Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Sunrise Over 7-11

Every day the tarot reader puts on her pink bathrobe
and chain smokes on the sidewalk in front of her shop
with its neon sign in the shape of a palm.
Once a week she hires one of the homeless guys
who hangs out in the 7-11 parking lot
to sweep up the butts she’s tossed in the gutter.
One night we went to that 7-11 for emergency wine.
The woman behind the counter had red eyes
crazed with mascara and bright blue eye shadow.
She seemed frantic, and complained that once again
her replacement had not shown up for his shift.
You reached into the pocket of your purse
and took out a pair of plastic googly eyes
and put them on the counter for a tip.
The woman's eyes lit up and she broke into a grin.

The next morning I was woken up 
by the sun rising through the window
and you were there beside me, warm and real
I got up and closed the curtain 
and curled back up beside you

When I returned to the 7-11 that afternoon
the same worker was there again, or maybe she’d never left.
She was no longer wearing makeup
and didn't seem to recognize me.
As I left, there were no bums in the parking lot
and the neon hand in the window of the psychic
was still dark, even though
they should've opened hours before.
While you napped, heavy with hangover,
I stuck googly eyes on every bottle of pills 
in your medicine cabinet
then pulled the curtains open a crack,
just enough to peek out at the future.

Friday, January 25, 2019

Nuptials on a Variable-Message Sign

 I'm standing in the parking lot of the strip mall
wearing your wedding dress
listening to a corgi bark inside a locked station wagon
The clouds whip by like in a time-lapse film
Seagulls dive into the puddles of mouthwash
that dot the lumpy asphalt,
their beaks no longer reeking of anchovies
Across the street they’re clearing the field of stumps
to build another strip mall
even though this one is abandoned save
for a nail salon and a check cashing place
and a drive-through Wendy’s
The bridesmaids smoke behind the dumpsters,
occasionally removing their heads and swapping them
back and forth out of boredom.
The priest has arranged orange traffic cones
in the shape of a cross, though we asked him not to.
Days have passed and you still haven't shown up
I knew I shouldn't have lent you my tux
with the Houdini sleeves, chances are
you're still at home, struggling to get out the door,
trying to turn that milky glass doorknob with your teeth
while I gaze down at the concrete ring I bought you
with its huge hunk of 24 karat gravel
and absently pat the hand truck I bought
to help you wheel it around
our names engraved in flowering script
across the handle, mine intentionally misprinted
in a private joke which only one of us remembers
The bulldozers and backhoes rumble back and forth
across the street 
The years rumble past as well. 
The bridesmaids have gotten fat on Wendy’s 
and we buried the priest some time ago, there was no one
to say the eulogy
but that Corgi’s still yapping the back seat
of the station wagon, I don’t know how,
and I’m thinking I’m not going to get
that deposit back on the space beneath the underpass
we rented for the reception

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Seaside Sushi Lounge (Stick Pokes Eye)

Heading home after a day at the beach
My arms and legs stuck inside
the bento box of a car. My stomach feels encased
inside a cage of bargain basement samurai armor,
Japanese potato salad smeared across my lips
for the seagulls to kiss
Look, I don’t know why I can’t seem to
ever be happy, why I keep poking my eye
with this same stick,  the car only seems
to go in reverse, the hills are alive
with the sound of train brakes screeching
Memories of future wrecks,  my heart…
ah, fuck that thing, that chalky green lump
that wet folded pile of pickled regrets
pungent and greasy as my face I don’t care how much
you cry, I won’t lick your tears, won’t lick
the tree sap trickling down the crumbling
walls of bark, also fuck that guy back on the beach
squirting lighter fluid on the briquettes
and debris piled on the sand.
We stop in a souvenir stand at the base
of beautiful Clearcut Mountain,
pick up some tree stump air fresheners for gifts
Shuriken stuck in the forehead of a chainsawed Sasquatch
standing beside the highway on a bed of rice and pine needles
We squeeze through a tunnel only
to burst out the other side half digested,
dripping wet, marinating in our own juices,
sunspots on my tongue
Blades of light through the trees I keep trying
to roll down the window and shove my appendages
out so they can flap in the breeze can you
smell the seaside yet? Still? My tentacles
tie knots around your knees, ah fuck
the ocean breeze, I’m slathering on
the sunscreen, painting polka dots
on my cheeks, organs withered or
plump and slippery, never roasted just right,
why don’t you just go ahead and hurl that
tempura cookbook over the edge
of the lookout point where the couple slipped
while taking a selfie, everything’s bugging me and
I don’t know why, or probably I do and don’t
want to face it, ah fuck this sky,
this road, pull over here, wait
in the fucking car while I take a leak
against that tree trunk there, this time I’ll be careful
not to get any on my goddamn sneakers

Thursday, January 17, 2019


          I liked saying your name, swirling it around in my mouth, feeling its weight on my tongue. Liked gripping it gently between my teeth. The curtain of static parted to reveal you standing in front of the fireplace, flickering in and out of existence, looking at me like you were seeing me for the first time, like you had no idea who I was.

          I had no idea who I was. The fire crackled. The wind ruffled your bangs and you looked annoyed. Through the windshield, the earth was black and the sky was gray and it was all speckled with raindrops. Your thoughts hit me like a tractor trailer and knocked me to the carpet. The highway folded itself in half. The strings twanged hard but never snapped. You'd sliced your finger cutting collards and you held it up and I kissed the bandaged tip.

          Your finger was never bandaged. I never kissed it. I was on my knees my head pressed against your belly as you ran your fingers through my hair.

          A tropical zephyr ran its fingers through my hair. I was swimming through a forest of bleached coral. In Pompeii a buried filly clattered to her feet, trotted off through the rubble. I breathed in dread and breathed out anticipation. Out of the corner of your eye you glimpsed a Buddha sitting and smiling unperturbed beneath an avalanche of river rocks. The fire in the fireplace kept shrinking to a single glowing ember, you got down on your knees to breathe it back to life.

          You got down on your knees to breathe. Angels drifted in wobbly orbit at the farthest reaches of the solar system, hiding behind planetoids every time a spacecraft hurtled past. On the edge of a small town in Nebraska, a couple of guys cased cars in the parking lot, mincing between the silver puddles. My side split open and thousands of little clay figurines made in your image spilled out. When I tried to gather them up they turned to powder in my hands. I had no idea who you were.

          I had no idea who you were. It was like I was seeing you for the first time. You were running your hand along a windowsill covered with Mississippi sand dollars. A chalky lozenge melted under your tongue. Plate piled high with little corn husk bundles. Lemon rind peeled in a single piece, twisted strips of amber flypaper. You were on your knees looking up at me. I reached down and ran my fingers through your hair. The car stopped. I went through the windshield.

            The world went through the windshield. I don't know what happened after that.

         Years later there's the shattered hand, the splintered wound, the splint and the tape and the twine. As you recover you watch the the squirrels bouncing on their circuit from mimosa to rhododendron to corrugated shed to the house we once tore down to build another house from the same wooden planks, then back to the mimosa. The air is chewed to pieces by the symphony of chainsaws and lawnmowers in December. You watch it all through the dining room window, laptop on the table, laughing every time the squirrel almost misses a branch, as in the next room your teenage son dances with the vacuum cleaner.

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

White Circle

 A piece of chalk
to mark the path
between the pickup truck
and the porch steps,
to measure the distance
from the porch steps
to the straw mat

The wedding guests
wipe their shoes

Heavy lace curtains
A single bare nail driven
into the plaster

Dust on the floor too fine
for the corn broom to catch
Water burbling on the stove

Run your hand along
the smooth, solid bannister
Upstairs flutter of paper
The fathers bicker
as is their ritual

The bride’s thick braid
hangs between the parted blades
of a pair of garden shears
It hangs there a long time

A pail of very cold water
An empty clothesline
The guests shuffle their feet
Cough quietly into their clean sleeves

The chickens scratch in the dirt by the fence
clucking their incessant questions
The ax head buried deep in the block
has only one word with which
to answer them