In fourth grade I got a handwritten paper back from the teacher.
All my lowercase letter b’s were perfectly circled in red ink.
I think that’s what made me allergic to fire ants and yellow jackets.

I used to work at a breakfast restaurant and I smiled a lot.
I brought him his omelet and he told me it was as big as a body *****.
It was nice that I got to ask strangers for their first names.

I donate blood every fifty-six days on the dot because I like the questions
about prostitutes, and the ****** Butters, the rubber bands and the iodine swabs.
I am O positive and I feel regeneration as the bag fills up.

I wore black in Valencia and I could feel the gray matter pulsing in my brain.
I danced with the balcony girl in the bathrobe and I watched the whole city burning.
He always offered me the same breakfast, a warm glass of milk and a cigarette.

I slept on salty bark in Big Sur and we drove fast over Bixby Bridge.
I couldn’t get my head far enough out of the window in the backseat.
I smelled so human and breathed in the waste of the redwood beasts.

I came across an old barn with an old truck parked permanently behind it.
The bed was piled high with bundles of dried lavender harvested before I was born.
I grabbed scratchy handfuls and rubbed the brittle stalks on my arms and neck.

I stood in the cathedral so I could feel the weight of each broken back.  
The forest sculptors and lamb carvers believed in what they could not see.
Light pours in through the stained glass window and I feel the colors in my bones.

Gravity isn’t a factor when a jellyfish plague leaves
a layer of purple gelatinous mass on the beach.
The hills unzip their jackets into the ocean waves,
feeling the cool breeze on their uppermost ridges.
Rocks are painted from within
demonstrating all the colors of the turkey tail.
There are spirits around me,
watching from the pine trees and rippling the water when they wink.
The explosion of the dawn wood pigeons
startles the leaves awake.
I was there when the lightning made this river,
filling it with life and movement.
I can see your shadow from behind the aspen grove,
tunneling the light towards the chalk cliffs.
The ground is shaking from the thunder core of my fiery center,
I take shelter under the strongest branches.
I wrap a blanket of constellations around my shoulders
and count the times the bullfrog burps.

“I can never remember if the Earth goes around the moon
or if the Sun goes around the Earth.”
‘That’s alright, I can never remember if the tides are pulled on strings by fish
or by machines under the marsh.”

Then there are these blue dreams of mine, underwater in a car with one door open.
My ears are popped and I can’t get them unpopped, even if I chew bubblegum.
So I put my thumb and index finger on either side of my nose and blow.

my teeth are sensitive too--
candy smoke strangles them
they are the crown jewels of some British empire

one day at the circus he bought me popcorn, and boy how the unpopped kernels cut my gums. I laughed and the iron taste blanketed my tongue. I noticed my chair had only three legs, and my scarf was red and sticky

o world, how I want to shake your head
and tear wires from the fusebox
to taste the sound of incandescent crackling and burnt popcorn

o shining irises, where is your citrus now?

My hair smells like you--
Old Spice and popcorn smudged
lips.  Hold the butter.
I want grease dripping
from your palms, a salt
sea of foamy yellow.  We
reject kernels bob along
unpopped, burnt, steamed to bursting
refused the right to blossom.

The neighbors have a noisy truck
spitting exhaust onto my rear
window. Gray. Hazy. Ugly
as the reason you're covered
in glitter.  You taste like gin
and ginger, orange tea and cold
chai latte, notebook paper
in a dark coffeehouse.
The elves are holding hands
but your hand is on my *** and
this movie's boring--wood
pannelling in a split-level apartment
above your father's bathtub.

Your mother wouldn't like me.
She's a ***** anyway.  You tell me
she can't cook because she can't
subtract.  But you're no good
at math either, lovely boy. Double
your handprints on my ***.
Curl your toes to the three-four swirl of my hips.

Into our fun house of mirror neurons,
a favorite Fellini character strides
distorted perhaps,
but reflected clearly enough,
none the lesser for our wear.

Who is it? Which one?
It’s truly hard to decide.

It could be that brute Zampanò,
his chain unpopped,
and as ever demanding our attention...

Or the cypher, Steiner,
teetering on edge
to tell us his secrets...

Or a voluptuous
la Saraghina,
reveling in our riveted eyes...

Or gentle Giulietta,
chasing her voices,
their whispers that echo ours.

It doesn’t matter who, in the end.
Better yet, let’s take them all,
and crowd them close in.

What matters is,
we ask they try
a seeming simple task—
touching tongue to nose,
or elbow to chin—
and we watch
their attempts, together.

Strive and fail.
Strive and fail.
Strive and fail.

These are the Sisyphean rhythms
we’ll need to learn.

We have our limits,
but empathy is endless.

An airport of exits and merits
in and out, side to side ruts
filtered destination tethered
fading back to a fed bubble

An airport of resits and delericts
back and forth, western rides
misconstrued openness analysed
tantalised, fantasised, revised

An airport of open cases and causes
where it has all stopped, the unpopped
in words called stalky trodden dreams*
*the crab waves a thorough goodbye

Tell me my name
Tell me my story
Tell me where to go
Because I don't wanna know

I don't wanna know if it's true
I don't wanna know if you've stopped
I don't wanna know if you love her
Because I miss you

I miss you like my crazy misses sanity
I miss you like the sun misses the horizon
I miss you like the cherry unpopped
Because I never gave it up

I never gave up kissing
I never gave up holding on to you
I never gave up laughing at your jokes
Because maybe I like you a lot

I like you a lot

I see a tsunami coming with
Blessing i see a thunder storm shower bringing down blessings
I feel the temperature increasing
Just to heat up all my unpopped
Tallents i fight with the wind but it seems like its pushing me to my destiny.

These are gonna be some powerful blessings Watch out for the broadcast

Three's a crowd but this is way too much
It's too loud, inside voice is enough
The drinks stopped working
The chitchat got annoying
Now I'm trying to leave
It's getting hard to breathe
Not enough walls in this house
Not enough cheese for this mouse
All these noises I can't block out
Right now I wish I was knocked out

I forgot what I came for
Am I still on the same floor?
Tried to take it slow
Now I just wanna go
But it's still too soon
Room full of unpopped balloons

In cement covered wastelands
  Doves are never scouted
Harvesting herbs
Instead seedlings are taught to pet pigeons
To avoid floods by planting deeper
Moss grows around beaks until
They are lockjaw
Wings flap without message
Claws praise the space between dirt

A pigeon will eat anything
    Doesn’t know the taste of love
Salted fields of corn
      Unpopped kettles sunbathing for purpose

Storms disassociate from cleansing
  Rain down ominous
     Leave layers of fog in the wake
A patch of mud stirs into a pie

Never could tell the difference between ravens and crows
All black ~ All ominous
All seeing

The sun blinks as the future pops
When a dove meets a crow
   Do they feast on olives

One is short of **** by a quart
   A shallow grave
   A darkened pit
   A missed chance
   A clump of ****
   One is lacking sound financial backing
   A diseased twit
   An unpopped cherry
   My unmapped nethers
   The Germans are marching
   The Hinterlands are inundated
   SURPRISE! Surgeons sell surgery!
   Squeeze my **** and watch 'em purple
   They are Bob Mitchum yellow
   Roger Ready warty
   Don Pardo annoying