Snow swam down the hill, flooded the river and froze your smile.

When you talk you can’t forgive her. Speak speak. Nothing

matters. Anymore. Like after you finish your seventh line of coke.

Nod but they don’t hear you. And there is an air, an air of

Disturbance in your hair. Tousled, you run your fingers through it

Over and over. Your bed is backwards. Feet on pillow.

Don’t mind, don’t care. Rise from the flooded river

Tape up your heart, its pieces, throw it into the fare.

Shoes. Hair. Love. Where.

People. Pass. Love. Hasn

‘t. Been. Coming. On. Ve

ry. Strong. these. days.

When they told me I was seven, they had to scrape the gum out of my hair. I don’t remember much after Ms. Peterson yelled at us for knocking the mathematics table over. We had been fighting. Play fighting. That’s the last time I saw a glimmer of it. By the alley after school. By the tree house. In between freezie licks. Blue tongues. Inside smiles. Years ago. These days all I find are stabs at finding bodies. Souls. Through the mega-sphere of technological advances. Text me. I.M.-ed him. Online dating sights. She poked me. Where are real human moments. How did we lose all sense of real interaction. Strangers flood the streets everyday. Each one an opportunity to not be alone. To find a home. For all the Shoes. Hair. Love. Where. People pass. Love hasn’t been coming on very strong. These. Days.

When they told me I was ten, they had to scrape the gum out of my hair. I don’t remember much after Ms. Peterson yelled at us for knocking the mathematics table over. We had been fighting. Play fighting. That’s the last time I saw a glimmer of it.

Do you remember laughing. about nothing.

Pin Pricks and Other Tricks

I’ve already prepared my slight defeat.

Defeated smile, Worth all my while

As the wind blows on and on.

Not stagnated but fluid, smooth like the under of your arm

Before I prick it with a pin. I don’t mean to but it will happen.

Always the same, the same game the same conceded frame,

We all use to cover up the blame.

Reasoning

There is a reason birds fly south in the winter

And another reason why I pick out the wooden splinter

In my heart. There is a reason why lovers hold hands on sidewalks

And why I blast all the voices on mid-night radio talks.

Caffeinated Nicotine

Helium can’t fix it anymore, this problem of mine.

Only temporarily can red wine.

Until morning comes flooding in, persistent day.

When I hide under layers of sheets, so many, I am an onion.

What if we return and notice everything we have known

Has been stolen, carried away. In broad day

Light. By men in white gloves, white coats.

With white hair and white ropes.

They’ve carried it out the doors we can almost still watch them run.

Dear men if you must, please, take it all. Be done.

Don’t leave behind a memory or a shadow

On the mantle, the picture frame, the perfume

Take it, shake it, and bake it.

Anything that will help your swelling caffeine, nicotine futures.

To wipe away those rags with tailoring of perfect inseams.

And mid-night summer dreams.

Broken In

Entire aspects of dreams,

Shattered on seams,

Broken in social scenes

Of pretty blue-green string beans.

The long pull-boat that fractures its sides

But goes on steady

It's morals in stride

The tide unfurls but it doesn't hatch

Unlike your swabs, of nothing.

Freezing Point

My life is in a styrofoam container

And I don't mind.

These days I watch the playbacks

Talk, talk, and then unwind.

The days unfurl a dusty path

Full of glue and shards of glass

And freezing temperatures below, below,

Sit and watch the broken snow.