GUN I can’t decide: the temple or the mouth. In my mouth it reminds me of holding a spoon on my tongue, or when I leaned pennies against my gums. It is like licking the key to the shed, 1999. The temple reminds me of my mother’s thumb Pressing against circularly, circularly. I shoot. I wake up in front of a computer screen. The air crashes together rippling like a snake digests small rodents. I wake up next to a beautiful woman. The explosion comes in layers of jagged red and parallel yellow, like a cartoon.
TRAIN Don’t notice the figure lowering himself onto the tracks, pausing to consider lying down then the light comes, and I turn toward it letting my bag slide from me. My jackets molt. The only sound is the plank rattles of feet running south. The only feeling is the space between a cloud and the crack of lightning. The birth. Light envelopes the figure.
JUMPING I leap far because (Bernoulli’s Principle) not wanting to be ****** back against the side of the build ing, like examples: window-blinds shower curtains. I realize every time I argued(lied) airplanes were safe. This is when (building) I hit.
CAR I am with you, Jenny. I couldn’t do this without you. I hold your hand and realize I have never touched your skin until this moment. Neither of our hands are cold. The fumes coming from the siphon hose are warm. I smell the dirtbike from the time, 9 years old, I topped the hill. Beyond, are wildflowers. I cannot remember if this is a dream. Waking up, Jenny, our hands are falling apart. Jenny, your hand has not gone limp, but it has lifted like a jellyfish.
Written 2010 during the MFA program at Columbia College Chicago