Friday, February 29, 2008


FOUNDLING


I am the wearer of the Eternal Dunce-Cap.
Sparrows comb my hair.
My fingers are diamond speedboats,

my throat a turnpike which is always turning,

searching out the next bleary exit— signposts

full of stark and bludgeoned hunger. I am all

about the off-ramp, I am America’s Next Sweetheart,

blubbering about my passport and extradition treaties.

I stand for blunt instruments and catching the perfect wave.

I am the scissor in your pageant, the open blade.

I’m very worried about global warming,
if that’s where you want to go with this.
I’m your foundling, swaddling and hypodermics aside.
I just want to put this parade in the past tense.

I just know I was born to decline this prize.

Thursday, February 28, 2008



FISSURE WHEEL


You’re having a memory, or maybe a dream,

or was it a commercial you saw?
Of this kid in photo-negative, a snap-shot
of diffused, uncertain radiance,
but with a slightly poisonous hint to him,
like an atomic blast was brewing
past the strict safety of the park benches;
a fissure of threat and blooming.

You’re thinking about this when your subway stop

comes up, when it’s your turn to get off.
Goddamn. Your day has just begun.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008


BLACK TRANSISTOR


My great aunt gave me a black
transistor radio with tarnished gold knobs.
I fiddled with it, spooned in soft
voices from the heavy, lisping tides of static.

I let it play quiet with candles burning while I lay in the bathtub and touched myself
for the first time to Barry Manilow.


They found her with music still playing low,

from the looming walnut wall console; a symphony station.

Face down in dark-stained roses of the carpet,

white lace doilies on polished tabletops still

hanging limp and dustless, windows shut.

I didn't want to play her radio after that, or hear the same song she might have heard
the music of the roses as she knelt down into them.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008


PARTIAL ECLIPSE


How I can darken like a stain

back to that same boy, full
of tremors and uneven growth.
How the hurdles of third-grade race
fell like thrusting skulls behind me.
How I clambered the rope for yearbook photos.
How I hung there, burning, a wick seeking its end.

Monday, February 25, 2008


RIND


How I set my arm upon you

and it ripens

like the slow yellow smoke of pollution
choking under its’ own weight.

How I’m still left with what I’m hiding;
a dirty-curbed snow angel,
a mismatched address, a botched serum, an escape.

Sunday, February 24, 2008


DRAWN


In the hushed and forgiving silence
after a snow fall, distant voices

sound like they’re right in your ear;
they ride from shoal to shoal.

Even the abandoned, graffiti-glyphed
public swimming pool can seem
like an inverted cathedral, a bowl of hope.
The street lights saucer out, the sky
is mute with mist. But I know

the constellations still burn above.

One of them an archer, bow drawn,

eyes on his prey, and his arrow never to hit.

We pulled him that way out of the sky,
stitch by stitch. Trillions of miles drawn
in one hushed breath.

Saturday, February 23, 2008


WITNESS


In rows, windows across the street flicker out,
their slow flames, their steady yellow notes fading.


Something goes dark in me.


But if I wait long enough, until morning,
I know those lights will come on again.

It's that simple, paying witness to the living.

Friday, February 22, 2008


MY LITTLE TURNKEY


You hold the key.


I check my watch. 2 minutes to Lights Out.

We make some small talk; the weather, the movies,

which latest starlet we’d like to fornicate with.


You say, the tattoo on my right forearm

is actually a hieroglyph, tying me to a proud

lineage of pre-Columbian warrior kings.

I say, Nice pitch. Try again.

You say, It’s really about my mother,

my real mother, the woman I’ve never met.
I say, Can you even read my right forearm?
And just like that, the tattoo is gone.

You smile, a little abashed.

Time’s up. Lights Out.

You get up, gently close the door behind you.


Turn the key.

I’m under your watch, but I’m watching
you leave, down the long, scalloped

shadow play of the corridor, a light bulb

just starting to flicker out overhead.


I go to say something, but I realize

you’ve taken my tongue with you,

a mute and indefensible talisman

carefully folded inside a clean, white towel.

Thursday, February 21, 2008


SKINS


My bones turned, I was laced to them.

I was called, Suckling, Dick-Weed, Geek. How I begged for them,
for their dense, sturdy length,

maroon and green, to cover me,

thumbs hooked through belt loops, stance casual as flipped baseball cards. Please, I'm old enough. I need a pair
of "Toughskins."

Wednesday, February 20, 2008


HALF-BROKEN


Here, where late sunlight slants

through green park benches, half-broken,
and the first brown leaves of autumn are scurrying, two twelve-year olds flash past,
side by side on mountain bikes, furiously pumping.

One struts his voice, breathless,

Let's check out those dumb bitches
down by the swing set.
They're gone, heartbeats
coaxing the air like tiny engines.

And I think how much is told
through the body, how little I know.

Monsters