I don't miss people
I miss the parts of me I gave them

When an atom bomb detonates
First there is white light,
A truly blinding flash of god,
For miles and miles.


Then comes heat.
The center of the sun
Tens of millions of degrees
In all directions.

Then fire.
Everyone is dead, burned alive,
Within
A half mile of the blast
Yes everyone.

Every building burns
Every tree ignites
Everything is cinder crisp.

Then a 500 mile an hour wind
In all directions
Yes 500 mph.

Radiation.

This is where we are.

Oh, evolution, you could have saved the day if you had kept us as monkeys swinging gleefully in the trees instead of elevating us as humans with restless minds and lethal egos.

She sang a song
of ice and snow
and dreamed of oceans
swaying slow
She swam through clouds
and flew near stars
Fell so proud
and dove so far

She was a sad harmony
A song she unsung
A silence unheard
A deed undone

She hummed a tune
of fish and birds
and bore with devotion
The beasts she herds
She swam through life
and flew from death
Fell from strife
and dove bereft

She was a sweet melody
A smile she unsmiled
A violence in violet
My hope she defiled

She sang a song
that twists the mind
and played my emotions
Leaving me blind
I swam near folly
and flew through sin
I fell in love
and dove right in

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet