My father lit a cigarette and smoked the room up
                  with choked circles,
                                                                    he rewrites every woman
                                               he sees,
                 metamorphosis asunder,
                                                              because nothing is on tv.

                                  My mom was hauled blindly
                                              away from love to evening's riverbed
                                                            --to **** the fear of
                                                                                        correction away.
                              Birds talk about fish
                                            that fly in airline crusades,           gobbling up wise owls.
                          Blossom talons pluck
                                                              --up their words,
                                                                         the closest a lie can come to the truth
                                                               and be set in stone  None of them
                              will be remembered
                              the way they want to. footnote retribution.

                     The wandering dead only care about
                                                         modeling on the covers
       of psychology magazines--hailing reviews that digest indulgence
                                                                         beautifully,
                                                carving chocolate waists
     down
  to starvation--we melt away to gnats
                                       in Prozac hives
                                            shingled with academic love papers
                                            & bible covers.

                Dear Alice,
                            you stole our table of tea, our shaved vigil,
                                          our western rodeo,
                                         our alcoholic omega.

                       Midnight on the dishonored battlefield
          with the scythe beneath us,
                                     we murmur love back into
                                    our sheets of high horror.

  Your meteorite adultery could not wipe
                      this hard drive clean--what we would lose...

   the things we cannot                                                   touch.
                                         Cloud 9 LSD,
                                     its warriors passing
                                  weapons down to the flock's ashes--to wives who fear

      the wrath of their husbands. Chlorine gills quit
                                          cold turkey
                            --sinks overfill under unorthodox skies--the turning of centuries
                                                                is nothing like flipping
                                                                                                      pennies
                                   into wishing wells.