ritual

i'm sitting in the ribcage of a dying party
listening to the labored breathing of
what's left of the warm hum of conversation.

disorderly regiments of empty beer cans
reflect the dim light of the room. a girl
is sitting alone in the corner, not far from

a slow-spreading lake of alcohol on the
hardwood floor. everything is slow dancing
and my limbs are a hot, liquid metal.

words exist, but stumble from my mouth
like regulars out of a bar, falling, rolling
and clinging to each other in the gutter.

floating in my chair, i know that i will never
talk to her, if she even exists. i'm contented
by my paralysis and the stillness in my head.

she is a ghost and she is beautiful
and she is impossibly far away.

 

hard break

last night i dreamt she'd thrown me out
of the car as it was flying down the highway.

something had exploded the moon, and pieces
of it littered the sides of the road, shining, white

freckles of it scattered and glowing in the black
of the trees so that everything, the night above,

the forests on either side, and the reflective panels
in the asphalt -- all of it looked like a starry sky.

i picked myself off the pavement, shook off the
moondust and started running in the direction

that her car had continued. the corpses of roadkill
reanimated as i passed, and skeletal deer and

groundhogs with loosened flesh lumbered after me.
it didn't worry me until they started talking.

you're in the wrong lane. you shouldn't be running
in the middle of the highway. cut your hair.

a flattened squirrel asked why are you naked? and
i paused. it didn't matter. i couldn't afford to stop. i started

again, running very nude, the air's sweaty hands molesting.
i can never seem to walk in dreams, at least not with

any kind of dignity. the air was still ripe with the smell
of burning rubber and of her. i sneezed, and it leveled

all the trees in the forest, sent the dead animals flying,
and ripped the long, white lines off of the highway.

i watched them all float out of sight, swallowed by the space
between the stars ahead of me, beneath me, and around me.

for a moment i thought i saw those two hell-red eyes
of her tail lights smoldering in the distance, thought

i heard the low grumbling of her engine as it revved
and raced to see god, or disney world, or to find a man to

really, honestly, truly love her. i was preoccupied
with eyes and distances. i stopped running and sat down.

someone pinched the wicks off the stars, and all the pieces
of moon faded to coal. i heard her crying before i woke up.

 

marriage is

killing a spider
hanging inches in front
of your window
as your wife screams

kill that motherfucker.
that is the biggest
goddamn thing
i've ever seen.

and you'll plead
that it's just a spider
and that it won't come
inside to hurt her,

but she's already thrusting
one of your old shoes
into your hand, saying
squash it with this

and you'll take the shoe,
its sole worn thin,
its off-white turned green
from years of yard work,

and you'll walk outside,
stand between the rose bush
and the overgrown hedge
and look at the web.

the spider looks back at you,
knowing, small hands waving,
beckoning your firm hand forward,
hungry for its karmic retribution

where he will be reborn a lion,
and you an antelope
on an african plain
that you'd read about that morning.

with its legs twitching and writhing
against the window pane,
its smear of a body likely still
smiling as it dreams dreams of

days spent lounging under a hot sun,
your carcass set before it, the flies
buzzarding around the pools of your blood,
and the spiders building webs to catch the flies.

you walk back inside, holding the shoe
reverently, as if it were
the gun of a fallen war hero
that killed hundreds.

you lie down to bed with your wife.
the night is warm with the sound of
crickets and neighborhood dogs barking
and the distant roar of lions.

 

Testing

Unblinking, the dummy will be strapped in,
and, with plastic hands mockingly placed on the wheel,
will find himself surviving
hundreds of carefully choreographed accidents.

As the car's engine warms up and the video cameras begin to roll,
does he know? Blind, he shouldn't be driving;
but maybe he's just closing his eyes,
imagining a polystyrene partner in the passenger seat
and two small dummies playing games in the back.

They've planned a picnic. Of course, at the beach.
He's had a rough year at work –– needs a break.
The warm ocean breeze picks up speed,
pneumatic hisses, like the squalls of seagulls,
the nauseating rush before falling into the clear, deep
glass.


Maybe, as they're dusting him off and reattaching limbs,
he, unflinching, remembers why
he wouldn't wish this life on others.

Still, those few moments at the beach with a family:
the stern words with the kids,
the wife's hair blowing, salty.

Maybe he looks forward to it.

 

queen

on steady ant legs, the last of the small betrayals
slides through a crack in the kitchen wall,
white crumbs of trust borne by powerful mandibles;
a stream of dim lights flowing into the corner of a marquee.

 

carousel

the brass house key lying on the kitchen table
remembering the heat from her hands

 

parable

she always keeps
the room dark,
calls it her “cave.”

i am perfectly still
as i watch her
dangle the mouse by its tail.

a pair of iridescent eyes
patiently trace the descent
from below.

the blur of fangs,
a whip crack,
and the shuffling of wood chips.

the mouse convulses,
mouths an unheard scream,
and then is still.

jaws unhinge to accommodate
the meal, sliding, still alive,
into a warm, black space.

i can barely see her
smiling at me
in the dimly lit room;

smiling at her mouse.

 

Endless

The ceiling pulls itself closer in my room
and the moonlight abscess casts a blue
hue on every cold corner, the stars
leaning in to look through the window, eyes
following the spinning, hissing record
in circles, hands marching around my watch.

The T.V. is dead but there's plenty to watch
through the window of my warm room,
friction from the slow, steady grind of the record.
Sunlight snakes in to rest atop the blue
sheets on the bed and cautiously eyes
the approaching dusk and its menagerie of stars.

They arrive on tired wings, and these new stars
count the small notches on my watch,
the fatigue of their flight weighs heavily on their dark eyes.
The final scales of sunlight slither into another room,
forked tongues flicking, tasting for the blue,
hissing in tune with the needle on the record.

Something falls and breaks, skips the record
and startles the feathered sleep of the stars,
their brittle wings twitch in anticipation of the soft blue
horizon crawling out of the hills. They watch
me quietly from their perches around the room,
a pleading for rest beating against the backs of their black eyes.

I can't get them out of my head, those eyes, her eyes, my eyes.
I maintain the circadian rhythm through flipping the same record
and pacing from end to end of the narrow, shrinking room.
Maybe the music helps lessen the weight of these stars
as they spread softly sparkling wings and wearily watch
as the fierce serpents of light snake through thin blinds from the blue.

I almost remember where she lay on the bed, her mood as blue
as that impatient morning sky, as ocean-distant, ocean-deep as her eyes.
I almost remember where I sat, maybe across the room, to watch
her as she woke to the sound of the needle being replaced on the record,
the dust from the celestial, crystalline wings of the departed stars,
like dew, clinging to every surface in the warming, narrow room.

I can't leave this room until the fading blue
welcomes back those stars with their timeless, tired eyes
to listen to my record and read the small, white hands of my watch.

 

Temptation

He steps onto the elevator
and she's already standing in the corner,
leaning on her hands.

He presses "8"
and falls into the opposite wall,
eyes rolling around
on the dirty tile floor.

The ill florescence flickers on
peeling, fake wood paneling.
He feels her watching,
can no more deny
the weight of her gaze
any more than he can
the small, steady pull
at the soles of his feet.

He stoops to pick up his eyes
with shaking hands.
He slowly wipes them on his grey shirt
before dropping them in his jeans pocket.

She starts to hum his favorite song
as he hurries out the still-opening door
onto steady ground.

 

Holiday

I wake up on the ceiling and fall downstairs
to find her in the kitchen.

She calls me a "cunt"
and glares down into her coffee.

The ill-fitting insult slides off me
and into my drink.

I take a sip, hoping to find it again,
to feel its heat.

Her eyes are swimming in her mug ––
I wish I could fish them out with a fork,

set them on the table next to my cold eggs,
newspaper, and toast.

I would take off work to sit there, all day,
and admire the burning cities inside them.