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.

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

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

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

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

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

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

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

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

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

my love is a glass shard, a knife made of madness and moonlight,
and there are already way too many fragments in this house

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place