Everybody is dying in Haiti.
The girl has just come by.
I have not slept. In fact,
I’ve done some drinking.
She comes and asks me how
I am. I am okay I tell her.
She has a boyfriend now,
After she leaves, she tells me
this,
It’s not the first time she kept that close until sometime else.

We were talking for a while.
I wonder just when the earth
Decided to quake
Decided to ****,
To shake, to tremble, to rock
And somewhere I’m sure
We were being selfish,
And I was wanting her,
And she was telling me not to,
and not to
Look so close in her eyes, she knows well how I can see it all.

And somewhere still there
Was a little boy dying,
He will never kiss a girl,
Never wonder why eyes are
the color of skies: and dirt
and grass blades, I don’t know,
At least I get to venture
a Guess,
I bet it’s the same reason
I love the girl, I carry a torch, maybe it’s just for now, I hope so.

from Eating the Animal Back to Life [ poems July 2015 ]

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[in the beginning]

wear a cheap mask
to bed.

kid, your mama

she can’t
touch a baby
without touching
a baby

that’s hers.  

small brain,
I have less
to wash.
 
[fishing hand]

a demon with three days to live is given to my father’s body.  in this, father finds luck to be neutral.  mother is a good explosion, brother is a bad.  when the dust settles, sister can see the baby in her stomach.  it is my belief and it is also god’s that our food is the food we forgot to poison.  to pray, I am left with little more than an animal’s halo and two representations of what you were not seriously clawed by.  in your sleep, you move me into mine.  a finger shows itself to the back of my throat.


[themes for star]

in a small attic
a boy
on all fours
being weakened
by a spider’s
dream
is putting
an ear
to the roof
of his sister’s
dollhouse.  for making

the wrong
sounds
for animals
poor sister
was lowered
into the baby
you were born
to lift
by two
scarecrows
you’d think
were separated
at death
for the way
they don’t
carry on.


[race]

says poverty
someone
at this table
has nothing to hide.

says father
touching
a UFO
cures frostbite.

says mother
open
the stomach
of the winning
monster.


[cope]

no one goes to the crazyhouse
for having a hand
that repeats
itself.

in a new place
my brother
does one
of two
things:

masturbates
or says
déjà vu.  

if he didn’t tell me
I wouldn’t know
I’ve slapped myself
awake.

one of us
then one of us
will die.

no one goes to the crazyhouse
for having a hand
that repeats
itself.

in a new place
my brother
does one
of two
things:

masturbates
or says
deja vu.

if he didn’t tell me
I wouldn’t know
I’ve slapped myself
awake.

one of us
then one of us
will die.