At the fire station

Curious George wields the apocalyptic trumpet with his ringing bell,

clang-a-clang singing up from the pages and whirling wind around

in all of the hemispheres. Demarcation--done, doubly down with what

separates us from each other, the page, the thought of ending too easily

like a book. We cry as we turn the pages, our hands shaking, we beg

aloud all of the gods to leave the bell unrung, curiosity canceled, my life.

Check out my poem...

...in the Superstition Review!

Anxious Poem

My heart is a wilderness soon to be rent asunder,

top to bottom, and with what can I sew it together?

I don’t recognize anything here, not even my hands

with my little blue star tattoo—it’s winking maybe

not at, but through me, past all of the animal noises

of stars, reaching the firmament with its winkiness.

I run my hands over myself, I try to feel where

the rest of me should be in relation to my heart.

God, I’m so confused. I am open upon the table

and there are bits of me in pans around the room.

I breathe but am not there, beating but unaware.

Don’t let them undo what I’ve tried so hard to keep.

Don’t let them steal my heart while I’m not there,

don’t let me wake up, finding myself put into order.

The Wolves, III

Last winter, the one came in a top hat,

snarling with all the tact of a mortician.

I have not forgotten his paw, black, spotted with stars

and hairy—he bade me kiss it, and I could feel the clotted

dirt on my lips, the polish of his black nails. Wolves,

I murmur. They wanted to be left alone. Then

they just wanted. And that was all it took. The sheen

of their thousands on the horizon, their bodies forming

a curve of silver light. The emissaries in monocles,

talking about the latest Badger installation in Vale 5.

I listened endlessly, tape-recorder in hand, tempoing

their whimps and snaps and growls into a language.

Please, I whimpered, last time they came. Please, let me

stay. They made me pluck out my eyes for them to eat.

I was the first to travel their new territory, riding

along their spines in the darkest dark, guided by the feel

of their matted backs, the undulating fur beneath me.

All around, their transmissions howled like reentry.

Insulting poem to myself when I’m sick

You got a sick nose there chap all snot

and swamp donkey in the face and frot

with yourself into the long-ended night

whatcha gonna do when you’re better

you gonna charge daylight full on fraught

with nothing but the body and its fault

you can’t become air and waft my way

you reek of bacteria and there’s the face

to worry about still, heehaw and the like

Too long were you gone

Too long were you gone from the shore

of your land you can’t take yourself back

the pines too thick and dark/night closes

into you how long have you been gone

deep in the world’s waters how long

will you remain/you clung to your doubts

rafting in how they know you and you them

it would be so peaceful to drift forever away

from what you are/you might drown

you realize there was a point when you wanted this

Untitled

Not just like but love spilling coriander like
into luscious mouths however you see them
you would choke on it even though it smells

so lovely and lovelier still to liken it so to spice
but likelier to try over and over again to feel
something preferably something to taste as well

as feel like being inside the other or him in you
biting the skin which gives into you like nothing
else had before you love him and you cannot

keep it from ending eventually like even suns
who can never love like you love must end why
can’t you accept it and just love like uncaring