our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed

that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy

sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger

She sat outside the barber shop
In a silent plea
A statue blowing 2nd hand smoke
Into the faces that be
Almost threatening the men
To cut their white hares
The powerlines hissing as she glared

like the cool summer wind you came as the sun fell beneath the horizon
and the moon poked its shiny bald head out, in a vague attempt
to make everything  right you held my hand from dusk until dawn
we named constellations and spoke of imaginary lives
that you promised would come true should i have the patience to wait

but as the sun began to rise, you packed my bags,
you rushed me to the station,
you bought my train ticket
with the words good riddance
underneath your breath
like a smack in the face
with desperation
i begged
you
to let me stay

you left before the train did and as it pulled out of its tracks
with the sound of speed, the sight of powerlines and blurry trees

and i am (another broken promise, another mistake,
another you, another me, another ex, another us,
another one that bit the dust) gone

even teddy said i got the sickest tricks brah.
like my abilities source from some kinda legendary liquid
                                                                ­                      / praise the lord /
monster energy should sponsor me.
a kickflip over the king’s *** hole
& a halfcab for the looky-loos.
i feel so tall when i climb that heap of asphalt trimmings
& see clear from the water tower to the bluffs.
gimme a good day, any day at the bluffs,
bottlerockets & girly birds.

her body brings a swarm of worms.
decomp,
said the f.b.i. men one by one with tweezers.
not quite the homecoming queen, still
wrapped in plastic.

look up.
see that great mess of wires, nest of powerlines and owl bones?
it crackles and croons its electro-spectral purr
all night and day.

new neck tat &
cody spends his paycheck on a crossbow.
we target practice on a bull skull.
wet cigarettes and turpentine-soaked socks for a good huff
in the dry of the roofline as it dumps.

there’s that little boy in a ghost mask again, tap-dancing
in puddles below the streetlamp,
& oversized shoes.
his grandmoms always be watchin’ from the window.
[whispers] she’s teaching him magic.

lucky unit 19: where our young dead damsel once dolled
herself up, you see
men and headlights would roll thru thrice nightly,
maybe more.
& i remember her punch red lips &
big whicker hat; while she weeded and watered her garden of begonias.

the sheriff’s deputy, hart? hicks? hogan? well he loved her a bunch.
stole her clothes in the middle of the night,
& sat beside the river sobbing into clumped fists
of bra and blouse.
i bought ******* from that guy once or twice.
harold? howard?

guess who showed his face today?
josiah, from unit 08.
since the incident with molly’s beagle, he’s been rarely seen.
took a bee line straight for the mailbox.
a package. a prize. a decoder ring/secret map sweepstakes
to be seen and deciphered.

There are too many people here.
Streets are crowded with vendors
and an indelible smell thickens.
Buildings are painted a faint blue, or pink;
they rise upwards, lofty and erratic.
On the balcony of my hotel their roofs are speckled;
one of every color.

Outlandish art fills sun-glazed shops.
Some are only twenty feet wide. Motorbikes
wiz down the cracked roads with intimidating speed.
I look up to the knotted powerlines strung above
cluttering the backdrop of twine green trees.

In the humidity, there is no fresh air.
I can scarcely breathe. Here is a city
impractically shaped, a different world,
but the tender is coming as I descend further.

In the interior is Birla Orphanage
where laughter spreads.
The children wade gigantic waves
on the shore of Do Son Beach.
Mucky water sticks to the sand on our skin.

A boy, three feet tall, beautiful bright brown eyes
peers into my life. I do not know his language,
the most we can do is share gaping smiles
as this city unfolds its secrets to me.

Tonight's grey cloud hangs over the pearlescent blue and pink of today.
The gray is an avalanche
criss-crossed  
with black
powerlines
that spread like cracks in a mirror.

The rain starts to fall.

To my right is a young blonde
age (17?) unknown.
        Her bag and telephone
would
match
        but for a shade.

The rain starts to fall.

Young lovers kiss in the calm embrace of one another
beneath an awning the colour of
old ladies - no
boredom - no
subjugation -no.
        the under side of an old mattress.

The rain starts to fall.

Across the gap stands an Asian man with the complete accoutrements of a golfer.
Obfuscated now by a train
with the palette of a McDonald's ad.

The rain starts to fall.

The streets are become slick
and every lamp bleeds the start
of an oil painting
with brushes made of light.

The air is cool.

There is a canal that stretches between seats, walled by rows of heads.
In the distance a little girl peaks her head up in the middle of all this,
she wears a bright pink plastic bow on her head that blinks and glows.

Traffic lights streak
green and red
over black gesso.

Cars streak
silver and blood
down black gesso.

"I simply don't need to cheapen things further"

Matching work uniforms.
Matching looks of boredom
Matching shoes and glances
Matching telephones
Matching lack of conversation
Matching hair
Matching matching carpet and drapes
Matching posture

why is everything matching?
       (they got off at the same station)

Suburban princess holds the phone like a bible.

I attempt to sketch her arm in my head....but I am too ******.

I am hungry.
The outside air is cool.

This is a carriage for the antisocial
3 rooms of solitude.
Everyone is plugged in
No-one dares to speak.

The Art of Conversation.

An old woman sits in front of me, with the face of Ray Winstone in drag.
Her hair is a dandelion
and her eyebrows are birds
painted in the distance.
Hands wrinkled and knotty
like old fruit.

Trains are predictable
the purest form of modern transport
all the little fishies
in the giant metal can
are silent to one another.

The train conductors voice is boredom.

I mistake ambient noise for music.

I. That summer the radio
Played nothing but Cat Stevens
While I hummed harmonies
In my first car
It was a wild world indeed
when kudzu overtook
The cornfields
All the ears were foreigners
The leaves basked in light
That dead-ended on route 15

II. That fall we spotted UFO's
Shining over the municipal
Park
We chased them across the
Ballfields
To the high school cross country course
A dirt track running
Through the woods
And when there was nothing
Alien lurking there
Our hopes fell
Faster than the stars

III. The following winter
Three inches of ice cut the powerlines
Impounded our school supplies
With the outtages
And the temperatures plummeting
Seventy percent of our hearts froze
All the parts that were water
Expanding our chests
Like balloons
Expanding our vision too
We thought this was the beginning
Of the end of St. Clair county
We though we'd all get out someday

IV. By spring the graveyard smelled
Like lilacs
And dead town elders
Came out to dance in the scent
We played capture the flag there
On school nights
And the cops could never catch us
Behind the headstones
Of our family plots
We wrote our own epitaphs
"I was water and I could have been
A fine wine"
*I fell asleep in sweet green clover to the sound of smalltown sirens...

the boots are *****,
from stamping the ground.

the wet sound of
rain-stricken earth.
as if we could pay strangers,
such as our therapists;

whom have their own powerlines.

Rainy summer day,
storming actually
The kind of day that made you want to crawl under the covers and forget yourself
drift off to sleep

Still
despite the navy skies
It was still summer

summer means peaches
big ones, bursting, dripping
honey nectar and sunshine

so we make a peach pie
cinammon and sugar sticking to our fingers like slow molasses
underscored by the constant drip, slip, flooding
arranging produce like composers

and we waited
we waited for the pie to bake
we waited for the crust to crisp, for the sugars to melt,
for the peaches to ripen, to brown and butter
we waited for the rain to stop
we waited for sunshine, for dry shoes, for beach days, powerlines
we waited for hours
we waited for months
we waited eighteen years
we sat, and we stood, and we waited.

We sat in front of the oven
eyes pressed against the window
we waited
watched the sugars bubble, the scented cloves
we were two years old and one hundred at the same time
we waited for the kind of lives that we saw in movies
the kinds of dreams you wanted so bad it hurt
we waited with stomachs churning
wasting our youth, one rainy afternoon at a time
waiting for life to begin

Rainy summer day,
storming actually
The kind of day that made you want to crawl under the covers and forget yourself
forget about the peaches
forget about summer, about friends,
about anyone and anything
drift off to sleep

The winds howl through the valley
galloping across the fields
gusting into town

knocking down garbage cans
rattling grain silos

shoving highway traffic
stealing people’s hats

blasting tractors
slapping around limbs and branches

knocking live powerlines to the cold winter ground

interrogating clattering palm trees
threatening creaking, aged oaks

They’re just outside the door, now
whispering, moaning, vehement,  loud.