cheeks make ripe like rosehips. red bitten strawberry like the singing of lips, sleep dropping from hours
her guitar as our leader. the berries mounded
in a cut crystal dish, and the new moon cat-napping where no one can see her.
this dappled party the night that I met her among figures that shifted like fish among shadows.
long ago. now lost her face buried
a wish in a fountain.
for the baby coughed.
for the bearded man hugged his baby tight,
he already considered me lost.
for I maintained secrets under my bed
for my secret mooing troop of pee jars insisted
that
“you do not fit in here.”
now you’re getting it, Father Beards.
for I ruckused on your carpets
for your chubby monster threatens tears.
for now the bulb lamps cough
forsaking subtlety, in unison. for Beards is a sensitive
for nerves he tripped when he spoke.
“this doesn’t work.” he gentled.
“but I have no other ventures.”
lie. for nada. for I have hands
for trying on & drying lies like dried leaves, for make wallpaper for walls,
for dim head-houses are made home by pinup paper plans.
for fall is here, Beards, I’m out of pee.
for so I’m out
so I can stare out identityless windows at another familyless street.
for so at last we agree.
leaving home for the last time again.
I’ll stay strong away mom I swear
but abstain from telling him, pls, constrain
his anxieties for my warmth, smell&safety
bc maybe (for sure) maybe
as aug. disrobes her lady
sept. I’ll trot home again.
on accident he’s right, as always –
my place is w/ him
among mug-haze of dog-days
bc. he is mine, dog, my happynow friend.
and hidden in a book and snail-mailed to you. listen! remember old people die when earth bursts in springtime, remember peacen bathing in pinklight, unfurl, pearl, uncurl, until at last you were born? listen! this the cycle we wake to. listen! you perfect mortal who exhales the subconscious nonmelodic music of dreams and speaks forth the tentative, meditative rupture of spring-time. listen! I miss you rarely not rawly like the blue mists that dissipate in the promise of morning. I love too much. I take back touch to have your company safely at a distance. listen, with you at night I’d walk forever. forever is when we hit lake-water and our heads go under.
in ’97 superbowl denim even though “we lost that one,” quote dad, pondering a stuffed fridge at midnight I am happy to find him brother. he invites me to toast (glorious with honey embedded in its grains) and we jam. I drop a plate (ceramic ploop in the dog-bowl) he smear-shushes a giggle too late. mom erupts: sagged by her own anger: (her father is dying, her father is dying) I suppose that is my grandpa. (in the worst way, of confusion.) how we must appear to her: two overweight adults laughing over jam sieged by dishes. mom's an austere ice-skater w/ no spectators risking ankles whilst we gremlin the hockey stands and openmouth chew chew chew moviebutter popcorn and jam. she trembles: she accepts always the unfair time and what must be done and never has to check. inevitable midnight fight. she claims: murder if I sleep outside. “sleep under a hammer.” I sleep outside and outside trucks on the highway bellow and mourn to eachother, whales in the deep. (her father is dying) (her shoulder accepts pillow as she accepts snoring husband and nightmares of smothering water)
stubble-head trans girl summering on rollerblades w/ shades over her fishgutted eyes. presenting earnest palm open hoping for change and charitably charading a smile. other street creatures lurk dejected and slit-eyed. Kicking Mike and Art Paul talk love n bide time knowing her life worthless and so is mine. I shake my head. I give the same line: no change today, sorry. she expected no less. do I love her? yes and yes and yes and yes but she skates on to the other dispossessed and Art Paul throws her a buck. (the best of us). I have everything and nothing to give. forgive me, I am just waking up to cyclical accidents determinative of her pain and my birth, a mix-up of invisible neoliberal strings. fate? no. I go cook for my brother and pretend it’s for her, another happywhite lie. again I'm too late.
decomposing
here sucking down bad grass.
all the fat couples
and beagles waltz past
my front-porch fortress
at territorial
15-minute intervals
them sub-urban liberals politely not listening to
rancid coughing me. I am porching alone desiring
duality. funny bc already we are we:
she
moves cough talk
perform
I decide her, what to say.
talking girl opens doors
soberly
with bangs not in her eyes. the grass is bad
the grass is strong.
she I me
we see people in dresses
in the corners, where there aren’t.
avoiding all doors.
she thinks it helps.
speaking of. fuck this?
I am falling asleep? piss
ing on the crickets
give up
pull toes
under
the sheets.
safely mashing faces is better asleep, best if just one of us sleeps. I’ll go first. I dream. I conjure wet spiral snakes hatching from your pupils and from the tiny penis-hole like hi I wake. you are cracking eggs. and your breath is eggy and your eyes (I forgot?) are brown not blue flat at the back like a cat and also you don’t love me, did you mention?
am pretending I cleverly already knew that traveling is for data pure data and the storage of data. what is travel but? data in that pack of mine always stuffed with wrappers and papers rolling out into the street. which all streets look the same, there’s only one, she has habits of a pink dawn, rosy for no one, she finds me habitually lurking among round dogs under awnings among clouds of unspeakable steam- nearby a scream- the skateboarder eats shit, the scream was her friend, they’re laughing, am good, have forgotten myself again.
cdzhouse 