coming to some crooked
sense here in the end room,
a currency,
Just row houses roped in with seatbelts,
No hope but an answer of a riddle.
Now I’m supposed to love myself,
clasp these hands together
as if they weren’t made to cup
Why do Chopin’s fingers slip into the piano keys
seamlessly as gondolas into a canal? The étude
of our loneliness begins with rainfall and dwindles to sand.
I spy, I spy that dream I should not be watching.
On each red rope of the swimming pool, dicks,
dicks, and more dicks. I swim and try to hold my breath
Our friends build a fire on the beach again.
We eye the drunkest one. He has a habit
of throwing sand on the blaze whenever his girl
Did I get your eyes right
in yesterday’s poem?
I’m tired of thinking of all you dead.
The black masks of your graves,
the visions you stir in me.
before the sky has gone to weeping, the trees
are scarred & bleeding sap. Chewed to ruin
by moths building tents in their leaves.
around 1, behind the H & M,
to send hot Caleb from Chem 6
who texted me a pic of his cousin in a ski mask
I’m offered a water, and a tea, so I take both, because I’m thirsty. And the more options the better,
or so I tell myself.
On the streets, these crowded lines of stores
and delivery trucks idling, the backfire
of my manager’s Chevy is my father’s hand
The forest is never silent. Each rock
waits its turn. The river misleads:
impatience is rare. In the valley,
Christopher’s Bar is all full up and Liquor World is closed already.
So I wander down the avenue looking for someplace to take me in,
clutching a Brautigan in my coat in case I need some conversation.
Now it’s all smoke and climbing high
into the tree-houses of the unconscious,
He took my hand, led me to the bathroom, opened the door and slipped in. The bathroom was dark. Through the partially opened window, an apartment with a yellow breakfast nook.
Read MoreInfection. I loll my head to the side in
the dim stillness, you loll your head into
mine.
Kenneth has his pecker out
again. We can see him
from the window, twisting his hips
I won a fraternity kissing contest
in college. I still have the photo—
chubby dumpling me, squeezed
Today I am staying in my t-shirt and underwear
with so much sadness
in every ounce of my body,