On this street the lives are final drafts,
The protagonists are flags
And dogs walking owners bearing little bags.
The butter cuts beautifully for February.
My living situation is temporary,
I soak it up, a diligent sponge asleep in the sun.
You know what...
Boot-heel-sized
masterpiece of bottom-feeding:
there you are, at last.
I peel off wet leaves
after a long winter, find your hooks
deep in my grass.
You are a festering periwig.
You are the cutest canker.
You devour living matter
to keep your skin pink. How...
In plays I have eaten the poison biscuit,
laughed in makeup at the chain of accolades.
I have been reviewed, a half-dozen times,
and not been found wanting. Nightly,
I break open as a woman and watch myself
like a man. My ascot askew and foam accruing
at...
I’m not interested in one thing
in this museum case. Not
that coin, filthy, ancient.
Not that little marble phallus.
Not this tiny Isis, or Byzantine slave bracelet, or
blue-green shard of Roman glass.
What I want is that lost shoebox
full of faded Kodak...
He worries that his wife has her mother’s hypochondria.
She worries that she has her mother’s rheumatoid arthritis.
They worry that her father has his father’s sclerotic arteries.
She worries that her husband has his great uncle’s spleen.
They worry...
The dancers move as if pursued
by Casca’s beasts – lions
leaving hesitation marks,
bruises remembered the way
we remember faces
on money, or smoke
that’s inhaled but isn’t free.
Everyone I’ve loved
loved me first. The girls,
on their second pass
in search of...
It started with an exposed shoulder, glistening like humid aluminum,
a dressing room door held ajar, and a rumor spread like warm syrup.
Then, in the first of countless dares, they cherry-bombed the logo
at the studio’s west entrance, shot-gunned a...
It wasn’t that bad. Depending on which uniform
Banged at the door I’d say we’d always lived here
Or—who’s asking? There was no shortage
Of federalist visions; we had flexible identities.
In the cities the rent was cheap. Someone’s trash
Usually ended up...
Some people would burn Blake to boil tea, if need be.
A small, invisible daisy of flame waits to bloom under
each book the day the streets are empty but for patrols,
or the day the sun turns red giant, brushing everything
with hands like books of matches...
He has never seen the sea, never mountains.
He has never turned a wheel, riveted a hull,
pulled a trigger, trained a telescope.
He has never held an oboe.
He has never entered vaginas or mineshafts,
never worn lipstick or wigs.
He has never...
