Tagged: the Body

Orion

If you lay in snow
and I lay in snow
even with the same moon
as headboard, the electricity
wouldn’t travel, the water
too densely packed
I feel that way today
both in our underwear
separately, in the city
you walking from Planned Parenthood
to yoga, me having worn
the wrong clothes to work
now bathing in the spillway
we have no gas for water
we named a cat Fuel
each man presents
his best self, the
6-month awoken blood stem
you unlock something in me, he says
it was not there before
you make me want to be a better man
a star falls on the roof
of the Whole Foods
by definition not that great
of a star, but close
men burn their tongues
try to recall
what they were doing before
just to have you say it
have you pull it out
the long steel draw
approachable temperature
a star just being friendly
holding it
lighting their eyes
but stars are forever away
maybe they have already died

Harvey

the cab drivers
pull into gas stations, enticed
by the light of zeros
such brightness
meaning nothing, all out

I pick oil off the water
I pick oil
there is always some left
at the bottom, or
stripped up the sides
fucked and left stranded
like the coast
its beautiful lazy
endless versions

I’m trying, but each time
fucking is like flying – There is
more or you die
there is oil
it makes boats of birds
I flap

What could happen any minute
and the minutes lost
probably off somewhere
the drive up coast
its bolted down furniture
no walls
or else these paper thin ones

tonight I dreamt a jaguar
too hungry to hunt, was drowned
by the heron
lifted away and
eaten someplace quiet
on the rocks

down the hallway
until the heron was stretched full
of hair and bone
holding its gut
sloshed to sleep by the moon
her great blue stomach
the sea

The World is a Joke but Still

short term
photographic
memory loss

your face, infrequent
by his hands
because your body

a poem finds
the bathroom
in the dark

a narrow victory
a game won
of its own making

then ignored, another
game created
before the last has ended

imagine
being made to carry
your winnings

would you ever win?
save it
for the end

the big stuffed air
the face-sized
balloon faces

the world is a joke
& still, he
wants to fuck like

it’s serious
the world is a joke
learning to tell itself

knock knock
himself
at the door

pounding, afraid
being just him
is the secret

a punch line, or
in this case
a name

there was something
great he
was going to say

something important
he thinks
long & hard

before he speaks

Its Parallel Existence

Formerly of love appears
on grainy 90s television
She takes down my shorts by the pool
Her mouth is full of ice, if I remember, or
I tried to run

I remember my first kiss. I wiped it away
I remember I peed on a girl’s foot in line
to the diving board. If I saw her today, I’d maintain

it was dripping water, formerly
of ice, that it was unseasonably cold that day
not too cold

               Snow untwisted from the curtain
Duck, dinosaur, contagion fused together
We had to get out of the pool
There is no end, it seems, to these
lines that never touch

Infinite Divisibility

maybe we adopt
a highway first
pluck the hairs off its back
spray poison
on the cans as folks
drive dead
down the middle of us
ignoring signs
of what to ask, when
& how come
our trash bags, our rival
lemonade stands
freshly squeezed
piles of request
husks of yellow wanting
shimmering in the sun
ants lubricated. is there
a little bit of juice left
in everything?
like a theory of things
cut in half forever. like
half of us is still here
in each of us, even
if we can’t see it
even if we hate each other
seeing us like this
the objects, the objective
literally broken
a man pulls over
& asks for a glass of milk
we both feel bad
for not having any
we give directions, but
neither of us has been
past this point
the grass unkempt
& green on either side
hiding the mile markers
at the number of times
I have had sex with you
& you have had sex
with me

When You Ask Right After If I Am Happy

sometimes when I look in your eyes I am
measuring the distance between your eyes
to see if you can be swallowed

I am enticing your outline to stuff its way
through my body. your head first, then
your shoulders making a wingspan of ribs

your middle and hips go easier – a struggling
crane becomes the air inside it, the water
inside a person

you are both obviously there, and not there
in a way that seems to suit me. do I suit you?
I am all around you, yet I move so little

the animal comes closest to enjoying its life
in these moments, after it is fed, when
it does not have to think about eating

Health Class

in health class we were taught
the respectful way
to sit in a room full of
desks that face each other. still,
the boys would race
to the front row to see
which of the girls wasn’t
wearing any panties, which
hadn’t folded their legs,
which had hemmed
their jean shorts
shorter

boys,
are we chasing girls?
or chasing the first boy?

that year
a man in a flowered shirt came
he put a condom on a carrot
the carrot was sharp, but it
did not break the condom
i remember thinking
it could not have been
his first choice vegetable