I only knew him by the sounds of scraping slippers on trash days, early to to the curb, always before mine; first at everything.

In late afternoons, when my head hurt from the relentless "boing" of my phone, reminding me of another email I will hate myself for opening at 3:00 am, he would be sweeping his driveway. This old broom, worn down to the stitching, mused by his slippers, synced itself to me. A concert in minutiae before I went inside.


Yesterday his door was open for hours. I only pretended to knock on it. The smell of wet wood and ***** did not sound like anything. It was more of a silent purple or blue faced hanging in a kitchen. I sat in one of his hand made chairs that I felt comfortable in, becoming furious. I stole his slippers and his broom before I called the police. It was trash day tomorrow.

How useful could they be really
extremities that just hang from us

They run into things
They trip over things
They get us into trouble

Some grab things
Some drop things
Some run, toward the wrong things

They put things into other things
and make people say I love you

All of them flesh, soft, rubbery
All of them easily broken, hurt

I was thrown once, at high speed, like a top, into the wind

They pulled away from me as far as they could
like they were trying to save themselves

They covered my eyes
before you asked me to look at you
before you asked me to leave

They held my head
They packed my bags
They walked me out

They would not bring me food
They would not get me out of bed
They would not reach for help

Somehow, they got me up
Somehow, they got me home
Somehow, they led me back to you

They move the hair from your face again
They wrap themselves around you again
They hold yours when we walk again

Today they knelt and clasped themselves together

I make circles with my fingers over your face
and exhale

Round and round
until you find my mouth

I quickly press you forward
thrusting your broken parts like porcelain
through my clenching teeth

Cold visceral parts
cobble their way down
my throat

until you release me

These dingy sheets
discolored at their ends

Press them out, to the brown

Slowly down

Move creamy beige wrinkles
out from the middle

pull the quilt, tuck it tight
flower print, deep purple
radiantly bring the room

back together again

It meanders
in us

like a melody
of wishes,

suspended softly
between our desire -

pulsing  
beneath the skin,

wishing
it was ours to have

like gifts
in someone elses past,

for hope
we never had,

dreams
we never held,

seeming
to believe in love.

It's selfish to taste your morning all at once
knowing you had passed
but that was yesterday when you touched all those babies
when they breathed deep and smelled San Diego

I stared too long at you, into your echoes

...your ******* old age into oxygen bottles
stroking out to door handles you twisted to leave here

When you cinder
I will give you back to Mexico
with all my pulverized bone wrapped in plastic
sealed tight enough for you to gnash your teeth on

It isn't that you come here
moaning and flailing about my room
in a desperate apparitional brilliance

or that you move between my walls
omnipotent, chain rattling

but so much more

You make noise of fears
poets do not care of

of dying
of living
of beseech
of neglect
of need

but in a wailing assertion

If you want dominion here
break something

his future
his past
his heart -
    
           his thoughts

If not

he will most likely
cast you out to dolts
tucked tight in beds
in other cul-de-sacs

You need to understand
this home owns a sedentary poet
seduced by despondence

as aloof as anyone
you have ever strived to poltergeist

he will not know of you
lacking gifted conversation
and a planchette