Thursday, May 10, 2012

I see a few different options with this one...


...but decided to post it anyway: 

Wire



It does not spell out what happened to my brother
so I picture him twisted into the cable
of his own communication with lines crossing
and woven until strong enough to carry waves

through the doorbell of my house in electrical
impulses into the neurons in my body
connecting synapses until the old snake king
who lives in night stories and keeps night in a shell

swallows them and all the sparks are interrupted
as the power goes out his daughter arrives with
a tapestry she starts weaving and light slips
in more and more like a curtain on a line.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

I Wanted To Call This 'Doll', But It's More Of A...


Catalog




The Cinderella Slipper: high-shine
heels turn you bibbity bobbity beautiful!
Would-be princesses, keep an eye on the clock!

Running 15 k every day has caused callouses to form on the soles of my feet. They are clean and slightly translucent like plate glass windows.

The Sexy Dress: maximum curve, minimum effort.
In flamingo, frond or knife with removable
silicone pads you will really add up in this!

Hereditary thinning of bone tissue means a certain tenderness in my hips and when I smile I can feel the calcium that is left coalesce and slip from rib to rib until tidy pintucked rows of Egyptian cotton  is left on my small shoulders.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Near-ly Revised


Can't recall if I've mentioned that I am trying to write about ten particular words that are often used both as a noun and verb. At any rate, the first one was called Near and I really hated it, so have been revising: 

Near


The rule is we all move to the new
suburb that everyone else is in

built entirely out of boxes
filled with the selves of our old photos

where the pictures are still chemicals
and labeled, everyone handles them

you can never be too sure these days
now that you too have oohed and ahhed and

given way without knowing what was
closer than your veins and skin almost

elegant the way it gets inside
like a virus.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

In Honor Of The Bittersweet But Best Dream I've Had In My Life


Flash



In the dream I am supposed to be
in Spain under an old aqueduct
tunneling my way to a party
and run into you in one of those

dislocations that only happen
when we sleep and the car alarms slip
into all that we are not thinking
and that we touch there like the granite.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

An Accidental Poem


Shift


The man at the airport told me
we are running out of spectrum.
Smart phones will idle

on night stands while we
in the interregnum of departures
and new arrivals

talk of how
China steals our secrets, the pros
and cons of kissing foreign girls on

holiday, the going rate for
soft shell crab if it cuts
like steak two seconds after

red turns a less virile pink
sticking to the deep fried bits
and leaving what we cannot eat

for the woman in the shapeless smock
come to put up chairs and clean so
none of our choices remain to be seen.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Mark


Mark



I need a souvenir; you
say fine and take an old car tag

straighten the crimps with a hammer
that makes blank tones, only beating

the metal smooth enough to pack
and carry on, to place under

the one-of-a-kind whorls of my
skin of my smooth uncalloused feet

to find, when unpacking, you were
careful not to scratch the surface.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Visit


Visit


I would say he is thin
as ginger but I don’t
know how thin exactly

that is. We buy it shaved
into jars with tight lids
the slivers clink against

glass and could be a toast
to themselves shaken out
with or without omens.