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

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

He has stories that I am not in
anymore. It’s healed this way.

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.

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 would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.