5.30.2018

Devotional

Build a bear.
Build a bridge.
Build something
they'll remember you by.

Plant an aloe.
Plant a note.
Plant yourself
where you can help.

Burn a bill.
Burn a bridge.
Burn for what's bigger
than your landlord's account.

Bury hatchets.
Bury flesh.
Bury your heart
on an island.

5.27.2018

60/40

You can't count
how many times
you've hit or rubbed your arm
accidentally against
the rusted anchor
dredged locally from the Hudson
and given to you
by a man over twice your age
who'd appreciate the irony
of how you've mounted it
to a cast iron vent pipe
rising through your apartment
dangerously close to your dinner table

nor do you recall
if your tetanus innoculation
is up to date
though your jaw would be hard to lock
regardless of infection
since you're the kind
that doesn't count a wad of cash
handed to him if eye contact's made.

Only the guilty defend themselves.

5.22.2018

Pheromones

Half asleep
with a sore back
on your fake wood floor
your forearm as a pillow
you catch the sour scent
of your own sweat
and recollect it in others
from a time when such niceties
weren't ghosts misbehaving.

5.19.2018

Storm Chaser

A lean, young doe
gallops at dawn
across a church meadow
in the first leg
of a worn commute.

My foot presses the brake
in anticipation of our
crossing trajectories
but her dash ends
at the massive stalk of broccoli
dying in the grass.

The eager deer partakes
of the tree's tender buds
without having to stretch her neck
or stand on her hind legs.

As we pile into the work van
half an hour later
the rest of the guys
start their daily ribbing
but my mind's not ready
to leave the day's first scene
yet.

5.10.2018

Prolapse

In the shower this evening
my insides began to fall out.
I was surprisingly unalarmed.
It seemed like a natural progression.

I didn't notice while lathering
since parts are chopped
and added daily
to a body being borrowed.
That sting of the soap
is what gave it away.
The mucous membrane there
was affected and sent signals
to a place where thoughts occur
and fears are born of dreams.

This random revelation
was accepted as the latest
so I tucked myself
back in myself
grateful for limited taste buds.

5.08.2018

A Driftwood Fire

We've had this rule
unwritten until now
for years of unbridled grace:
I'm only allowed
to love her sometimes.

13 lucky years ago
I did her dirty.
Since then I've been the reason
for her lack of self-esteem.
My penance should be paid by now
but you and I know
how history works
on the minds of inner children.

In the wake she goes for winners
out of jail and into hitting.
I was never that bad
though her psyche tells her different.
She gets drunk at Mahoney's
with the queers that she's befriended
and beckons me to drive
up the road that I hate most.

Usually we sleep
at her place with "Roseanne" playing
since she can't rest without it.
The script invades my dreams

But the last time she came south
and held my hand through dinner.
She took a page from mine
and paid while I was pissing.

We fucked like we were dying
faster than we are.
In the morning
while I brushed
she walked out to catch a cab.

I used to make her breakfast:
waffles, scrambled eggs.
Now I'm just a thought
in her cubicle
with water.

She's dating someone new.
I never had a crack
at a second up at bat
for all the times I answered
when the pipes would soon be calling.