She needs sour apple vodka mixed with a tart schnapps.
On her way in the nonchalant dark her dignity escaped her.
At the counter a man wonders where fugitive dignity hides.
She leaves holding black bags,
tries not to notice that even with 6 clanging bags of bottles
her load is lighter than it was.
The residue of angels drapes
like fine linen
over our hands
our language
our thighs.
Death and I do not care what time it is.
He is a delinquent
I am night’s dilettante.
A lighthouse is afraid.
The gray sea is a dancer and a whore.
Stop feeding the birds along
the craggy shore your dinner.
They are waiting for you.
He casts his net among the rocks.
Broken jaws chatter beneath the water.
Two towns over he is a baby licking
his mother’s paintings.
Today he is a glass hunter
All shine and no stick.
Recapturing yourself will be easy.
White still in the bedroom,
structure from private, necessary snow.
dreaming of silence.
Your mind is a playground of artillery.
Capturing the sense of yourself will be hard,
Lost 2 feet tall in a field of chaff.
The women have needles and no yarn.
A man sits toward the curdling sun,
his face a mouth.
Sound your siren song
A gentle offering of wisteria wishes
and sulking letters.
Give her a sonorous rope to tie round her wrist
a little balloon bobbing desperately toward mass.
Eleven mirrors watch videos of sky.
Clouds breed above the enemy.
What sleeps inside my teeth
that my hunger has become so fragile?
My face is a tapestry unfinished.
Below the town a garden planted by boys
grows velvet tumbleweed.
The Sky Is
Enormous.
Silent.
Private.
A forbidden food is silly
but demonic and understandable
on a Tuesday when you clock in
(If people can turn clock into a verb for such
nefarious purposes, they need to stay away from my sofa and window.)
and you feel five feet wide and are at least 1.
Chocolate bars are exotic and exciting. Do not listen to
the pizza. He will charm you out of your 2s and into 10s.
Eat your salad.
It wants to die,
is dying,
wants you to follow along.
Ignore the demeaning soda. It hates you.
Your teeth whither.
Why are all the women in bigger sizes so much smaller than you?
Your bones shrink at the reproach.
Parisian plastic and crisp churches
Line the rain with loveliness.
At the edge of wet and dry reflections fly free.
I am painted with velvet sound,
eating my turpentine soup.
How lonely are the days baked in my face?
The scent radius of a rose as a unit of measurement.
My smile weighs too much,
crumbles off my face.
I’m sick of fried hair and unstoppable worry.
My secrets hate me and my eyes betray me.
On the beaches are boxes of life
watching the great red shipping containers float on the horizon.
Simply put
I have no allies I have not bought
And I drink old snow.
You are a systemic failure,
a weed I will use to make a poultice for my feet.
My jaw is slack and exhausted from talking to God,
my ears reverent from listening.
Sunlight colonizes the window glass,
makes cities we can see but not feel.
