I want to know if a venti
Will hold a tall can for my jog home

As I type the word “how” into my phone
Recent searches pop up
Only one starting with the word how

“How do I know if I am having a heart attack”

I skip the beer and run
Until my heart beats so much warm blood into my face
I feel the pump in my lips

If only someone had kissed me just then

It feels like the right kind of leaving
Like the end of a movie
Late at night
And secretly
I wish we didn’t have a destination

With her in the front seat
Him and his boyfriend in the back
They sleep
To the elevator music of my generation

White noise wind
Adds static
Like cards in the spokes of a bike
All spades and hearts
In the blur they dig sometimes

How this feels right now
Is like riding a bicycle
And a man in a car slaps your ***
As the car drives by

It is how life pats you one the back
Good job
But keep going
This **** hurts sometimes

It is a 25 mile an hour slap to the ***

After everything
And all the places I could be right now

It is why I got us lost I think
In the need for no destination

But right here

Part 1
"How about some long beautiful hair" the Santa says
The little girl rubs her head bald and veiny
She looks like a baseball

"No. It doesn't get in my eyes anymore when I play basketball" she says

The bunch of us
Sunken eyed and balding
In wheelchairs and on crutches
Some of us holding our I.V. stands for support

I can only imagine how the Santa feels
The tiniest zombies
All waiting for a turn

Me
I have silver caps on my top front teeth
And dentures
Look like an old Cadillac
Insides all rust and rumble

We all want to know if we were good this year

Part 2
Cut to the bunch of us
Watching the Blue Angels air show

All getting pictures with a man dressed as Shamu
He is supposed to write something on the backs of all the pictures

I try to imagine
What you could possibly write
To a group of kids that looked like us

Each photo
In shaky black ink
Because whales aren’t prehensile

He writes
I love you

Part3
When the circus came to the hospital
We all gathered on a balcony
The news was there

Clowns painted our faces

I asked if they had room for me
Told them I could be like that guy
From the 007 movies
With the silver teeth that could bite really big stuff

They said I might miss my folks
I told them I wouldn’t
Then took off my gown
To show them my scars

They weren’t impressed

Ever since I’ve wanted to join the circus

Part 4
Despite our qualifications
We could not join the circus

But that is okay
All we wanted really
Was to know if we were good
And that somebody loved us

We were
And somebody did

But darling,
                    There's no need for such mutilation;
                a heart is lovely but one cannot love
             just a small piece of rythmic flesh
          torn from a person.
       The whole being
    must be loved.

There is no blood to be spilt,
only blood to water roses.

A young man sits in a room too small,
Wearing shirts too tight and writing poems too weak,
The passage of time marked by the arrival of fire to yellow filters,
He writes because he believes in the vision of poets,
Those burning angels with arms outstretched,
And a young girl stooped at the knees,
Giving praise and *******
So she can pass
He looks out the window and recognizes
Indentured servants waiting to sail to the new world
Like him
He thinks about freedom and writes
And remembers that all the old ones
The ones who are free
Are dead
Graves marked with empty glass bottles
And he remembers the alchemy of words
That he knows is already wasted
Stillborn poetry
That he’ll pour on critics and admirers alike
Who will stand like gospel singers
Waiting to be washed under that waterfall
Of stagnant recycled waste
They pour on children and their parents from buckets
At theme parks
Already he mourns being talentless
Not being in a madhouse
In line for his lobotomy
Instead rocking with straight jacket arms
Through gauntlets of debt
Contemplating mazes
When he finally goes home he greets family
With empty pockets
But they praise him anyway
And he makes himself a madhouse
Which the gift of poetry itself
Visits on the weekends
Token gestures of acquaintance from long ago
And the young man spends his evenings
Watching distant lights
Blink on and off.

I wish I could unfold my brain like a map
Pluck out memories, savor them like candy,
pinch off fears and regrets, crush them
like blackened, cancerous leaves—
gone
Pick them out; you can have them.

(No no no, I need those
They make me who I am—
who I are — too)

I come in many versions of the truth,
all of them lies.
Which one is your favorite?
Pick it out; you can have it.

(I must have done something wrong in a past life)

I forgot what else I was going to say,
which is why
I wish I could unfold my brain like a map;
Find the monster, expose
him— or is it
her? Would my own kind
betray me? (Yes)

– and squash it like a spider.
That’s what I do. I have a shoe
that I grab, and
before I can think,
before it can blink:
whack,
With a silent little prayer—
(for all I know, the poor thing was innocent)
and send him (her)
on her (his)
way.

A
city
can’t
prosper
while
fighting
off
the
devil
(hi­m)
(her)
(it)
self.

My brain is not the blooming, bustling metropolis it once was.
(I’m not sure where to put this line.
Why don’t you decide? This is, after all, your poem now.
You picked it out; you can have it.)

Supersonic Skydive
Tell me, what's your helmet like?
Can you hear the roar of breaking
barriers of sound?
Or is it silent in your dome
Have they built you like a home
A cradle for the jumping few
Who chose to do as daring do?
Supersonic Skydive,
Tell me, what's the view there like?
Can you see the rounding planet
Arching back in every stretch?
And do the stars look different here
Beyond the blinking atmosphere,
And when you rushing, sink away,
When do you find the blue of day?
Supersonic Skydive
So lucky to be so alive
And as you plummet to the ground,
Tell me, do you look up, or down?