A pliable cancer
blithely swept across faces
of noblewomen
smearing ignorant flesh
with stark virginity;
painting untruths
with wide brushstrokes
of stee...
1977 and we four were all twenties
in that Pittsburgh dining room: my first wife,
our actress friend who vaulted a path to Broadway,
the friend’s friend, and...
When gospel was found
in glossy pages of magazines
I pored over, lemon juice soaking
my hair, I was first learning how
to be somebody I was not.
“Baby On...
This morning the sky hung with feathered syntax
composed on wires.
I discovered abstract expressionist crows had Pollocked
the hood of my Prius.
A stude...
Your post-it notes are endearing. When I say they’re stupid they’re actually not.
Your beard could use a trim. Actually, that’s me being nice. I hate it. Ple...
So I say, be happy, though the instinct in me doesn’t capture what I mean. I’d like to think I’d refuse an apology that stumbles drunk out of the bar, that I’d ...
Tonight I drink merlot from the depression
glasses Grandma collected from the EM Loew’s Theater.
I wonder what her fave movies were in 1925.
I worked a...
Every day, she wakes up, goes to the bathroom, and wipes the remnants of the night mask from her face. She washes and curls her blonde hair, whose roots must be...
I tinkle far too often, especially now:
in coffee mugs, glass tumblers, beer cans,
soda bottles, brandy snifters, red solo cups
on my nightstand. Emptied eve...
He plops down a faded blue hardcover book
and says when he dies,
this has all we need to know.
This will tell you about the electronics and
engineering of...
I tell Becca’s boyfriend how when I was 9, I scratched my kneecaps much too hard, and ever since they have been bumpy and so sad. This will be our lil secret, t...
it’s some weird dream that i know is a dream and
the dream knows that i know that it’s a dream so
the dream is like falling and it’s like saying to myself
th...
The thing you hate is hidden in the grass. Is groaning. Wants a boy to rub the urge be urge
to suck it first then swallow. Every inch. Is snake in a box drum, ...
Pant
You only need one pair of pants. I know this because I’ve worn these pants for over seven hundred days; black sweatpants masquerading as jeans; flip up th...
I wait for my lover to text me.
I wait for the doctor to see me.
What am I able to build from his instructions?
I wish you were seeing someone,
because th...
The rain thrummed on the rusty red roof
while my mind wandered to the honeyed swaths
of mountains in small town Ukiah
where I will toil for the American drea...
Sitting with old retired men, men who have been very nice to me
Men who donate to charity, men who spend time in soup kitchens
But time has passed for them, a...
I feel like I have
so many
buried treasures
in my name.
They are all
the names
of kung fu movies
you begged me
to watch and I
greedy watched
without...
Do not land
All heroes spat
back out into orbit
Choking, my dust in their lungs
I ask no man to come
light up my caves
Another boot on my cheek
and I s...
i.
There is a place in Spain she tells me
a city built on top of itself and over again
like a Borges story
She tells me in excited confidence, like it's w...
Mountain Dew poured over
beautiful, crackling ice. Outside:
fog fog fog. Rain, sleet for days.
The valley is saturated, can take no more,
and I forget wha...
Entertaining so you don’t cry.
did you know every winter all the trees fall and grizzlies put them back up
it’s true
Grumpy and crunchy
Through the snow...
When I look at you I think revolutionary thoughts
like that people go home to their houses and are happy
eating dinner with the family they've always want...
The One Where I Miss the School Bus Because I Was Queuing for Food in a Poorly Run Convenient Store
The One Where I Miss the School Bus Because I Was Queuein...