Nocturne

Already dusk, the geese, half wild, fade  from the lawn. We sit  near silence, our feet soaked. Heat hangs onto the night like fever  sweat in a blanket,  and stars  take place in the waning familiar.  It’s not that there’s nothing to say, we just  know better  by now. Tongues honed  on imagined accusation,  we hum  instead, feeling blindly  for the moment  harmony  settles into…

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Mond,

like    Mund,     or    mouth.    Something   that    widens   and    glows. Sometimes  you see me  like a planetary  affliction.  Body  that  pulls. But then you remember  I am just as  meat as  you are.  Waiting to be swung from the butcher’s hook.  Of another mutual mismanagement of  emotion.  Torn  skin, bitten  tongue.  A tooth swallowed spends its remaining time chewing oblivion,…

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“Galaxies” and “Notes on Art and the Implications of Executions”

Galaxies In art history I learned ghosts sneeze when they hover near paintings   The ectoplasmon their skin turns green   People tend to hoard seashells from abandoned beaches after spending an afternoon with me   We sit on the patio next to a building flocked with pigeonsand drink tea darkened with bourbon   I’m kidding   I’m sober now   Ravens are fantastic translators of human speech   After a day…

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At the Middle School Dance, all the Boys Circle up for the Crip Walk

Their shirts are blue and red,  striped and checked, the collars popped,  armpit seams untouched by antiperspirant. They are puppy-limbed and footed,  eyes wide and unshuttered as lighthouses. The music doesn’t matter:  Backstreet Boys, Bloodhound Gang,  radio-edit Eminem an arrhythmic heart-skip  of censored somethings. The boys take turns careening across the circle,  hips loose, ankles floppy, knees jerking in and out. The more daring snap…

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Ruminantia

My grandmother only calls me to complain about deer and their incomplete bodies. Her backyard gutters with fog, so they bother her piecemeal. On monday she finds antlers stitched into moss and forsythia. Or on thursday, two tongue-tails bound at the quick. She spends my birthday tallying hoofprints and occasional hooves. She cajoles me to return and collect them. I used to clean her yard…

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