Vol. 4, No. 4 Contents

So you get fired for making another offensive comment to a coworker who actually is a fat slob with a bad attitude and fuck that eating disorder and clinical depression bullshit, and fuck your boss, too…

It's 10 a.m. on Sunday morning when Doug calls to tell me that Captain Fun is having a sale on its entire stockpile of mannequins.

In the morning her postcard lay in the mail safe, a little apart from the other mail, singing, "Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think."

You've always feared that modern art was a sham, that a bunch of apes with Crayolas could do the same, if not better. I can prove otherwise in spades.

Jenna's got a gangster rapper in her breast

halos and Hula Hoops in Jenna's breasts

Jenna got caffeinated coffee in her breast

Jenna's got Jimmy Hoffa stashed away in her breast

someone's horse. A loose horse.

Whose horse? Maybe a favorite.

Am I from the countryside?

I ask the horse or the building.

Weather descends the stone steps—

sea of hats, hoods, shoulders

headed to the trains. Somehow I remain…

I haven't had sex like that since:

Aspen, snowed-in,

your thumb

deep in my anus, heart…

…this morning I was

surprised

to see

my wife

looked like

Peter Sellers.

We say, "Revile or Rejoice!" as if

there was a choice in the matter. I turn to you;

our eyes are trying. Shrieks of seagulls marry

across the water.

She will soon hear your heart

beating her cheeks flush,

think of the baby

stretching its fingers for the bait.

Halfway to wilderness behind our house, on a tray I carry the ingredients for our supper.

Suppose you're me, for just a minute—that's what I'm asking you to do—, just suppose for a minute that you're me, and ask yourself what it is you want to hear, because that's what I want

The part that I forgot about the robots

(Making them moral) speaks as now I dream

In actual rain (or am actually dreaming rain)

Of ghosts in the machines.

The man stands on a birdbath to learn

the language of feathers, and like the wind,

when the man speaks, he reaches

deep into his pockets to charm the sky.

I'm going to melt

a cross, a statue of the Buddha, and the arms of Vishnu

into a hood ornament of a naked woman with wings of fire,

set it on my car and follow it like a compass.

or you may arrive by helicopter

(a way to kiss over paperwork)

The summer we tried to kill ourselves it was humid.

The summer the floods came.

We ran headfirst into the water, and when that didn't work…

For two full days the sirens

realized their high notes

in the quivering saucers

stacked inside cupboards…

All fist and forearm,

apron-stained, I am nothing to you—

a scrap. A skin. Offal of lust.

I am giblets and gristle—

This pack of pot-bellied songbirds squats

at gutter's edge all night, passing butts

of Lucky Strikes and belting the blues.

My window's stuck up and I'm laid low.

This is where we enter. Carmen and I. Mom and I. Two rotten, two diseased, two dying. I say, "Mom, once we knew what it felt like to be idle." She's throwing frozen fish sticks in the oven for dinner. I'm watching her watching television.

An accessory before

curtain datum

eats forbidden grapes

(helps in jumping).

God is everywhere, cake is not,

which is why I like it, God says

and lifts his fork from the plate…

A duet built around the word help. As I am

a man, I cannot talk without my body, my

body keeps leaning into you.

The choreography is deliberate so we know where

to put our feet. What then, these intersections?

Your body is so literal: even unexpected, low…

Great song, as in not alone, think about

what's possible, not imaginary but picturing

the uncountable kicks of you…

Being here. It's ok, to be here. The

grit that life has in it. It's mechanical

but I'm used to it. I feel the buzz inside

you, your body and laying beside it.

The day my brother brought me to the pond

of one thousand screaming white swans

it was winter in Akita.

A strangeness is amiss. The soup is not puree

of stinging nettle. Where are all the wonderful

varmints? The sneezing turtles? The lace-thonged

fascists? This morning the road north was not paved…