the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

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

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

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.

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

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

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

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

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