LAUGHING WHEN I SHOULDN’T SMILE

The internet told me to ask a man

not one single question

this month

it told me this is the month

to keep that for

yourself

I can’t not laugh

that’s the air in me coming out

to meet the sliver sky

when it shimmies down

to kiss the mud

DOWN WITH DOMINO

Moon. Dagger thin.

Midnight mistletoe over Bruegger’s Bagels.

If these nights were video art

that moon and all defense smiles

would flash in blurry filtered

procession – the God of guilt would

smash the family tree farm

with her resin mallet:

down with the domino

of everything –

SWEET ONE

The sweetness creeps up

in the costume of a lecherous joke

rooted in lust

or maybe just –

what would happen

if we showed our fondness.

In this case, if I pinned my hair

for the better part of a winter,

learned liquor, kept weapons in my belt.

Sweet one in his velvet suit,

walking home from jail.

Old wolf at it again but

more kind

this time.

INSIDE OUT

I might spread my fingers

into the current, or

it might freeze around

my cramping fist

like, people change

and stay the same

why the birds in Lansingburgh

jump sideways into bushes

why the boy at the corner

first lowers, then lifts

his Styrofoam strip

THE THING

Here is the thing
so many times the shape is by accident
or maybe the same shape
has been this accident
for what feels like always
the men nod to the men and everyone
including some of the other men
wonder when the speaking will cease
the braids become ropes
the beads become rocks
carve a daisy into the bathroom mirror
the future will know
what you meant

PLEASE (AF #4)

Please don’t let that smug conviction

cloud your truth

don’t let the mirrors show you back

the hard eyes of what your thought

it meant to be

adult

don’t contain

some act of loyalty to self

nobility of notions

at least they act

no you have to love you have to

cave to being concave to being

a plane that touches the lines of

all the other planes that make

the face of 

wet eyes,

glory be

MORE MARIAH (AF #3)

generic proclamations pasted atop

the most spiral staircase

crescendos

and than a hero comes along/

with the strength to carry on

anytime you need a friend/

I will be there

we don’t go dance

instead, cocooned

imagine new desperate

measures

for new desperate

times

how do you party when

you’re going extinct

how do you kiss how do you

siphon your adrenaline

and not devolve into

submission syrup

(when’s the first time you

got really drunk?)

the choir fills

the halls

SELF WORTH

The flowers are dying,

they never really lived

we missed the pink lights of the dance floor

but drank free pink drink instead

I don’t know or remember

things like changing vase water

to encourage full bloom

or rinsing the rice

starch-free

but I will always alter

the volume

just so –

I know what sound

sounds better

AF #2

As self and selfishness take form

blind contour quivering out from the grey

blackest mascara black –

give me a kind sweet snarky

gay disco God, a deity of

responsible release

give me a clicking heel across

the fresh but ancient tile

give me a beat to

catch, to clap to

against and for

the Sunday chimes

AF #1

Fascism:

no questions no wonder no dreams.

Peace:

no secrets just gossip.

Is this what they had in mind,

from the stage?

Ripple white like the hem of a toga pulled aside

– voila for all the family men, all the polar fleece.

But fuck you from my bluetooth,

fuck you from my broom.

The tile will never be clean

the skin will never gleam

& meanwhile mineral earth 

remains unnamed:

to smell a thing  

this solemnly

scorned.

WHATEVER FOREVER MEANS

We are crazed

to make these contracts

to become coiled with

such hidden organs

so I want to be lonely

in this

honor the blood bound address

of a woman with sons

diamond skin because

no diner food

would make me happier –

back of my leg confined

reminder to hurry up

and go

4 BROTHERS

Somebody went to Morocco

Somebody broke a coke bottle

Somebody hated their mother, more

Somebody listened to Chaka Kahn

Somebody used the darkroom behind the door

where the smug wood angel hung

Somebody helped put the ornaments away

Somebody wrote limericks in broken pencil

Somebody missed their mother, more

Somebody abandoned somebody

Somebody made their little brother

hit himself then pushed him off the ledge

Somebody had the right jeans

Somebody went to a rock show

Somebody rolled a joint

Somebody went to boarding school

Somebody made too many jokes

took it too far, took himself too seriously

Somebody dodged the draft

Somebody held the puppy in his jacket

Somebody had secrets

Somebody cleaned the pool

Somebody was lazy

Somebody was a ballerina

Somebody explained praying mantises

Somebody stopped coming home

Four boys in autumn jackets

Four boys in the sand

Children go where I send thee

How shall I send thee

HERO

2:36 to 3:03 of Mariah Carey Hero.
Brief relief from Ariel perched
half woman half fish
on her episodic rock of ages.
My grandma gave me the Heroine book -
Joan of Arc, Pocahontas.
I spelled it Heroin in my hole punched summary.
Learned that difference, the easy way.
Cole always told me to be magic,
but every time I tried we both got sad. 
He would say right now how I’m *wrong*
and if I think about it (at all)
he’s *right*
– but then that’s another
viaduct/marble situation
and I’d rather just swallow the day,
however it tastes.
2:36 to 3:03 of Mariah Carey Hero.
Maybe just to 3:02.
That’s the most legitimate 
feeling I’ve had 
in a while. 

MAKE AMERICA MAKE THE BED

there is no good outfit 

for inauguration day

pants stained, eyes strained

on inauguration day – eat water

drink coffee made by a man 

who sleeps ten trillion 

your million

my men, they empty dish racks

my women, they give their mucus

to their young

this poem is to 

the barely boys

the sad men

who lose us to

the world

LIFE PLAN

every January it’s been cuticles

now sleet on skylight

tiny clicks, dry hands

let’s have babies in 2 years

ok - let's -  

but if you're a purpose person

and I'm a tangle alien

but if you're a justice bambi

and I'm quicksilver, gremlin

or if I am cold cold bread 
if you are perfect toast

      I’m not saying I’m not anything

or not enough

or not perfect, even 
for you

just islands islands

islands islands 

ricochet rockabye

and you still right

on track

GOODBYE B (kaddish)

Nonnie died before Phil and

Phil died before Prince

and you died, yesterday

long before love

love cries in the

California clay house

full of songs and dogs

cries and laughs and

wants to burn the bed –

good smoke

of a good love

of a good man

sent up between

the branches

QUICKFIXiPHONEPOEM

if this was the 70s
you wouldn’t worry about him
you wouldn't pin drop his heart
or track his profile
against the canyons
the cookie has quadrupled in calories
since the 1980s
we don’t’ use our crisper drawers
correctly
ingredient poems because
we don’t manage clutter
correctly
the tinsel purge is happening
the sequins make a skin

ENDLESS

Against the composed salad
and the sidebar songs
and the combing of everything
there is some salve
in drone
not the mosquito toy
stuck in a post Christmas tree
but the pain howl
of a noise returned
long drawn blush
trailing good
blood

XSTIAN ROCK

Equate everything, and praise

negate everything, til glory be

calcimine ladder like a

Hobby Lobby prop

(to hang the gypsy ribbons from)

glitter garland abandoned

in the parking lot

cruise the aisles

til adrenaline subsides

you’re on the run, decked out

Christ in me 
– feathers, daisies

true saviors ignore the alarm

on their way out the door

HOW TO SAY

Jesse cuts mango

he’s sad the warehouse

has been leveled:

now the snow man can widen

his ice cream parking lot

now cry for my uncle

now eat fruit in bed

yellow from another place

in the morning

the empty plate will laugh

Andrea kisses her dog

like a clock

now write letters 

to the dying –

the family is a house,

a bulletin board, a cupboard

(symphonies, cynicism 

also air and salt and trees)

gestures, gasps

shining leaves

clogging the drain