Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

I have observed, the theorist
I am

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

I myself should never have been born

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

Any still figure at mid-late evening, when the long shadows make even crumbs appear arranged like furniture.

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

my father holds
his favorite drink

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

I am still waiting for the lion

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

I buy too much, for someone of my stature.
could pawn a skinny metaphor to purchase a plump skin.
its reputed in our lineage— to daydream a life that shreds our pockets.