apollo's lake, a more than adequate
Consolation prize, given the circumstances
That we will never have Antarctica

Down in the snow you won't find
Thin patches and thunderheads, anyway,
Drawing dragons and tracing cherubs
In the overdone meringue

But the ice flows pull together
And I lose all sense of scale
When I look away at the call of
"Peanuts, pretzels, M&M;'s,
Please keep your seatbelts on"

And for all the marvel outside,
I'm struck by this: how steady a desk
A seat-back tray makes.
And I put my notebook down for the
First time next to a
Remarkably unspilling coke
And I think, yes,
Man was made for the sky.

The flight attendant touches my hat,
Smiles with gums.
A blond boy is lanky in a Red Bull
Jersey; no skin shows.
A little girl asks something
Only a child would know.
Hollywood's double,
A model in green.
Two teenagers watch a woman stow
Her luggage overhead;
I'm grateful for the empty aisle between us.
The engines vibrate up the back of my seat
I dream of Missouri boys
Who say "Yes, ma'am."
When you push them to their knees.

the boy
two seats over
is terrified of flying

holds hands
with his friends
neither say "no ****"

in hindsight,
makes sense-
they squeeze into the bathroom

There's nothing to be said about flowers
That hasn't already been said
Pretty little pastel pallets
For landscapes and scarves
Eight dollars for a real rose
That turns to dust at the
Midnight strike of its bloom
Eight cloth daisies for a dollar
Tucked behind ears and into boots
Until the plastic breaks down and then
You buy a dozen more
Eight cloth daisies for a dollar
But I've never learned anything about life
From something that wasn't impermanent.

the whole scene
they said
stank of gasoline
charred cars
and death
and impassive I
thought then
seeing pictures
like concept art
from ‘the running man’:
for someone who
makes a living
sensationalizing
how other people
make death
you aren’t
very good
at grasping
the poetry
of the thing
you can’t say
gasoline charred
cars and death
like people
will know
just what
death is,
smells like
(gasoline and
charred cars
feels like
(baked stone
streets dust of
city buses
wind of souls