He plucked a raspberry and perched the open end
on his pinky tip, a drop of juice-blood caught on his tongue.

It was the sexiest movement I’d seen in years—
this language I couldn’t speak.

I felt at home in my mixed metaphor
that he might read years later, when I’m far, far away.

For those who drink day-old coffee, microwaved and gone cold again,
and still think it tastes good, and for those in the neighbourhood who get used
to the crazy guy who pounds the punching bag on the porch everyday after lunch,
and for those who appreciate the fine subtleties of a run-on sentence while
being sticklers to good grammar when the time is right, and for those who let people
talk at them while smiling while thinking about the consequences of premeditated
murder or if it would even be considered that or rather a crime of passion
or even temporary insanity (though that usually doesn’t fly unless you cannibalize
the “victim), and for those who read every single page of People and so yes
it does take more than an hour to get through it maybe even almost two,

For those pick up a phone, put down the phone, walk aw...pick up the phone, dial three numbers, hang it up, pick it up, put it back, pick it up, throw it on the bed (who wants to break a perfectly good phone?), hide in the deepest darkest tiniest piece of wall
in the closet, stay there for a while hoping someone will come find you but no one ever
will, so you come out and then go down to eat with the rest of them,

here’s a comma, parenthesis, period, and a poem for you.

taken by a single petal fallen and swooshed under
the clawed foot of a heat machine from yesterday,
before any of us were born,
at first, we stooped to look for some doll head gone astray,
out from our palms, kept rolling and rolling,
but then to feel the crackle of something that used to live,
something small but scary because we didn't know
what it could be or how it might bite us,
but there,
it was,
brown with a little spit of pink,
curled stiff, like when people die and their eyes stay open,
and so it was
the doll head stayed gone.

They got little stomachs,
but I think they can stomach more.
Especially the one and lonely slug.
They eat and hide and poop and sleep,
and when they think to do it, they have babies—
Mom said, pretty much just like us. And they have just one lung.

So they have to be “fishent,” that’s what Mom said,
but I don’t get what fish have to do with snails.
Except some snails live in the ocean,
and some snails eat fish,
cuz I saw it in a book
and thought how come the man taking the picture
didn’t save the fish and just let it be eaten
by the snail.

But Mom said that’s the thing about life that’s not ours—
we can watch and take pictures but not mess with it,
or at least, not hurt anyone if we do.

Today, I stole a glance down into an imagined blackness
delivered by the grace of god. When I see the weight—
only feel it carry to an end I can’t know—
my palms moisten and tingle,
like when I was the magic age of 8 and the doctor waited
on the other side. To not know if the ink still flows is one thing.
To not know what the lines make is another.

I couldn’t watch where I was going because someone wanted me to look far ahead. I couldn’t see the grid in front of me, cemented there to keep me in check with my fair-weather line, only the next word to come after this one, until I manage to trip off the edge.

warm up my bitters
with thick coffee blacker than black,
poorly filtered, grounds filling teeth cracks,
bleeding gums. Grounds stick to feet,
gravelly soles. I brush them off,
one populace at a time,
back to where they don’t belong,
seething.

Scars itch. Half of me
quartered—slab of meat with legs.
I wash off the blood.

Quick Picks are the Buddhism of gambling small change.
When do meaning and intent ever win big happy accidents?
It’s when you forget you’re lacking when you get so much,
the fat check on the doorstep,
the flower in the parched crack,
the time to wonder how much you really have.

You left me drowning on the cold hard ground,
water outside, inside lungs, then, pushed further
down. I’ve learned to swim each night,
laps to live
without you. Maybe it’s cuz you yourself
were never taught to swim in waters too deep,
black spots where toes can’t brush,
where you have to find peace with the feeling of
if you stop treading at all,
you’ll just sink, heavy, like the weight on your shoulders
so tense you can let go,
but you must.
No one will pull you out from the middle,
least of all, yourself.

jagged fingernail
snags the corner of my eye.
pierced, and pierced again.

I propositioned him, told him to meet me behind the
(. He game me his &, my tongue flicking the top of his “oh...”
I felt good to be put into such a comma, a well-hung quote.

My breasts rose and fell with each breathless run-on, each
fragment,
each trigger-happy cliché. He knew where to put his hand next—
right on the tip, in time to push the I,
faded from the key.

“Step on a crack...”
I never got games of guilt.
My balance. Her back.

Tails on a Head

I always tried for the perfect part,
to create a geographer’s hemisphere
right down my scalp, ponytails in
orbit, in alignment for gravitational
cuteness. Even with two mirrors and two brushes,
I ended up crooked,
a lopsided galaxy more stubborn than myself.

* * *

Beligion

two bells to the south
one clap to the east, three times.
kneeling feels so good.

* * *

Butter

One hundred days
of swapping time,
deep-fried pasts crisped
and fattened in melted salted butter,
yesterday in beurre blanc.

We wonder why we have softened middles
all of a sudden,
from whence they came?

I’m waiting for a letter that only comes in my head, full of apologies I would say if I were you, or endearments, or pleas, but never an end or a sigh,

like when you take the milk jug out of the fridge, even though there’s just half a gulp left, and your pleasant voice is mechanical and strained,

and I might ask you if something is wrong, but you’d say nothing,
and I knew that was coming

like the dream I had last night, when I drew you a picture full of glitter and metallic marker lines, nice to the eye, and you were too busy, but when you finally noticed,

that’s when you became my father, and not my husband anymore,
just someone who noticed that I was standing there.

When words become little jewels sparkling
on the page, they’re not anyone’s anymore.

To be found is to be independent,
to never be truly grasped in a sweaty greedy
piggy palm. To clutch
is to let go again
eventually with intent.

my shadow is a flattering size—
skinny, tall, posture-perfect.
completely dry on this hot day.
no sweat.
she doesn’t burn, cry, or get sick.
the only thing she does the same as me,
maybe even better,
is fall.
but mainly, she goes away.

Rusted pipe trying
to eke it out among the weeds,
civil in the wild.

A stranger naps on the couch in this house for friends.
Is he calmed by my scribbling and scratching, like
tinkling bells and chimes, or is that thought
not within the reaches of friendship? Does this stranger
know about endurance?

Footsteps descend on the stairs.

The stranger points a finger.

shhh.

We are thus accused.

He tried to teach me the calculus of rapture and amnesia,
a series of symbols that faded out at the bottom
of the page. Before I knew it, the eraser wore down,
one nibble at a time. I couldn’t get the equation
to equate.

“Put down the pencil.”

Hands folded, eyes closed.

The sound came to me, the sound of making sense,
then none at all.