Work
Grant writing like phlegm-clouds in the inappropriate dream of the gentleman who dwells above you: you know, Mr. Thumper.
Weather in This Small Town
There exists an ashtray over everything, inverted, pressing.
My Question
How would a person cut mustard, in practical terms?
The Man Begging Outside the Bookstore
His face like a folded napkin.
About Dying
Walk your talk void of history and context.
Your Question
Who's been Googling Seasonal Affective Disorder?
My Fickle Muses
A cur slouching on a highway shoulder. Any drug. Any small sip. Any moment growing long.
My Fickle Dream
Lisa, the owner's wife, shows up at the Shoney's with two bottles of cough syrup.
Writing
Do not have your narrator commit suicide.
My Dog
Maybe lift your black panties, under attack now.
My Insults
I think you are cardboard floor, large frog overhang, out of mind and shape and possibly truthful; I suppose you are me.
A Photo
Here is Julie, drunk at a cemetery. Long legs flashing. The cold splash of laughter. She is high inside a magnolia tree. Do you understand me now?
Appearances
I can refract most anyone but I (blue light before sleep).
Refrigivination
The science of reading the contents of a refrigerator.
Items
Hot sauce, vodka, tortillas, jalapenos, shredded cheddar cheese-examples of necessary.
Arson
To set small fires and inhale them.
Jokes
Mr. Thumper jokes most like our finest moments, our glow (infused with rotgut), though cleverness a thin drug.
Nachos
I did detect an earthiness from the jalapenos, a taste like running past a stable of goats.
Feeling I Had While Watching a Printer Print
Similar to a red bandanna dangling in a tree limb, that park in San Francisco, the one where I kissed Julie before she left me behind with these words, "You need to know something."
What I Do when Feeling Down
Take three Vicodin. Take aimless walks with my dog along roadways. Clack on the windows, touch the shutters. Lick the window glass. Sit down in the bushes and rub the belly of dog and feel the sky descend.
The Man on Saxophone Outside the Bookstore
His lungs folding, unfolding.
You Gave Me a Mason Jar
To contain, to store, to seal away, to sustain, to glass, to shatter wall, to bury, to sell, to can, to collect, to suck from?
Her Mother's Couch
Beneath spongy cushions, an oil spill of pills.
Hurtful Words
The owner said, "You're not cutting the mustard here, buddy."
Holiday Party Hostess
I mention my hunger, and Julie glides away, returns with ham, potato salad, chiffon cakes, eggnog, cranberry punch.
How It Should Be, I Think
Heat fanning across your lungs, into your spine (a ceremony of cysts), turning your ears hot/thick.
The Best Weekend
We split an OxyContin and laid garments on a counter and someone gripping wheel tight/hot/tight and slipped our arms through pineapple air freshener and stay the night in a hotel room outside Muncie, Indiana.
Another
Also words, puckered red and ugly; wounds in the form of clouds.
Another
A vibrator we bought named The Blue Dolphin.
Confession
I flung your favorite shoes onto the roof. Two weeks later, I retrieved.
Massive Debt
She said we abdicate our own free will, act in bad faith, when we avoid difficult, honest decisions, when we make excuses to deny conflict, etc.
Co-workers
I respect a man who can read a river.
Co-workers
Ask me how the grant is going, fucker.
Snow
I enjoy the first day of snow all making me giddy and kid-like and something bubbling up nearby my spleen, simmering rind of liver, stomach quake, and the way the snowfall lumps, erases angles, softens the harshness. Moon on the snow in sparkles of night frost-that's what I mean. To see.
Snow, Later
Flecks of exhaust, dog turds on whiteness, cigarette husks.
Photo
Here is a photo of myself levitating above a hotel bed.
My Question
To a rabbit, the rabbit's foot?
Odors
Two people have held a hint of almonds and leftover Shiraz about them: Julie and Lisa.
No Doubt
I miss the garlic in the hot kitchen—to consume what we create.
No Doubt
Afternoons curled inside her elbow room.
Your Question
Look, are we even breathing the same air?
Darkness
I used to leap out of bed!
Phone Call
You are coming. I smoke some dry weed, open a green bottle and fling the cap into the toilet. I sit down on the bare floor and remove my shoes. The dog licks my toes. I'm worried, but it feels OK.
Photo
Here is the last time I wasn't watching myself, when I was-yes I'll say it-happy.
No Doubt
I miss her laughing, staggering, running fever.
No Doubt
While I lay here in the tub, dozing with a cigarette, the dog gnaws the sole of your shoe, now the laces…
So
The clock has no hands, and is lonely.
So
I am cradling your other shoe in my fingers, above water, some icon.
Banging on Door
It enters my dreams, or possibly the other.
No Doubt
The dog works its way to the tongue.