A glimpse of my birdkiller baby
for the rested
weariness
of your knee
high fatigue
and a touch
that comes
in twos
A scrape of my tongue
for an empty
anxious
dog
licking your wrist
in a room
painted trap
door blue
A dead
window.
A hole
kept in a dark
minded
fly.
The school
where you held
and dropped
your first
gun.
Shy
anthills
from the no
museum.
A cut of my body
for one
glass day
in the slow
photograph
of sleep
The sleepwalker's
peaceful death
stopped
so few of us
in our tracks
that god
with a sheepish
violence
said animal
animal
animal
Two naked swimmers pretend to hold their breath forever. An invisible mouse distracts a stone. I delete the shroud machine. Why two? The afterlife is unbearable.
Water
with its broken blue bones.
The most
private
newborn.
Teeth whitener
and god.
The dryer's ribs.
for Erik, Dylan, Faith
In a touching move, the dream stops three times for the homesick creator’s dead god. Hunger is a day of the week. In Ohio, laundromats eat nothing and disappear. Beauty calls distance from the body, but the body does all the work. Every poem about pain is long.
The wings didn't grow.
My stomach
tried to help.
The back of my throat
whitened
its tender
cross.
There was a loose hammer
in the backseat
for years
before I stopped
for that hoary
bat
long nailed
to a skateboard.
The back of your mother's head
is safe.
Heaven. Hell. We go to both.
