Chasing Liquid

Suppose you were a little cat

residing in a person’s flat

not yielding to the yellow jackets

floating in the bowl of effervescent

grapefruit water.

The jackets don’t flinch

          when you pierce through their veil

with your barbed tongue

          and let the bubbles cascade down

          your throat.

Suppose your masters were dining out

          at a closed down Italian restaurant;

you knew about the fire there in ‘85

          that killed them

and six others.

The bread on the table softening over years,

          yellow jackets making homes

in her bare knees;

they have all the utensils now
           with which to eat their silver soup.

Fate September

When the wind leaves

to blow the cold

off of the leaves

maybe black branches

may hold enough blood

to survive you to spring.

Don’t cry northward

but keep going;

don’t cry at all

but keep singing

until the orange sky

goes midnight blue –

when the clouds breathe

to blow your cold
frame closer to me.

Pollock Orders Cod

I wanted a chalk outline on the ground when I

woke up to rain falling like a surgeon out on the

veranda. There was no outline but the surgeon

left the chalk for me to draw my own. I broke

the chalk but eventually outlined a new veranda

one that the rain could melt into a milky pool of

dirt and wind. I went back inside covered in rain

and chalk and drank more water. I didn’t talk to
the sun on Fire Island like O’hara did in 1958; the sun simply wasn’t out but neither were the stars.Why is art so depressing? I remember you asking the night I slept in my car beneath the neon tanning salon sign. I didn’t answer you because I was drunk and fell asleep for three years, but I’ll call you soon.

It’s 5:45 a.m.

A Poe Soul in the Storm

I thought scallops

had no eyes

and I was wrong

60 times.

We brought them back

frozen from the store

to our trailer.

I was free of childhood here

but the sewage smell

creeping in through

the floor vents once a week

while we slept

made me depressed.

The cat that bore

six kittens

(one of which she intentionally smothered)

on the carpet –

and forced us to rent

the carpet cleaner –

hated me.

So all the days

while you were at work

I lied in bed

like a person unemployed

because I was

and drank Rolling Rock

until I passed out

sleeping you closer to me.

Ribular Vertilizing Points

In August 2013

I spent a lot of money

but more time was spent

blowing my brains out

with my finger in the shape

of a loaded gun

the blood in copious volumes

on the carpet just outside

your bedroom nowhere

You didn’t hear any gunshots

just the sound of dropped

live microphones on shadows

I dreamt I clawed through a redlight

in slow motion

and the word meterer I kept

tripping over the ers

and thinking of the stick people

the people with stick limbs

and sad faces nowhere
now here.