sounds more sinister than “the world”
stuttering is kisscousin to an incantation
one we shouted when we came to
the creek and found it full of math
but not so good for drinking
esteemed accomplice
much-lacked be-
loved dearest
choice I didn’t know I made
favorite first and finally most
vulnerable spot
the trees release their latent fire at us
in photos of lightning
see
it eats upward
up
Pedagogy and Performance
Whatever the lesson was, it wasn’t
taking. We awaited the information
in kind of a corporate way
and I kept wanting to go up
to the whiteboard and write
FEMININE MARVELOUS AND TOUGH
and ask, Is that what you’re trying
to do.
Sometimes it’s hard to figure
out how to move. When cardinals
move, they’re as imposing as cows.
They pull pornography
from abstraction.
But let’s also look
at us a few weeks ago: a scale
model of Seattle with its gleaming
library protruding like a jewel
from a navel—
this was our best
self, not the contraption of drawers
and cranks that made our work;
not the surprisingly delicate bones
of Boba Fett, painted the same
colors as his armor; not the three
towheaded delinquents who
used the contraption in their
performance, then went home
after disparaging the audience
and showered together; not the cast
of my life filing into a wooden
amphitheater as my favorite band
started soundcheck in another
country.
How would I get there
on time, even with half my friends
rooting for me, how do I get anything
done when as late as last night
someone started yelling CARDINAL
at the sight of blood soaking my sleeve.
In the Corner of a Room Where You Would Never Look
Warhol was right, he said athletes are fat
in the right places
and they’re young
in the right places. Apparently
the next Godzilla movie has Godzilla
just running around eating everyone’s
money and it’s the scariest thing ever.
We can rub bug powder on the national
anthem and run that over the closing credits
as long as the singer manages to sing
I’m in love with everyone but you, almost
convincingly. A production team undoing
one another’s pants
is How We Get Naked Now but tomorrow
morning all the cut-off parts of us are coming
back so get ready. Europe: you swear it exists
because you once had sex in it, and ideas.
Prepositions: that’s where we all get sucked
under. Prepositions: the San Andreas
fault of meaning. Prepositions:
what came dislodged when our parents
hired operatives to kidnap us from cults
and deprogram us in the backs of vans.
Warhol was talking about the ass,
right, which we have come to understand
is the vessel of histories. That effect.
We put everything through
a translation engine
because we wanted to see the world.
Terminal
—tonight no one should be caught
fondling on stoops
when they can climb up on
the fire escapes and screw—
—what is all this fog
in the unedited air—
—I can’t bite through
it to you—
—prudence is
a no-headed fish
in a three-headed town—
—sickness draws a salary / a boarding pass
on human paper—
—duress / duress / duress—
—horrors tucked into corners
of countries
I can’t give directions to—
—the night my friend stopped cracking
jokes / we understood he would die—
—I had a vision of him being better than new
and then he was gone—
—decades hence I kick
an inflatable globe
to him across the sidewalk—
—come up for some light
my hidden baby pigeon—
—cajole / cajole / kaboom—
Factory
He can say it was a painting
He can say we were the painting
Or that the painting wasn’t painting
And we only happen to ourselves
We can say we kept things running
by creating distractions
from