Pedestrian Living
Brown house finch, God’s
beauty borne aerial with heart
and murmur and beat of wing
all enumerate in feathers sweet,
small-beaked, simple drive
of wearied poet and old man’s swing—
crushed dead on a one-way.
Missing Person’s Report
Eating day old pierogi, the line between
nourishment and punishment, nearly
absent now. I drink my milk, but, you know,
height isn’t everything. Marta was telling me
how the whole thing was a corporate lie anyway,
and I made idiotic jokes about how Big Milk
was coming to get us. The hashbrowns
were fully sizzling, golden wads of chaos on
cheapskate Waffle House oil, that last
big supper I ate. Homer put it second best
when he claimed, “Everything is beautiful
because we are doomed.” First place,
of course, goes to the eggshell, glistening
in barren fullness, the best articulation
of physical desire mixed with perdition.
I am too young to be getting smaller, I’m told,
but that won’t stop me from shrinking. When
the milk cartel comes to execute me for slander,
I will disown this and all other poems, having
finally accomplished something genuine.
Abilene Rhapsody
Alive again
in the American Southwest
with friends
and a campfire
and a park full of needles,
we share songs that wrap
‘round the prickly pears,
Thinning over their shapes
like clouds
or the denim
on my knees,
worn pews.
Oh big sky,
they say
the tension’s between
ever-moving blood
and the dry bones
resisting it.
Oh, worn pews.
Oh, big sky.
Softer Living
Thinking of the mallard’s wings serrating
the sky, gray thread rippers on a cloudy cotton
hanging. My shoulders hurt pretty bad
because I can’t lift a boat properly, I really miss Victoria
right now. She’s got this coat so soft it feels something
close to feathers, adjacent to the kind of kindness I’d imagine
ducklings have before they’re grown up or shot or mauled by bears
or whatever. Soft as the wiry margin between eggshells and Peking
specials, basically. This is a poem about how I went boating on a Monday,
and felt generally pretty good, duck mortality aside, but right now I’m thumbing
my left earring, which got put in all slanty. It’s nearly funny that
30,000 Americans die in car crashes each year and I’m mad today
because my left earring is crooked from when an armed
teenager shot it askew. Victoria was there.
Ask her about it if you see her.
Lake of Fire
Opening and closing the door with some force
like the gasping gills of an upturned fish; put gently,
it’s hot as balls in here. Came down last night
from the mountains in blue-gray fog. Gunsmoke
of possible car-crashes, the headlight trajectories
of running down the slope, taillights swallowed in mist,
ein flammenwerfer extinguished. Like a soldier then, running
as artillery rock outcrops briefly explode into vision,
heading back to find some shelter, a beautiful trout longing
for the river, thrown back toward aqueous mercy to find
my fucking AC broke.
Too Much Fun
Beneath the lemon
drop sun, behind
the bar for tips, I wish
I could just swim
in Absolut Citron.
The young patrons
With snide
Hawaiian shirts
stumble and dance
between uninterested
parties while I hand out
shots: my knees will
ache for theirs
to give.
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