coyotes like
magenta-clad twentysomethings
screaming:
singing at the unearthly
hour when I
watched the desert
stars overhead and
now I wonder what else it is they’ve
killed

and maybe if I’d hung enough
dreamcatchers I would have
caught all the dreams that
pulled me past
you (step
into my parlor said the spider to the
fly

but what is it anyway that sticks between your eyelids when you
sleep when you
keep your eyes shut and your mouth
open does the sandman glue them
together to resign you to your own
blindness

be careful with your eyes sweetheart because
too many waterfalls leave
cataracts in their wake.

A shout across spacetime--
infinite
simal beam of light.

The warm overwash of watercolor cadence--
joy of numbers not
patterned together before under your
nameless eyes faceless voice--

When you stand in the wheatfield
the crows sing, too
if you listen.

I’d forgotten that
You could make me a poet:

Muscle and five-o’-clock
Shadow and the smell of shaving
Cream or the
Sound of someone showering in your
Home or the
Rocks and trees through which you bike here every
Sunday just to get to
Me I
Think or the
Wise words with which
You pray
Tell, what did you
Gain from the dryer sheets?

Sensitive skin and
Massages don’t mix
Messages I’m
Sorry if you love the rugs enough that they scratch
You and I think your feet
Are the size of my forearm are you trying to
Outgrow me by degrees?

He may rule over all other life
But Adam cannot rule his own wife.

picture this,
o sons of judah:
arctic shallows, a
shellbeached leviathan cordially extending
an invitation to this
everfast slowdance of heart
throb lust in the
inkwell satisfaction of knowing you bleed
india blue & bone china and the moths that got
into the tent will swallow the naphtha in time;

there are parts of you that
are never clean.
yeah isn’t that
wonderful

? mark the few drops of
tequila left & a
heavy sunrise in your
swankissed beechwood
heart;

*there are parts of you that
will not be released.

corundum puppies and you begin to wonder if
they’ll ever move again not
much escapes your midas touch

you used to organgrind your teeth and
nails at the dusty mayhem floors
(it’s suppertime baby let’s
**** some airtime by eating the fish right off the
CAUTIONwet
hardwood as they gasp for air so we
gasp for blood)

seashell lakeshore pumpkinpatch painting of
bugjuice spattered on the back windshield;
you’re not afraid of
a little fog.

not enough
sodium in the air (not enough
salt in your wounds) and
you begin to choke on the potassium of our
bananasplit ages ago;
if you’re eating
your own molasses words
please make sure you spit them back
out again where the children can have them

they wouldn’t say no to
something sweet

gracklestare blue eats away at the
worms in my (ever notice how hearts are kind of
appleshaped and women are always
pearshaped and
muscled and coy and
bruised in the thick places you know
) eating empty roomfuls of charcoal dust and
cigarette ash motels (the numbers have
come off the nails room 80 is now
infinityoh)

can’t eat enough winegrapes so we
set aside the fidelity for another time when we’re both
drunk after all what good is a heart drenched in
only the viscous warmth of your own sweet
blood money pays for most things but not
d) all of the above