The light changes things
Three weeks is a long time
The rock changes
No connection to history
It’s just the wind
The midpoint
A scab on a knuckle
Word of the day
The rock changes
So unfimiliar with real love
It doesn’t move or try.
Maybe I am the first to notice
An astronaut of rocks
I see the dents, soften
They are like I was
I am like them.
The paper lives
We take it seriously
Or not
The sticks we sit on
In in waiting room
Wet leaves
Beneath our
Hospital beds
The art work drips
From the side of the staircase
Keep us from falling out
We decorate with rocks
And native grasses
The dog smells the day
From the back steps
The millions of coffee mugs
Not properly washed
When the work creates
Dirty dishes serve many purposes
When you showed your father
You could hold that snake
Without flinching.
When you heard them coming
Wrapping your finger around
The plastic trigger.
When you first glossed over.
Feeling the truth in blood
Learning to hold the leash.
The thrill of releasing the lie
About meat and making things happen.
Curled into a ball, in your bed
Anticipating unknowable lightening strikes,
Listening for the RAP TAP TAP of rain drops
The thunder shook your walls
Like the sides of a roller coaster.
That day in summer camp.
The tools and the protocol
The wood in your hand
The passing of the torch.
Not control,
Respect
For distant thunder,
The child
And the childhood’s end.
The leash follows your explorations
I keep my thumb on the button
I’ll bag your shit
For my neighbors
You feel free and safe
We limp along
Two bullets at the bar
Patriots under duress
Hollywood guilt
Outside the body
Boys find their purpose
Playing guns like guitars
Piece of wood
A Samari sword
At what age can I start judging?
To save a life
How big do I have to be?
How important
To me
Has been through so much
Frozen and thawed frozen and thawed
I am starting to nap
The next ice storm sends my body into hibernation
The birds need so much
They eat fast
Leave their broken shells beneath the feeder
So much time looking for the ones that dropped
Winter has no time to mourn
No time to consider gender or spirit
There is one sun for every winter
Early buds
En route en route
Working with greatness
Requires great patience
Your bones must be hollow to fly
Something bigger than all of this
Like hunting the rarest of all things
Willing to take our lashes
Bunker down in wet socks
Peek through the cracks
Cup our fingers over our mouths
And blow on them for warmth
We hear breathing
Padded mallots bring us closer
To the truth than our original protocal
Something deeper
Than the mutual deceptions
The body rises and falls
with the breath.
We are the breath
The easy speakers
We translate the barks and the chirps
The undersides of leaves
Upon waiting for the apology text
I witness Starbucks
After school revolution
A clean soft lighted place
Escape from the car faces
I read about Eilen Myles
And her Dog Father
I could never walk
My ghost so easily
Never easy for me to see
Who held the leash
Like a job I wait
Transporting myself
To the office in mind
Highway stress
Leaky ceiling drips
Evesdropping on alley crackheads
NPR clouds softening the light
I’m in love, I’m alone
I work in my home
I’m in love with a
Dog catcher heart
Sticking to the floor in the seventh grade
I knew nothing about spirit
A plan inspired by mistakes
Sister you were there for me
Even when you weren’t
You lent me your crocodiles
And hammer swinging horsemen
To fight the echoes in the hallway
The padded dicks that
Slammed gainst the lockers
Peroxide future
Earrings and feathers
I drank the purple passion
Lied to the college girl
Followed the code
I made up as I went along
And did all my best work in basements
The remaining hairs
Continue to grow
And will need to be cut
By someone
Eventually
Make a simple thing difficult
A separate bag for each item
Washing preservatives
Timers and alarms
Notes and instructions
Proof of a worked life
To digest the orphan
Who has traveled
So far to meet you
Do not worry father
I will be there to cut your hair
The way I cut the grass
No smell of garlic
But with a gentile hand
More gentile than you are accustomed to
It’s so easy to give a
child a thankless gift
Walking the pitted pavement
On a warm summer evening
Holding court
beneath the
Nippled street lamp
Squirting light
Into the sobbing
Mouth of darkness
Sunburned back
Cut weeds
Arrows tattooed in concrete
Magic words
Sprayed across walls
The sky rips open soft
Glowing brainless matter
Putting me as close
As I am permitted
If I could share
This bliss of isolation
That’s how much
I love you
Beef Jerky Clouds 