Mario hits it with the sounds
of bodies hitting plexiglass.

My horses hit it without a sound. They want to escape it.
And I am trying to drive this dune buggy
off this cliff, but the clipping is strong here.

In Pac-Man, the tunnels were circular. I don’t know
if people realized that they were trapped in a sphere.

In Asteroids when you get to the edge of the universe,
you begin again.

And that Snake. His body could stretch all over his world
looping, but he could never eat his tail.


If all your electrons were in the right place, and all the wall’s
electrons were in the right place. You could feasibly walk through
the wall.

What would you do while in the wall? Think. Fear.
The superposition could rip your body into ragdoll parts.


When I turned clipping off, I expected the freedom to walk through
the wall and suddenly the floor
fell out from under me.

Every time I respawn I feel like my inventory is heavier,
and my flamethrower burns colder.

I thought about leaving you today
while spackling a bathtub.
Melissa’s patches were smooth and shined
in the husky light of rotting bathroom windows,
mine were rough, and sagged like a skin
on face in months before death.
My favorite part of that job was cleaning up afterward,
putting everything back in its place,
sweeping up the dust and closing the door behind you.
Your favorite part was tearing down the old,
digging your chisel into the wall,
and watching the pieces rain down on the painter’s paper.
They would fall with thwacks
thwack           thwack              like rain on umbrellas
heard through a second story window.

Rather the clouds were a motorcycle,
Jesus rides up, lowers his sunglasses.
You ride off with him into the sun
not setting, but crashing violently
into the ocean. Rather, you receive

an inconspicuous e-mail, that you write
off as spam. “Save Your Soul Pls Read”
in the subject header was easy to ignore,
easy to delete. Jesus on the other end
of the illuminated screen was trying to reach
you. Even now his hand comes out of the
screen like a cartoon odor, beckoning.

Rather, you hear three thuds on your door
and Jesus bursts through, shattering
the components of your door-****. He is dressed
in fine clothing, soft, his *** looks great.
“Come on. We are getting you the **** out
of here.” He still has his sunglasses on.

Rather, a firefighter runs down the stairs, turns
the iron on, starts the dryers, and hits the circuit
breaker with his axe. You are on your belly, gripping
smoke in between knuckles, fingers. Emerging
into daylight, Jesus rides your pet Rottweiler,
like a horse, out your front door.

Rather, a 1995 Honda Civic sputters
towards you. A boy in plaid stumbles
out with a briefcase that stumbles
open. Cassette tapes stumble
out. “Would you want to go
for a ride?” There is a moment
where the road disappears over an arc.
You two are falling together.

Rather, it is  raining walls of white
foam. Jesus is in a bright yellow poncho
laughing heartily. He throws your body into salt
waves. At first, the shock of cold muted
the harpoon in your gut. Jesus is dragging you
as you spin the harpoon inside you
                                                            f­irst horizontal then vertical.

If a flower
appears
in the first act. The rule is
someone must use it
before
the whorls curtain off.

In the second act,
Lady Calyx
holds the flower
toward you
“Don’t come
any closer.”
Before looking
into the stamen,

bang.

The flower goes off.

socks, shoes, morning,
                                                “I’m sorry, we don’t believe in ghosts”
work, briefcase, pens, documents,
“I’m sorry, we don’t believe in ghosts”
bus, “I’m sorry,
driver, briefcase, we don’t believe in ghosts.”
taps, brakes, stop, “I’m
                                                stop, stop, sorry,
security guard, elevator, we don’t
floor fifteen, office, believe
briefcase, clasps, in ghosts.”
lunch, small-talk, briefcase, “I’m
                                                gun, registered, sorry, we don’t believe
fifteen floor, in ghosts.”
water-cooler, pulses, torrents, “I’m sorry,
we don’t believe in ghosts” “I’m sorry,
                                                water-cool­er, breathes, trickles, we don’t
fourteenth floor, ceiling, believe in ghosts”
“I’m sorry, we don’t

Today it was putting
the shaving cream in my left hand
that reminded me of the time
in my basement bedroom,
prompted by Mighty Ducks
or some episode of Salute Your Shorts,
we filled Eric’s hand with shaving cream
and brushed his nose with some equivalent
to a feather. There was no way he slept
through it. Rather, he played his part,
conscious
                       that this was the way he saw to fit
in. That moment, we didn’t know how shaving
cream felt on your face, or looked on a woman’s
legs in the shower. We weren’t aware yet
of the hair that would crawl out from us, the scariest
places
           armpits and ***, frightening
our sense of normal. Or your friend
telling you the embarrassment of her boyfriend’s
mother walking in on him shaving,
you didn’t know that men shaved any embarrassing place,
but she tells you right then (not knowing you loved her)
that it is better when his ****’s in her mouth.
                                                          ­      
                                                                ­        The women drag razors

over their legs every morning for a sense of clean
and then the people who dig the razors
into their arms, legs. We weren’t ready. Hearing
about the couple whose marriage counselor advised
them to have the husband shave the woman’s genitals,
her cuts, her sense of emptiness, his wild-eyes. Who do you love
now?
                                               The woman in the peace-corps with legs-
unshaven 16 months.
                                               The shaved teen naked on your computer monitor
or the woman shaving
                                               in the shower next to you, legs, then armpits
apologizing, blushing.

The world was never going to end
in fire.
It was never thought to.
Now. Thunder comes on.
The raincoat boleros around the street.
   Momentous,
One two slow slow one two. Earth splits
/  an avocado, molten core discarded.

In the southern hemisphere they are waving flags.
Complimentary colors crawl up the sky tiding in.
They are dancing.
     Ba-cha
       -ta,
Me-ren-gue.
     Their hemisphere Charybidises,
trees genuflected.

Quiet. The puddles are sleeping.

In the north. The hemisphere has run aground.
It capsizes. All the bands are going
down playing.

Rain panics off the timpani
prisming.
The brass cherubs in the clouds.
The strings red shift.

At the equator,
an umbrella floats:
1 bird inside it.

She prays in single syllables. Help.
Please.
Quack!

When the surgeon closes the blinds
When the plane shakes
When your kid is late
When another voice answers your lover’s phone
When you wake up and can’t move
When your team is losing
When you can’t reach their hand
When the baby has a fever
When the train rattles
When the doctor talks to your family
When entering a dark room
When your lover forgets
When class won’t end
When someone falls
When you can’t afford milk
When class won’t end
When the car slides
When breath slides
When                     When
             When.

Today
                                                                         at a poetry reading.
I thought of coming up behind you
                                                                         we were in your kitchen.
My hands slip up your shirt
                                                         you dropped a turquoise plate in the sink
                                                         it bounced once.
I slide my hands down
into you.
                                                         no one turned off the faucet,

~

Today
                                                         in class
                                                         my sweater ripped a string
onto my finger
                                    one ring

I slid it off and on
                                      if you had been next to me
                                      I would have asked you to marry me
suddenly afraid
of losing this fabric.

I’ve gotten better
at eating the wafer
                                       so Jesus
doesn’t get stuck in the metal.

I still haven’t bought gloves,
             though I had steel-toe boots for awhile.
Callouses are waiting for you to lay hands bare
to everything you own. You can go years without feeling
the bottom of your own table.

I moved Dad into his new house.
This brings the total to 18 moves in 10
years. Mostly in 20 hour windows.
You were around
for 7 or 8 of them

I read once that most of dust is actually stardust
from micro-meteorites. It’s not true.
It is actually dead pieces of you.
I’ve inhaled more of us than anyone.

Item highlights:

250 lb. End table with hidden safe inside
    Combination: unknown
Garbage bag with mom’s clothes
     and one Phillips-head screwdiver
Four landline phones tangled
    with their cords in a laundry hamper
Seven phonebooks in a neat cardboard box

Madalyn: Dad still has the small wooden sign you made him
                     the one that says “Dad’s Workshop” in blue glitter-paint.

Steve:        Dad has recently bought a toaster oven, and he loves it
                     as much as you love yours. He gave me the same speech
                     about the difference in the taste of hot-dogs.

You are both still in the pictures at his house. It startles
me when your faces appear on the screensaver.

was growing to the south of the town
      every spring the men would go down
marching in their robes to burn each stalk
   but the fire would enter their walk
       they rid themselves of the leaden weight
of their robes      the mens wild gait
was pagan   animalistic
their whole life had been running from this
   easy in those robes      but now   naked
they touched each others bodies      taken
with the attar of the fire      *******
in ashes      on their knees   *******
not praying   but swallowing      then the robes
   left to burn      from the ash   the field left to grow

Elegy to Val’s Husband

I knew she was not a rose
was never sharp enough, and she didn’t believe
in snapdragons. She grew tomatoes.

She said
How pretty they would be,
touching the stems
how tall,
but I don’t know if he will get to see them.

I wish she would grow morning glories
and sleep through the night.

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.

PILLS
Swallow-Puke-Swallow-Can-
not-let-mybody-winthis-­one-Ilock-
-thedoor-andleave-ano-
-te-
No-one-should-come-look
-i­ng-for-me.

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.

The thing about running into your house
after it has been on
fire is the amount of cinder and ash.
Something I didn’t know
was after the fire department puts all of the fire out,
the family goes back in.

I was afraid to go in-
-side. I thought the house
would collapse. The idea was to pick out
everything I wanted cleaned and put it on
“the pile.” Photo-albums, Baptism gowns, no-
tes from the war. All covered in ash.

I don’t remember what I picked, but I remember the ash
For some reason I open-
-ed my particle-board nightstand. No
valuables, but books, and a CD. How is
that I remember that it was a Rugrats Computer game lying on
a stack of Goosebumps books, but I can’t pick out

anything but the out-
line of an ash-
-free cd-shape on
books. In,
my whole family, how is
it that no

one else knows,
no one else figured out
that my mother got everyone out of the house
and was so desperate for cash
that she went back in
and turned the iron

on.
No-
-thing was accidental. The en-
-tirety of my childhood smoked out
by sheets of ash.
Coming out of the house

That day I learned some things: When you clean ash out and when
you leave it in, when lies go on and up and build a house of lies to live in.
when to say “I love you” and when to say, “No Mom, I don’t”

with apologies to Aaron Sorkin*

The atheist starts off with,
“this is silly.” I think I see
him sense the abrupt change
of atmosphere walking through
the threshold into a chapel like
plunging into lake water naked.
When the actress kneels, the atheist explains
how God shouldn’t be so vain, I think of
the actress and whether or not, with her real
kneeling in the fake chapel, she actually prays.
She says, “You don’t kneel for Him; you kneel for you.”
The atheist storms out saying that “This just doesn’t
feel right,” The atheist is outraged that a mother is bleeding
to death, her baby may have no father, and someone’s
little brother is being held hostage by Islamic fundamentalists.
I remember two conversations:
Courtney telling me that God wasn’t saving me
when my brake lines rusted out in the TGI Fridays
parking lot instead of on the 74 bridge.
River telling me that she feels blessed that God has watched
over all the people in her life who have attempted
suicide, because they failed. She hastily tries to add
that God was also watching over Jenny, but is too
worried that she hurt me. Right before the scene switches
The actress looks upand tells God
that the atheist “made some good points.”

Customers have torn open the Christmas
chocolates. Shoving it in mouths,
shopping bags, children’s eyes.
Quiet. We are shopping. as. a. family.
Smoke accordions out of Santa’s mailbox. The sprinkler system
hisses stale air. Custodians ride by on their metal cart laughing,
sanitation chemicals flickering out of buckets.
The 80 year-old piano player is hammering out Schoenberg.
Customers shove lamps into their shopping bags, shove children
into them.
Turn on the light Jimmy.
The ninth floor is barricaded off by old woman. They
have turned the clearance divans on their sides
and are throwing toasters. Down in the basement,
the security staff have locked themselves into 2’ by 2’
cells. Fetally-positioned, their panting echoes off stone walls. Static
sizzles on the array of sixteen camera screens. Customers
have begin to bow in the reinforced door next to the two-way mirror.
A fat man is leaning against it. He has been dead
for over an hour. Restaurant staff are tearing
down the great tree. Ornaments funnel down pop-crashing
upwards from the floor. Three pound ceramic dinnerware crashes
into the walnut bar The customers are putting mattresses in their bags,
they are putting the offices in their bags. Human resources
are backed into the employee orientation computer lab. Customers
have poured Starbucks on the circuit-breakers. The lights are dimming,
Escalators are jamming. Children scream
I want to see Santa.
Santa is dead. Employees calmly walk over  his protruding
belly. The velvet and fat feels good on tired
feet. An inhuman voice garbles
The store will be closing.
Families grab onto shelves, racks, other
families. Employees pick up the registers and slam
them on granite counters. Coins explode out like bells. The rotating
doors are not spinning. They are stuck, crunching on limbs.

~for Rachel~*

You don’t know what it means to feel my sense of absence. You don’t know what it
means to have this phantom cavity. You don’t know what it’s like to walk around with synthetic rubber pushing against where my left breast used to be.

You don’t stand in the closet looking at old bras. You don’t remember the orange one that you managed to bend the hook on. You don’t remember repairing it with a pair of needle-nose pliers while your reading glasses slipped down your face.

You never read the Hass poem, the one with the dead bees. You never guessed, but sending it to you was my way of saying goodbye, It was my way of telling you how your claws felt on my chest.

I saw the news in obituary black and
alabaster-chamber white. Women mulled about
in shining dresses, all pinwheel-galaxy black.
The men’s suits: darkness-between-
stalks-late-in-the-cornfield black

The pastor wore a Cosmopolitan’s-table-of-contents
white stock in the non-air-conditioned
church. His sermon dripped on the bereaved
like hardening wax. A portly woman wheezed
in the second row. A first-roadkill-of-summer
red paper fan swayed  idly in her left hand.

The coffin creaked, 4am-grandpa‘s-coffee brown
the procession moved outside slowly. The moment
was like when two trains  are idle and one begins
to drift forward. From inside the other,
it feels as if we are drifting backward.

Backward to days before with the namer in his study.
He has on his 1862-edition-Les-Misérables tan
blazer. His wrists crawl out the undersized sleeves.
Above his roof, the sky milks over
to 4th- grader’s-scratched-locker blue.

A wine glass full of just-waking-up-seeing-steam-
waft-from-under- the-bathroom-door white wine
rests on his particle board desk. I want a 70s B movie villain
to bust through the door yelling, "I’m not sorry" and shoot him
with a chipping-paint-bike-rack-next-to-the-library¬ grey revolver.
I want the namer to be speechless, knock over the wine glass
and die with grandma’s-new-couch red  pooling on his blazer.

The truth is my grandma’s new couch is this ugly
brown-yellow color. I don’t really know how to describe it.

I am watching our life together,
on some old movie film.
It is happening in clips.

Now that I know the ending,
the clips are different. The music
we danced to all night has changed.
Rather, I am hearing it for the first time.

The time we baked chocolate chip cookies at 1:00am
The time we played chess                                    at 1:15am
The time we touched each other until our bodies didn’t ache
                                                            ­                             at 1:45am.

The letter you wrote me. Every song you sent me.
I fold the moments –corners in– and put them in my pockets.

I want to teach you how to touch a body slowly. I want to learn how
to kiss again. This time with you. I want forget that feeling
of learning the valleys of someone’s hands, so I can fall into yours.

There are so many things I want to tell you.

                                                           ­                                  That is a lie
There is only one:
                                             I wish you were here,
                                                           ­                                   right now.

~for R~*

I’ve been trying to write this poem for years.

It needs to tell you that I love it when you sing
while we are kissing the humming becomes my lips.

It needs to tell you that if I woke to find the world caught
fire and I heard screaming to the north, the first thing
I would do  is hold your hand. The second is pray.

I need to tell you that I would leap  into the ravine with you.
We would hold each other’s body parts in wild clutches.
The wind pushing us apart. My hand your elbow Your ankle my ribs.
This is our love: falling. It needs that and something else.

A Portuguese word I cannot pronounce.
An east Asian character that I cannot write.

It means: your-face-is-a-flower-blooming. Or our-lips-are-atoms
smashing together. We are the sun.

~for R~*

At the supermarket,
I pull her coat over her face
her students can’t see us
buying chocolate chip cookies,
red bull, and *****.

When I unhook her bra
on the first try.
I am showered with praise.
She explains that
this is positive
reinforcement, that this
will make me better in bed.

Sometimes she uses the words
"my kids." Here everything hurts.
I remember how we decided
to not have kids. Though
I had picked out names like
Emma. I like that name.

In the morning,
after taking all of her
red pen suggestions,
then sleeping folded
into each other.
I find five gold stars
on my nightstand.

I
want
them
to
move
closer
together.

Some Aunt or equally over-affectionate
female hovered over the child.
She blocked out the light. Her name
was something like Gertrude or Gretchen
with that growling beginning. She
made sounds at him covering him with sheets.

When he was fully covered, little Jesus would roll
around, he lived in that mound of blanketing
he died in that shroud of turning. Jesus
would laugh when Gertrude tickled him.
It was such beautiful laughter. We laugh
because he first laughed with us.

Then from Gretchen’s make-up-caked
face came the question, “Where’s Jesus?”
She said it with such fervor, lipstick jumped
from her mouth, “Where is little JC?”
Seized with laughter, Jesus felt powder
fall from her cheeks to his skin. Soft, it smelled
like laundry fresh from the dryer. Gertrude

or Gretchen would yank the sheet away from him.
Suddenly his face would appear, red and sweaty
from laughter. A child’s sweat, without water,
without blood. She would yell with the same fervor,
“I found Jesus,” and her life was different after that.

~for R~*

I could walk out and grab the strings and pull
pull them out of her mouth
the colors would unravel
thick with saliva.

I could throw myself in
among reginae
among rejoicing
on a flying machine.
When my companions fearless

asked about the saliva,
I could say, “rain”
“Rain rain rain.”
Then pull on the thick blue ropes,
picture anew.

She begins to bite down
not wanting all her thread gone.
I pull harder and harder.
My skin burns into the slimy thread.
It smells terrible.

When she collapses.
I dance around in all the thread
like a kitten,
like such a kitten.

The little old Asian man in the hardware department
has a hook for a hand, one that blunts at the end.
It is not impressive at all.
He loves his hook and uses it to slide
merchandise forward. Always moving forward.
Then he walks, walks with a certain
patterned stagger. Sometimes he talks to himself.
Sometimes he talks to you.

The paintbrushes hang on their pegs like bats.
His hook instills fear into them. Calming them,
making them settle down. The spray-paint
is troublesome, slipping past the hook
like so many ticklish cans and colors.
Especially hunter green. He’s the worst.
And all the nails, all the screws
in his department look beautiful.

The other employees have noticed his behavior.
In jealous fits they pull pegs from the displays.
They make their own hooks. They all hobble about in grunts
pulling candy closer to them, dragging plastic worms
through the fishing aisles. They talk less, drink more gin.
The customers have yet to notice a thing.

They don’t feel it like your brother did. They don’t
burn out in streaks of brilliant fire. They don’t get to.

The magpie dies like a magpie
and writhes with magpie feelings
screams in a magpie voice
and goes to magpie heaven.

I can be whoever you want me to be.
All my life where have you been?
I am just very very lonely.

Are you from Tennessee? You’re the only Ten I see.
Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?
I can be whoever you want me to be.

If beauty were time, you'd be eternity.
Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?
I am just very very lonely.

If you’ll be my princess, I’ll show you my pea.
Want to reenact a dream you were in?
I can be whoever you want me to be.

I lost my teddy bear. Will you sleep with me?
Nice legs; What time are they open?
I am just very very lonely.

“I really like your peaches, I wanna shake your tree”
Nymph Ophelia in thy orifices be all my sins .
I can be whoever you want me to be.
I am just very very lonely.

In the mornings
when I’m alone
sometimes I pray
accidentally.

When the rain
sounds like children
folding and unfolding
paper. My whole world
is a fish that swims away.

The wrinkles are not like skin,
but I still feel like I’ve pulled
a face over my body. They
can’t have it back, because
I’ve gotten used to it.
I kind of like it.
I like the warmth, and the eyes.
I am particularly fond of the eyes.

When the car alarms were
the symphony of downfall
and the metaphor of my nightmare.
I could hoist the face
on a headboard mast.

The wind would climb through
those eyes. Those fine eyes.
I would sink into the cold of hope.

At night
I hear them groaning
from the train yards.
It reminds me of dull
fireworks soaring towards
the eyes of children.
Or is it just the train
the wheels against rail
and tilting of cars in wind
It is the train
knowing what was done.

For them it was
a wonderful promise of water
on skin. Of water
and wet lips. The soldiers
laughed and tore off
their uniforms.
In the splashing everyone
lost themselves in
forgetting. They were in the
first pew watching
a baptism. The armbands heard
laughter as they grew
heavy with water.

The candles are hard
to watch. The burning reminds
me of all the little fires,
each one was a village. Closer,
where the burning fades into
blue. It reminds me of the eyes.
I can’t even see the candle.
The man’s head is pressed against
a tree. This is where God lives,
but the man has finished knocking.
His face melts down the door.

~for V~*

She misses her childhood
she hides this missing
behind her eyes. I wish
her childhood was there.
Somewhere, too.

It was when she saw her hands
holding magic. And that world
fell into this one.

When fear entered before courage
and she had no idea that everyone
was so scared.

It was when she let
all fall. They didn’t thunder
on the ***** carpet. They
didn’t even bounce.

She stared at the creases
in her hands, terrified
of what they were.

~for V~*


The rain makes the maracuyá shine wet.
The rain makes the tamarind fur glow.
It’s easy to say that she never ate the tamarinds
but it was always more about the chinolas
and how they tasted of sunlight
in the morning before the dew woke.

When you make a mess
and both laugh.
When her hair gets caught in the dial of your watch.
When your glasses scratch her clavicle.
When hands are too cold
and goosebumps ripple up thighs.
When bodies knock
into furniture, and you have to stop.
When you spill water on the nightstand.
When you wobble the lamp
and shadows lean across the bed.
When her flesh dials a coworkers’ numbers on your cell
or the phone just rings.
When your “Harry Potter” audiobook plays on shuffle.
When church is in seven hours.
When the shower is too hot
and you jump back out onto the duck-shaped mat,
she laughs at you, calls you a wimp.
When the bath is too cold and the upper drain
gurgles like a drowning obese man,
there are never enough bubbles.
When she tastes like soap.
When you talk about your days and thoughts
wander to tangential curves and your mutual
acquaintance Steve, you forget what is happening.
When clothing gets stuck on heads, twist of feet,
elbow crooks, and in the wheels of an office chair.
When it is still on your floor, and your grandma visits
at lunch she smiles saying you found a nice girl.
When you try something new.
When you miss.
When straps and buckles never
unstrap or unbuckle.
When your fingers panic,
they are charged like blades.
When the moon.
When you’re late.
When you don’t want to put your bra back on.
When you hair is off kilter like a bonsai tree.
When it was almost like dancing.
When someone sneezes.
When you hiccup.
When she breathes.
When drool.
When scratches.
When bitten.
When church is in four hours.
When the laundry tumbled on.
When the oven started to smoke.
When you forgot.
When tickled.
When kicking.
When hurting.
When doors unlocked.
When his belt buckle shocks your navel.
When arms ache and legs cramp.
When curled the next morning in each other.
When it’s cold across the room, and
your clothes are so far.
When you miss church.
When eyelashes rub each other.
When the sun.
When you try to talk.
When moaning.
When sighing.
When screaming.
When getting back.
When breaking apart.
When getting back.
When your lips smash together like trains.
When you fold the cloths after.

And sometimes after all of it
he would curl up with him
and in tear and tears and tears
squeeze him.
He would whimper
into folds of fur
and grab them like a ship's rigging
to sail into abyss after abyss
and heave after heave
splash after splash
he felt the water upon his skin
like forgiveness. Simply,
the dog never budged.
He breathed life
up and down like
wave into wave.

59% of Africa practices Islam. Five times
throughout the day, the giraffe’s heads
point toward Mecca. The hippos have
the hardest times turning. Sometimes
they don’t make it, and that is when
the gazelles laugh in high leaps.
70% of them laugh.

A third of the world say they believe
in Christ. Half of them capitalize
his name in text messages. A quarter
like to write it as JC. The rest
are too scared to ever write it down.
Or say it out loud. Sometimes
They are the ones that pray.

95% Say thank you.
76% I’m sorry.
67% Good job.
61% I need help.
47% Wait in silence.

346% of us are looking for someone.
I think those the 47 percent waiting
know where he is. Probably a cave.

We know this because of the man
with the clipboard that waits outside
the church. “What were you praying about?”

Thoughts: I was asking god to help me **** the neighbor lady.
Words: I was asking forgiveness.

The man with the clipboard knows all
writes down that they were
praying in a time of need.

When 32% are reincarnated. 70%
of us will crawl. Half of our
bodies will bruise, and exactly
one part of us will remember.

Then in the silence that the 47 percent
left. 47 quiet answers will arrive

to the other 53.
They will shouting
their praise. Every one
percent of ourselves
will never hear
God kneel and pray.

~for R~*

She dances. In soft light. The sun is slatted
Always slatted. With her words. She has them all.
She is playing. Plastering. Words like ceiling.
All over the walls, words like tomorrow. She has words
on her arms. Handfuls of words. Spilling out of fists.
Words like flutter. Her dress has one string
dangling with her dancing. Dangling with words like billow.
Billow was hanging. She puts words on her face. Milk is one. Ce-les-ti-al is another.
Stepping on words. They stick to her feet. Shadows of them
drizzle about. Wafting down. A word like kite. She is lost.
In them. Does not hear. Footsteps. The door yawns.
Less footsteps. The only sound is the crack of skin against skin. Words fall
from everything. They curl up. Like worms. After rain.
The room shakes. The words claw. Again. Again. The words fall.
Again- again- again. Some of the words die. Some hang on.
Words like tomorrow. Words like milk.

~for my father~*

I.

My neighbor Dave
had a hose in his hand,
standard garden, green,
almost like a movie.

His driveway was bright black
the white rocks of our backyard
meant something, standing so close.

Always moving so fast toward another
direction. The memory of the flowers
at sunset, when I learned what the word
“bloom” meant. It wasn’t real.

We used the hose to freeze water
over the rocks in the winter.
This was our sliding,
our skitting into older.

That Christmas
all I wanted was a bicycle.
The house gave up no secrets.
Closer and closer to Christmas,
I found so many presents.
I never found the bicycle.

This was how to measure love

I went to bed so angry that year,
lost in thoughts of running
to a world of backyard ice and bicycles.

In the morning when I saw it,
they confessed Dave’s involvement
He had hidden the bicycle.
Dave’s smile became
something else after that.

I learned to ride slowly,
tumbled down a hill
in blood and tears.
My father carried me home
and our bikes. I’ve never known
how he did it.


II.

Years later and later still.
I don’t know what happened
to that bicycle. It was black
fading easily.

Even though I likely lost it
in the first eviction,
or maybe the second,
the third. I don’t think I left it
after the fire. Maybe I still dream of it.

Later still. I stopped speaking
to my father. It was both our faults.
We both blamed someone
else for three years.

When I saw him again
he was fatherly. Unusual.
He wanted to make sure I was okay.
He wanted to make sure I had everything
I needed. I told him I needed
food and a bicycle. We went out
to get these together. He smiled.

In the dreams,
People come with whips
in pickup trucks. They carry
My childhood away
like a so-frightened horse.
In the dreams,

this time, the bicycle was red.
I don’t think of him when I ride it.
I hardly think of him.

This is how you measure love.

Those were the dreams where we ride off
childhood friends and I.
We ride off to where it is red, blooming red.

“Who has set my bed elsewhere? Hard would it be for one, though never so skilled, unless a god himself should come and easily by his will set it in another place. But of men there is no mortal that lives, be he never so young and strong, who could easily pry it from its place, for a great token is wrought in the fashioned bed, and it was I that built it and none other.”

                  The Odyssey, Homer, Translation by Robert Fagels (XXIII.182-190)*

You and I built a bed-frame, for me to sleep alone.
a frame to represent what we could do,
to humble us, to put us back together.
a bed to lift me off the ground.

I collected tools, arranged parts. Convinced myself
not to touch you. You read Swedish directions.
We tried to talk over the whirring of electric
screwdrivers, over the clacking of plastic panels.

Standing in the hollow bed-frame with you.
I feel like we should sail off together. Forget
the Christmas musical, refuse telephone bills.
Later, the night falls on me, sinking into nowhere.

Three people sit in a small bedroom gathered around an electric space heater. It is blizzarding outside and the house they are in is old and drafty. The first person is named Matthew. Much of his life has been spent following wishes of others. Right now is when he is starting to make up his mind about his own beliefs. He loves defending them; he loves discovering he has been wrong all along. The second person is Ryan. He is extremely intelligent, but reluctant to accept his own conclusions. He has come to a sure outcome, but it depresses him and he is hoping someone will come along and prove him wrong. The third person is me. I want to prove that God exists right there in that room. I get excited, because it feels like I have proven it, but in reality I only prove it to myself. The discussion dissolves in laughter. Matt is left uncertain, Ryan is left with science, and I am left with God.

House. Blizzard.
Three three three
friends.
Three friends.
That’s what’s in the house.
Electric
heater. An electric heater.
That’s what they huddle around.
A person. Matt.
A person. Still Matt.
A person Ryan.
Two persons.
Three friends.
Me. I’m there.
Me. God, free-will.
They’re there.
Hard determinism?
God. That is what’s said.
Blizzarded on. Nothing tomorrow.
Talk on three friends. Logical.
We cement ourselves in.
There is more than us in the room.
That’s the conclusion. Logical conclusion.

I steal the blanket on warm or cold nights with no regrets.
I’m a good kisser, but probably much worse in bed than
I believe. I wish you would believe in God. Stranger,
the air pressure is lower next to skyscrapers. When you leap
off, the building ***** you back and slams your body
against it. Again and again. My grandfather’s safe stands hidden,
built into an end-table at my brothers house. I have always wanted
to open it. A friend I once loved wants to swim naked with me
in three of the five great lakes. I want to take her down the west coast
on a motorcycle. If I could afford it, I would only wear underwear
made from bamboo plants. Both soft and eco-friendly. Green ones.
In 2004, I stopped talking to a girl I kissed. Second kiss. The
last time I saw her was during a fire-drill on Halloween.
She was wearing a cat-costume. Black. Please come find me.
We danced when younger. My legs swung wildly
beneath my knees. The scuffs on my shoes always remind me.
There is a photograph in my mother’s house of me flying
through the air on a skateboard. My mother was so scared
and proud in those moments. We still don’t get along.
I am not strong enough to tie my feet to science and jump.
In the moments of falling, I need God. I know I would fall
too fast to cross myself. The truth is, at the end of the night,
I am always afraid. I hold the pillow at different angles to feel better.
I make different shapes. Some nights I don’t sleep at all.

In our world
information expands exponentially
like a dazzle of zebras
galloping at you.

In theirs the information
is manageable, laughable.
They only know enough
to work, pray, eat,
and avoid the bodies.

They can balance a water jug
on almost every part of the body.
They do not get anxious as children
Totter footfall over footfall
on the dirt roads. They are explorers.

We will never know the smell
of hot gunfire, or feel,
among the sweat,
the silence punctuated
by dopplering bombs.

But it’s in our lives too,
neatly tucked away
in a textbook somewhere,
or touching a poem
that you once loved.

On advice from a friend

I’m sure that “plenty of ******* in the world”
and “Love me some freckly *******”
were said with the best intentions


On Physics

While I watched a woman Hoola-hoop
and take off her clothes I was fascinated,
but when she laid down on the ground
and took off her stockings, while the hoola-hoop
twirled on, I lost all belief in science.


On painting a brown dormitory ceiling white**

“You really have to use both arms to get up in there
Just push it up in the brown
Get it all until it is covered in white
Come on Tom, use your muscles.”

That’s what she said

I.

The grandfather dies. The dog also.
The sun sets in the west. Turquoise
is a good color to name. Something
that ebbs is likened to something
that never ebbs. It is raining.


II.

The speaker’s grandfather was a master
carpenter. The things he made are scattered
around the speaker’s family. The speaker
expects his future spouse to help him steal
these to put in their future house.

III.

The important part is the speaker
still uses his dog’s name as the answer
to security questions on the internet.
In the situation of the speaker being in a life
and death struggle with an evil
clone of himself, you hold
the gun and don’t know which
to shoot. Ask the dog’s name.
If you want to live, know the answer.

For Jenny (1988-2010)*

When I picture killing myself
it is always with a gun. Always in
flashes. It is hard to look at yourself

in pieces. It had been years. My last
image of you is in a blue flower-printed
dress. I don’t know if it is real,

or if I built the dress to put you in. I found
out from my friend with the red curly hair.
Our friend. I was sure it has been an accident.

I’ve known accident before. It is easy to pray then,
knowing that you had the resolve to do this,
the prayers don’t come easily. My tongue

shakes; my hands are covered in thick mud. It pulls
them down. The strangest thing is the manner, the place
that you did it. It was how and where I would

have done it. An acquaintance named Katie once told
me a story of a man admitted to the institution.
He had planned the fiscal responsibilities, the day,

the time, the place, the how of killing himself so that
it would be the easiest on those he loves. In the secluded
park, when he was about to pull the trigger, cops en route

to find his body with note attached, a school bus of children arrived.
They were on a field trip to save his soul apparently, and
he checked himself in the next day. Katie explained calmly

that this man was crazy. Who could plan it out so meticulously?
I really had been wishing everyone did that. At least Ryan and I
were able to talk about it calmly. I was so worried that he would

**** himself. I still am. The questions I have for you are not
about white light. They are: what was it like waiting in the car, knowing
the poison was coming on, what was it like keeping the door closed?

~for my father~*

I remember when we repaired
that computer
for no reason, and
with little to no experience.
I treated it like a school project,
circled it, called friends, talked about it.
I was a shark.
You treated it like old stairs, and took
power tools to it until the screen
could stand again.
Hallelujah. We were a miracle.
And after it all,
I remember letting the electricity flow
into it. You and I didn’t breathe.
This was our metaphor
when it lit up and welcomed us.