one nightstand

one object cannot flank another object
one beard is not the world's beard
a bed on the floor doesn't allow for a tall table
  but a wooden box on which
to set earlymorning unmentionables
  or to obscure little desire-machines
  don't check my motor
  can I check my pockets?
give me your square teeth
  should I say hi to you?
sure, do it
  no no, nevermind
    don't say anything.
a bandana person
  save your scent to share
    get your neckblanket on me
to guzzle
   you through a nose & open drink mouth
I am pretending to smoke a cigarette
in the alleyway, back to the sun
  bc I want to think abt being naked, if you can imagine
  and the tight holds
handles of bones
  a spotted concave chest
    a long torso
      a maybe ugly
    a darling as darling as darling
instead of wandering, breaking everything
  shattering itall
    sparkle cuts allovertheplace
who needs furniture? we ask
  new orleans is on my to do, you said
  a given name? what give you me?
I'm really glad, you said
  we met
stay sweet, I said
  stay sweet, we said, and did
    I'll bet
from our low cushions
  and nightstands

sucker

I'm a fad

I'm a goosewhite

walk on the ice, little webbers

  rubber sticks rubber suctions

they swish the cold out, could

I'm a variable

I'm a water

    Molly Stoddard, you're my hero

 you're my baby

I am a graduate

magma cum laude

I'm a suckee

I get sucked out like you wouldn't think

 the empty water, a wash

 flash flood, freeze me

walk on me

   congratulations

I have hair for centuries

 to comb,

  to braid on the beach

   to look at under nightlit light

those veins musthave gushed

I'vent straw teeth

I'vent suckers on

I'vent reasons to dig

I'vent bloodlust thrustin

I've my own blood for guzzling

& mine's with the white fighters

& the murdering connivers

birdhouse bodies nesting

  near the ground of me

  settle in

  get your young down

  fluff in 4 life

I'm no cannibal, I'm a husky eye-ear-mouth haver

I'm no ear-mouth-haver

I'm a husk lover

I'm a fillyou-upper

I'm a 

let me in

  I'm a toogood

of

an idea

       to let you have

sadalone loser lol

I went to a babyshower on sunday, I walked in the backyard but the fiance had to lift the gate for me, I sat with my dad, he liked my shades, said, Very moviestar. He asked me how I was doing as he ate spinach and strawberries, salad on a stick. All of the women told him to eat everything, he was taking it down. I told him three things. I struck him within minutes of the babyshower, but I was guilty

I don't care that he knows these three things

he's my dad,

I guess he wants to know them

The punchbowl was right in front of us

I had been imagining this punchbowl all day, porcelain, with 8 tiny cups, crushed ice & berries & what my grandmother would call a nice blush to pour in

Small cups make many trips to the bowl so dad & I were interrupted and at one point instructed to Smile and look happy for a photo. What do you say but oh god and smile the only smile you know? Irony corners. Dad always has watery eyes, so might just look happy, not definitely teary. Poor dad. I'm sorry I have lain you on.

But he wasn't even invited! no men at showers. just guess how fat mom's uterus makes her with this ribbon of twine. I apparently know not the width of a pregnant woman, I lost desperately

He just stopped by to say hi & was instructed to Eat EAT EAAAATTTT

so sorry, I sat down & wear it on my face, three things

I tried to get the punch down but the berries were froze, not for teeth

I didn't have any of that cake

  but no one did save for the pregnant woman and the bride

shone me something

squinty little eyes on the shine, in that shine. 

my face is turning, growing into something

it's a little destruction planet. 

I blow out my teeth with my words

the words trip out my throat & 

the words tongue my tongue.

the sun tongues me

and my teeth explode 

and I gum the words for the rest of time

and there are palatal licks of sound

and alveolar outbursts

and labial laments.

but those dentals be damned, a toothless attempt

at getting across any desperate points

metalepsis

So all that's left is the voiceless acceptance

the gutterally giving in

the fricitive finality.

Take my words but

spare my sight. I want to die with memories in me

of the very things words don't do

glitter

glow

gush

weep

words might, but sight happens better,

how would they ever catch up

we listened to yo la tango, remember them?

He will bring all of the candles

he said chocolate helps, jsyk

and she bought a bag of tiny tangerines, 

and I can see myself diving right into them

like when Amanda opened that tiny clementine

and she told me to look at its puffy section

like a little slug on her leaf hand

and its shell 

its pith a neon orange baby foam

and I put it between the rows of my teeth

and I teethed
and I teethed
all night

when I was 18 I listened to yo la tango a lot

in the tall dark dormroom

and I festered

(I asked you yesterday, as if this is a question, what do I do now

and you said,

wait

wait, and brood

and I said how can you wait for nothing?)

when I was 18 listening to yo la tango

I knew what I was doing

but I used to sleep till 4, when it would get midwestern scyscraper village dark

and now I am up at 4, before it is grey spring western light out

and I am very aware of the mountains,

big fool rocks

the continental divide

the crying light where the tears flow down east or west

and some get to your rivers, and some get to mine.

Maggie Nelson said something about waking up with your weeping, don't write me anymore to tell me about it

because she knows you're so in love with your weeping

or something like that.

And maybe you truly are

but I truly am not

I am not the type anymore

when I was 18 

I would scream into the bedclothes

I would rip & sob & cling & claw at my smoke hair

and my young face

and I couldn't now scream on the patio, in the livingroom, into the couch clothes

and throw up the young foam

my young brain foam

as my throat makes a sieve for it

and its goop pushes out, around, tries through the cheesecloth

to be swallowed, into the mash bod

or to be vomited

in bubbles & sobs

See now I'm 28,

going on 29

in about 20 days, I guess

so my brain is still there, it found my head again eventually

and my heart crawled back

slunk back, eyes downturned, embarassed,

out from where my bean stomach lives in struggles

and all of the organs 

fell back asleep

in their gooey cradles

what I did

I smoked them all. I castrated them

When I lived with joey he told me about the time he went to a montana ranch

and he was superexcited, because on this ranch 

of course

there would be cowboys, so many

beautiful, beautiful cowboys

in denims

with lassos

& hats

& dust boots

& pockets clinging

and I totally got what he meant

But instead he was with beerbellied rednecks

with the straw in their teeth like it says

& the minimal views on the great wide sky.

The only projectors out there, have you even seen Big Sky Country?

And he had to wrangle the calves, the wriggly knees & thick lanky bones

& hold them tightly

& hold them so

and catch their bloods

& be a teen with them

but a teen with a man promise, but to be a man in this country

was nt that 

brokeback mountain promise 

at all

i swear a mourning dove lives beneath the awning

today I'm like the actor in monochrome when the movie is like heavy

like saturated reds & greens, that kind of movie

way newer than technicolor, but still the thick dense 8mm sort

that thickworld

& I'm the one with the umbrella, but it isn't raining

so the other actors walk around me down the streets,

avoiding me because

umbrellas always have those sharp stabbers when the rubber things fall off

which I think always they do,

and it's even worse, doing this, because

I've always hated umbrellas.

I've always thought

so I will be wet

so my hair will be fuzzy

so my eyes will tear up

so my coat darkens.

but the rain on a face,

nice, nice

nice

nice

& the other actors mill about avoiding

but they're uncertain, mostly, why don't I see the sun &

the saturated red & green?

but I mean, they're just actors so probably they aren't thinking that at all.

it's really hard to tell, I mean

impossible to tell

what the others

could possibly be thinking

it's okay because I won't stop thinking of what others could possibly be thinking

and what they would think if I told them what I was thinking

or even would they think anything at all.

I had this box of coffee which mostly just spilled onto the floor of my car.

I had a beer in a jar.

I went to the thrift store, and there was an ad on the radio about how boise interior design & co or something supports the christian radio station

what was it

not the teachings

not the services

oh, oh

the duty

yeah, the duty. doing a duty deed

& so in the spirit of it all I bought a child's forest camo tee

like the kind with the leaves

& the branches

& I paid a man drinking a sprite

and he sort of stood there for a second, I think deciding what to do with this sprite in his hand

so he settled on setting it down. He had a superlow voice

& this steady uncertain movement

of a recent believer, or a recent exsmoker, or a recently having been given-birth-to, again

and he said: with fondness, & a struggling sentimental: I'll bet this is for your little boy, isn't it

and I almost lied

no

I said I don't have any children

& he looked me over

and he said, oh, I see, you're small

did he say small bodied?

I left because the beer in the jar was getting warm

& I had looked in the mirror

& my clothes were so drab

so like end of summer, hating on early fall because it will become winter so can't look at the

pretty present

but instead at the sad torturous months ahead, sad futures

it's that sort of outfit

but I'm not that sort of girl

I don't hang in the treacherous promise future

I hang with the heart in my chest kind of present

my brain

my bod

my chipped teeth

they are good for tearing flesh

they are good

for caring

caring flesh

& this morning

& right now

I hear the low moan of a mourning dove, and it sounds so close I think it just must be tucked under that stupid stripe-ed awning

which is pretty nice

it's pretty nice