Poetry

We stack wafers the length of our arms
in half-hour rotations, inspect the chocolate coats.
You’ve eaten a Kit Kat before-—at least
you’ve seen them on newsstands next to gum,
but this isn’t about the finished product.
This is about the factory...

The peonies are popping! A fist that is also a kettle that is also
A pact petals made with whatever cabal of bees decides to stick

Around. Let’s all us shake on it. Ah, these lungs of mine the perfect
Emergency orange of extension cord coil...

go ahead tread on me
see if I care I am already
unhuggable as a cactus
and too big to fit on any
lap keep your excuses
short or better yet keep
them to yourself any

I was asked to show up with a side dish. I made
A slaw of my longing. I had to keep it crisp. Nothing goes

Bad in a backyard, if you catch my drift. In a
Backyard everything is available like a catalog

and of course he’s beautiful         
goosebumps over his ribs 
like tiny fists under a thin sheet     the sheet
all mudwet and taste of walnut 

Hmong people say one’s spirit can run off,
Go into hiding underground.

Only the physical stays behind.

Dear friend, dear fearless        reader, dear soft spot, dear        drummer’s
Backstage sweat-soaked T-shirt        kiss, dear one                  sweet     world-without

-End, dear if you             find this, dear feckless, damned...

your name for purposes of identification

how can I when it’s failed

better a border made of water

harder to cross

each seed is different

like each tongue

how many heads

was the right question to ask

In the penumbra of an oak under sculpted
Moonlight, we pile the last waking hours

On our faces, breathe the wilderness of dry
Heat waiting for fall ventilations. It feels

The man used to walk four miles a day, 
two hours at first, less as he got stronger 
and thinner, to defy the sense of rules that dictates 
higher challenges as the ability climbs. Rebel 
mind in a rebel body. Not even Plato’s