the letters flatten themselves into lines
curl in and out of the gaps between her teeth
they are her only line of defense, but she can not
get her tongue to hold them still
she cannot pull the paragraphs from
their hiding place in the back of her throat
her responses bounce like pinballs
against gray blocks of speech

he does not see the battle taking place
all he knows is that she isn’t taking this well
has lost her natural eloquence, and this frustrates him
he becomes deliberately obtuse
pretending not to understand because
she can not articulate the words of acceptance
undulating through her mouth
spinning like laundry in a dryer
she is not helping matters any, he thinks
she’s making it harder on herself than it has to be

eventually he turns and walks away
leaving her standing there
while the words reassemble themselves in the air
already learning to fill his absence

Oranges
   for Alicia

Paradoxically, they were purple,
or ironically.
Still, it was enough that his palm
could barely find
purchase on the surface, deeply
nippled, promising liquid

as endless and consistent as if he
had been drinking it
through a straw.  He drank the
nectar of predictability --
it was necessary for him to
believe that, even if it was the wrong color,

a carton of juice on the
supermarket shelf would always
taste the same.
She handed over the fruit like the
implements of a closely guarded
secret,
the only magic beans ever to
exist.  He wasn’t sure if he
should plant them

or protect them or eat them or
just slip his tongue over her lips,
so he did.  This was in response
to a question
she had posed, and his answer
left her unsatisfied.

She knew there was no point in
making the point
that it is impossible to find a
rhyme, but he
insisted on trying, which led
irrevocably to the juggling.

She tossed three oranges: true
lavender, the royal purple of dye,
the deep near-black of twilight.
He was confused
by her reaction, but knew that he
should

take advantage of perhaps the
only surreal moment,
the only truly and thoroughly
surreal one,
that he would ever allow himself.
She stopped

abruptly, tasting nothing
when she ran her tongue over her teeth
except a surprising bitterness,
and a shocking sweetness.

"That’s the advantage of being a
writer in the twenty
first century," she told him.
"You can write about oranges
any time you want to."
 
 
 

Voulez Vous
     for bcm

when she decided to pray
to grab the bowling balls and slam them into her hungry sockets
when she decided to wish for you
she throws herself on the cake
purifying herself with birthday candles
that woman would let you
cup her throat with your hand
(overwhelmed, unable to help itself)
on the road to Canterbury
she would trust you to refrain from peeling away her skin
although she would do that too, if you ever thought to ask
she went on bare feet, on pilgrimage in search of you
(who sat staring at her the whole way there and back)
she imagined you sleeping in her lap, with your head
in a bucket of bleach until you turned transparent
and she could poke at the kernel of your brain
with persistent whispers, that sly honesty
in her brain, when the goldfish moved out

termites moved in
they only stop digging when she is on her knees
which she would do for you, for many reasons
if you would permit it or it became necessary to beg
she closes her eyes and swallows
swords, arrows, knives, thin steel wires
she impales herself on anything that reminds her of you
(she had it all planned
 tattooed the soles of her feet until she could walk in acid)
she does not believe in plain speech
she has this strange religion

In dreams, she tightens the ropes and her fists fall off, she
caresses your cheeks with her feet, her tongue, she
straddles you on the floor and pours herself in through your mouth
until parts of her are sweating from your pores like ice water

she wonders if you would mind taking her clothes and contrition off
(she decided to need you, but it is too late for everything)
you have already forgotten the time
you let her swallow you whole and she spent all those years digesting
or the electric bed you were executed on -
her bed - the plasma red flowers you used to buy her

she swallowed cigarettes, razor blades to get you out
but you  took up residence and would not be evicted
now you claw the flesh, planning your escape

she saved your tears in cola bottles, drinks them like arsenic
they would corrode her mouth if you were not sincere
but they dance down her throat like wine and she tastes
years of asking (why not) (why)
 
can’t you recall
the heart like fruit you handed her on a skewer
she saved it until it withered, shriveled, shrank
grew bitter
she eats it - a maroon raisin -
you surrendered it yourself
before she was capable of wrapping it carefully in cotton,
or spider webs, her own skin
she kept it on a revolving display
and it slowly spun

some part of her was urgent
warning that this ragged organ
would become her greatest regret
she recalls it clearly now - but then?
it was not her own regret she was thinking of.

Domestic Scene

He says he treats me like
an egg.

He means careful,
but fists
aren’t.

With a combat boot
he beats the puppy
for knocking over
the pancake batter.

He is at war
with the rug and the silverware,
crouches on chairs in a preemptive
attack. He trained me
to be suspicious.
I look at Budweiser,
accusatory.

As I clean the blood
off her fur I say, I know
exactly why we deserve this:
because we stay.

I could get
us both out of here
any time I want,
but he knows too much.

He knows
as long as you apply pressure
equally on all sides,
an egg will never break.

The Taco Bell Manifesto

I am not afraid of the name brand
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

I appreciate the guacamole and the hot sauce
there is an El Torito around the corner, but I am not allowed to go there
my order comes to eighty seven cents
I demand a Diet Pepsi in the name of Martin Scorcese
I point out that I am pointless
I make a fist to punctuate this

I am not afraid of the drive thru speaker
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

I resist the urge to follow in the footsteps of my queer father
I resist the urge to marry a white woman out of spite
I wrap the tortilla as tight as I can manage
around my soft taco
under the billboard

I am not afraid of being out of control
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

I crave this food since my pregnancy,
only to go home and get beaten in the stomach
but I have never said: beat me, stone me, crucify and spank and punish me
press your thumbs into the hollow of my throat
I like it
You should never deny that strangulation turns you on

I am not afraid of a homosexual cock
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

and every day I feel more alert, get less sleep
and every night the maniac inside me wakes up and wants to kill himself
every night I beg for something engorged and unyielding
demanding, implacable, willing to put his foot down
I watch the beans spill from the tortilla
I fight the urge to call my mother and cry

I am not afraid of confronting my gender identity
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

You are so tender, so clever
but only while we are waiting at stop lights
our cocks touch at the tips
our foreheads touch, our noses, our ass cheeks
I am a different kind of man
the pride of my mother’s breasts
 
I am not afraid of slitting my own throat
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito

and when my daughter asks me about sexuality, and I show her
and I take my antipsychotic medication
and the doctor encourages me to recite my manifesto, I say:
I am a man    I am a man   I am a man
I have strangled him, I have punched her in the stomach
I have chewed off my mother’s nipples
I am a man with eighty seven cents to his name

I am not afraid of being this man
I am not afraid of the bean and cheese burrito
 

Tucked In

My daughter sleeps
on the top of her bunk bed
tonight, according to some system
or ritual that she keeps
to herself: she is nine.
She has half kicked off
the covers and her mouth
hangs open as in the moment
before a kiss.
Her leg kicks out, splayed
in mid air, with the
casual comfort
of a kid in her own body.
I reach to pull the
covers up, to push her leg
back to its accustomed place
on the mattress.  Instead,
I lay my finger horizontal
at the ankle, slowly up
her hairless calf, her
oversized knee, her
thigh.   I rest my palm there.
The hem of her nightgown shifts
in the wake of my
paternal affection
to reveal blue heart panties
marked "Wednesday".
Patiently, deliberately
I pull down the hem, pull up
the covers, calculating
the long precious months that remain
until she is ten.  When she is
sixteen, will she still
call me "Daddy"?
I linger here like
a hundred fathers might
suddenly aware that every daughter’s
father has stood like this at least once
with his hand one inch
too far up,
one year too late,
one minute too long.

The Juggler

She is standing at the end of your road.  A trespasser on your private driveway, yet you cannot do anything to stop her.  The security guards in the booth did not see her pass; they cannot see her now; only you can see her for what she is.  She is juggling

grains that are as black as a body cavity with no permeable membranes.  The grains are minute (the size of a cell) but you can see them as she tosses them high.  The birds do not mistake them for seeds because they do not see her; only you can see her for what she is.   She is juggling

but not taking any pleasure in it, really, or displeasure.  It’s just another job she has to do, as mundane as any Tuesday when you might be standing in front of the photocopy machine and making a duplicate of the latest arbitrary memorandum from the Desk of the President.  She feels for you what you feel for the thirteenth copy coming out of the machine.  She feels

utterly indifferent.  You have feared her, but not like the monsters of childhood.  You concocted dragons and murderers and drug dealers, things your parents warned you about and things your older brothers made up to frighten you.  She is unique in that she has never frightened a child.   Children cannot see her; only you can see her for what she is.  She is the monster

of adulthood.  She has not varied the movement of her arms, yet here it comes.  It is a particle that is smaller that the bulb on the antenna of a black ant.  It is a particle that nobody in their right mind should be able to detect without electron microscopes.  And although she is standing half a mile away, and although it is racing towards you at the velocity necessary to pierce your skull, and although

you don’t even have time to consider taking futile evasive action, you see it coming.  You feel it assault your brain like a jackhammer.  It heads straight for the portion of the brain that allows you to feel immortal and then laughs.  Cuts it out.  Lowers it out of your nostrils on gray

strings.  At the end of the road, she turns around.  You figure the least she could do is wave, or nod.  Make you feel like there is some nobility, some sacrifice in the last half mile you have to walk.  After all, you are the one who has to look forward to being barefoot, and the road covered in thin glass triangles six inches high.  You are the one whose precious intellect knows it is about to be eaten away.  But she doesn’t even seem to notice you are there.  She doesn’t see you; you are the only one

who sees her for what she is.  She is gone.

What Will Happen

I will wake up and find
the Los Angeles Times Sunday Edition
spread out on the comforter.
You sitting up next to me
leaning against one of our pillows
with your reading glasses on.
You have been up for half an hour.
You won’t even look at me.
You won’t say Good morning
or Did I wake you?

I will shift my body
lay my head on your thigh
and read everything:
the Classifieds
the Real Estate section
articles on stock market fluctuations.
I will put each section in a pile for you
once I am finished with it
and you will do the same for me.
I won’t say a word.

When you disengage yourself
to pour coffee you will know
that I am in the mood for a cup too
you will put in a package and a half
of artificial sweetener
and stir it for me
with your finger.
You will set both cups on the nightstand
and climb into the bed
as if you never left.

Another hour will pass.
The Travel section
the front page
the Obituaries.
Then I will stretch my arms
and crack my neck
and slide out of bed.
I will rinse out the coffee mugs in the sink.
I will not ask you
What do you want to do today?
I will not say
I love you.

funmachine
        for David

i could show my poems to Mickey
Mouse and He would like ‘em.

flatcakes blackcakes ears yum yummm
dumbo’s stomach steel bar blood cleaned up
the cleanest and frolicksome zoo on record

they took dumbo’s feather from him. here
local tourists foreign ram rams this is
your idea of fun - fun - this is what you love

hydraulic knot mobius strip that whips us
solutions, original equations - a hose in our heads

when Mickey sleeps he places a removed
organ on each flat plate of his plastic skull.

he’s going to hell, we’re going to hell
the pirates of the carribean are going to hell
hell is frozen in a locked room in Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

Snow White is going to hell. The seven dwarves
are the split personalities of jesus,
god lives in America Sings. Peanut Butter.

looky mom see Lincoln talk
weird weird surprise incredulous:
Abraham Lincoln is long rotten!

someone glued real skin onto the metal bones
someone built the Small World Eskimos
someone sweats inside that costume like formaldehyde

(Mickey Mouse the billionaire CANT go to hell
he is barred from Wonderland by Alice,
who runs the underworld)

goofy daffy wicked witches they
are the only ones with forthright intentions
if i takes lots of dramamine, I respects ‘em.

(click up the climb clip down the drop the
 lines the lines the lines the lines the)

if Tinkerbell ever shows up,
with her transparent wings on fire
I could yell her this poem.

(i could show my poems to Walt Disney
 and he would decline to comment)
 
a nuclear bomb on the Magic Kingdom
the appendix of jesus tossed in the trash
modern medicine, a straitjacket of paper

marketing - boy - everyone but the churro stand
workers are ecstatic and drugged and little
children come and come - Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

i would recite my poems on the Matterhorn
designed to be redesigned - aaah, nature -
shout my words and have Peter Pan fuck me.