Our English teacher continues
to pronounce cuisine “cue-zine.”
This is unacceptable. As punishment,
make him the queer who’s smeared
with basketballs, rage a supersonic
airplane booming in the gym.
Coach, unbelievably hairy, sleeps off
last night’s boozy hallucination. He forgets
to scream (life defines hilarity) as houses slide
down the hill and fill with mud.
An extraordinary array of imbeciles
streaks havoc across our tiny world—
the meanest flashes us from a diving board.
Gentlemen, start your boomerangs!
I speak a dialect unknown to these losers,
so who will understand my stammering?
Who will recognize what I find in the slush:
nature of magnificence, or puddle of piss?
your conservatoire
friends in the cavernous
dance studio. It’s my turn
to wear the purple
jumpsuit, to leap across
the chasm between now
and adventures untold.
Let’s forget about Seattle,
about Maine, whose futons
could not accommodate
our vision. Stand
on your hands, split
your legs, and go looking
for fish. I’ll watch
from this promontory
and sing jingles
about mass transportation.
Robust pink flowers
would change everything
in sight, if we could only find
the right arrangement.
More than I want
pretty, I want to collide soft
flesh with principled
architecture. Wait—
you can’t disappear
into the stupor
of late summer. Wake
up, find your eyes, spark
as the darkness consumes.
Relax. It will all end soon.
Don’t worry about the changing
seasons or the shifts of light.
The tides will never repeat
on this shore as sand melts away.
Some rift opens on the ocean floor
and I think, It’s time for lunch.
Gingham fabric in the picnic basket,
I reach for wine, red like my heart.
Water, moon, the stars far off,
etch larger arcs of the cosmos,
tracts of time we cannot fathom,
but that shape us, tug at us
like some old woman wanting us
to be better than we know.
The guy I wanted to fuck
lived near a prison three towns
from nowhere. In a scene smack
out of high school, too few cars
foiled our plans for sex. Nothing
went right for me back there, but
doh! the elevator door
shuts in my face. I’m going
down, the cleaning woman says,
my hand poised to slice open
the closing gap. Excessive
days demand a tornado—
never too imposing. Thunk,
subway turnstile takes my card,
and I’m surrounded: limbless
mannequin, wooden oar shined
with polish, and some looker
suited to boss. Jammed, I sit
close, press against him slightly.
Fun comes in a snatch, the train
jumps the track.
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