CLEAN CUT KID

now that you got tired of waiting around,

waiting for that scent and that taste and those flimsy freckled arms,

you have buckled down into your bed,

naked beneath a blanket,

and let infomercials illuminate your face through all hours of the night

there is something about st. petersburg

something about a non-stick stovetop

and something about something backed up by scientific studies

they do not cut it

yes they cut the cheese and the apples and whole damn cantaloupes and anything
else
you could squeeze into them
but they do not produce
that scent or that taste or those flimsy freckled arms
no they do not cut it
they do not even scratch
instead
they sit behind that weak glass screen and
talk
about st. petersburg and non-stick stovetops and scientific studies
never about necessities
they could not very well sell body parts back to you
this is unethical
you need her

SUN GOD

my grandfather was a regular william clark
and i was his merriweather
my blue glitter polish fingers
wrapped around just one
of his,
more gnarled
more calloused
than mine could hope to be
we stood still in our galoshes
those streams and sands puddled around us
those birches and birds meeting the sky above us
my grandfather
of the leather suspenders and
checkered socks
me of the flowered tutu
we were not creatures in a field manual
not classified we were explorers but
we did not move
not until
my blue glitter polish fingers
began to slip
from his

my grandfather was a regular william clark
and so was i in my galoshes
still while
those streams and sands puddled around me
those birches and birds hid in places
i would never reach places that
my grandfather now
could

LOST & FOUND.

god loved the birds and invented trees

god loved the fish and invented seas god love the way your leg

lays against mine

our clock your big hand my smaller one

they do not move do not tick we are still

the door is locked but there is a draft and the sun comes in where the curtains are ruffling

i am not daisy buchanan i am not lolita my curls do not fall just so and my

dress will never float with me around the room before i settle

i am not lily bart

i do not move, do not tick i am still

our clock your big hand my smaller one

old catcher poem - lines from 'the catcher in the rye'

then, all of a sudden, i got this idea

i began to relax, sort of

i got all packed, i sort of counted my dough

but really, all i did was take off my hunting hat and put it in my pocket

then i got the hell out.

i certainly began to feel like a prize horse's ass, though,

then i started wondering like a bastard about

where the ducks go and about how when you're dead, they really fix you up.

who wants flowers when you're dead?

nobody

it was too late to call up for a cab or anything

but i felt like giving somebody a buzz

"how do you do," i said

"Holden!" she said

but then i realized, you can never tell anybody anything. if you do, you start missing everybody

O SHOT.

you want to pin me against a wall and i love that about you

you want to go off on me for all the stupid comments i make

i am tempting you

you want to shut me out for a month at a time and

you are driving me wild and

i love it and i love it love it love it love

you come back for more and i do too and

i meet you on the corner, 5th and finch,

this is the middle

and we go at it again,

sharing a bottle of some flat, warm beer and using each other as ashtrays

you have a woman waiting for you,

and i've got nothing really but i say that i might get a cat

i am a crazy cat lady and you're just crazy

without the cats

and this is just poor planning, really

i love it love it love it love

i am tempting you with my bad taste in beer and i love that about you

you wanted the middle once and we're standing here here here we are,

what are you waiting for?

you want to shut me pin me go off on me do it do something

a month at a time and you are driving me wild

i can't put a sentence together i am stumbling

this is suddenly over you are gone

SIMPLY SHAKEN.

when you're having an epiphany against the glass of the aquarium downtown,
the last thing you want is a fat hairy hand on your shoulder
and a stern talking-to about that sign to your right,
the one that asks you politely not to lean on the beluga whales
you do not want to be asked politely about anything
and you certainly don't want some fatass italian in a polyester pullover pawing you out of the way
because
goddammit
you are really feeling something
for the first time in forever with
you palms pressed against the plexiglass and your forehead in between them
with your breath breaking beads and your stomach a rock in the bottom of some sunken pit
you know that this is it

there you are, your mind peeling itself apart,
and this douchebag is asking you to move

TRANSATLANTICISM.

you caught me between connecting flights,
clamping me between those
wiry arms of yours and exhaling all over

that breath was chinese food, three days old, met by veins bursting beneath swollen eyelids, stumbling over the peat bogs of your pupils, your face a crescent moon between the black of your beard

well,
"beard"

and as you spat your salutations,
general tao's chicken hanging for dear life on
the cliff of your upper lip,

suddenly, this all became
too much

you were fruit rinds and formaldehyde and
coney island dogs without condiments,
and i was seat 27d on the flight now boarding